It has been three days since the pavement in Zone 13, Barangay Irawan, was stained with the blood of three men, and the Puerto Princesa City Police Office (PPCPO) has officially entered “Ghost Mode.”
If you ask for a status update, you get the same tired script about an “ongoing investigation.” It is a phrase that has become a fortress. But while the police hide behind their desks, the rest of us are left wondering what exactly they are trying to conceal.
What has our world gone to? Puerto Princesa used to be the “City of Living Hope,” a place where the law felt like a safety net, not a blindfold. But lately, our streets have become a gallery of unresolved tragedies, and the PPCPO seems more interested in managing their reputation than solving the crimes that haunt us. This isn’t just about one Friday night. This is about a pattern of silence that is becoming a local tradition.
Last September, the city watched in horror as Atty. Joshua Abrina was gunned down right outside his own home in Barangay San Jose. He was a man of principle, a former legal officer who reportedly walked away from a “jobs-for-sale” scandal because his conscience wouldn’t let him stay. He was shot in cold blood, and months later, the “Special Investigation Task Group” (SITG) assigned to his case has produced plenty of folders but zero suspects behind bars.
Then came February. Joanna Jonson-Infante, the acting HR manager of our international airport, was simply walking to church on a Wednesday afternoon when a gunman approached from behind and shot her in the back. In broad daylight, on Bayview Road in San Pedro, a public servant was executed. Again, the headlines rolled, the police promised “swift justice,” and then the silence returned.
Now, we have the Irawan shootout. This wasn’t a dark alley mugging. It was a confrontation involving people who wear uniforms for a living. Reports from the ground suggest a sequence of events that the official press releases are desperate to omit, a petty dispute over a narrow road near a wake that escalated because someone decided a badge was a license for aggression.
The regional office has already sacked the City Director, an admission that something went fundamentally wrong in the chain of command. Yet, the local office continues to treat the media as an intruder in their private business.
The PPCPO acts as if they are the sole curators of reality. They forget that this city is a community, not a vacuum. The bereaved family of the BuCor personnel doesn’t need a “ballistics report” to know how this started. They were there. They saw the faces of the men who arrived in the dark. They heard the threats. For them, and for the families of Atty. Abrina and Joanna Infante, “ongoing investigation” isn’t a promise of justice, it is a dismissal.
The line between a peace officer and a gunman should be a continental divide, but in Puerto Princesa, it is starting to look like a mere costume change. When a “disagreement” over a narrow road near a wake ends in a triple fatality, we have to stop calling it an incident and start calling it a crisis of character.
These were not rookie mistakes. These were seasoned officers from Station 2. If the reports are true, that the confrontation began, the officers left, and then returned with “backup” to finish what was started, then we are no longer talking about “police response.” We are talking about a retaliatory strike. We are talking about a gang mentality with government-issued sidearms.
Is the PPCPO hiding the reality that their internal culture has become so bloated with ego that a simple traffic bottleneck is treated as an act of war? By refusing to answer the media, you are effectively confirming our worst fears, that you are more afraid of the truth than you are of the killers walking our streets.
When those sworn to “serve and protect” are the ones initiating the violence, the uniform doesn’t represent safety anymore; it represents a threat. It becomes a camouflage for aggression. The fabric of that uniform is indeed thin, and right now, it is transparent. We can see the hesitation to hold your own accountable. We see the “Special Investigation Task Groups” that serve as black holes where evidence goes to die.
Your continued silence is an echo of the silence we heard after Atty. Abrina was executed and after Joanna Infante was shot in the back. In those cases, the gunmen were “unknown.” In this case, the gunmen were on the payroll. And yet, the response is exactly the same, shuttered windows and locked doors at the police station.
What are you hiding? Are you hiding the results of the paraffin tests that might show the “responders” fired first? Are you hiding the fact that alcohol was involved in a lethal escalation? Or are you simply hiding because you have lost control of your own ranks?
To the new leadership at the PPCPO, your silence is an insult. Every hour you refuse to speak, you are telling this city that our safety is less important than your PR strategy. You are funded by the public, and you answer to the public. If you cannot provide answers for the blood spilled in San Jose, on Bayview Road, and now in Irawan, then clearly, you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
Justice delayed is justice denied, but justice obscured is a crime in itself. The people of Palawan are not children to be patted on the head and told to wait in the corner. We are the ones who pay for the uniforms, the training, and the very bullets that were discharged last Friday. Real authority doesn’t hide behind “ongoing investigations.”
Real authority stands in the light and admits when the badge has been tarnished. You are not a private militia. You are public servants. And right now, the public is tired of being served silence while the streets are served with blood. Start talking, or admit that the uniform is the only thing separating you from the very criminals you claim to hunt.
