CRIME reporting is said to be the training ground for greenhorn journalists. Firstly, sources for police news abound compared to political beats such as the capitol or city hall. Go to the police station and take a peek at the blotters. There’s a plethora of stories worth reporting.

For those who have limited resources and cannot go around the stations, listening to the radio for leads and following up with your own sources via phone would help.

My training ground was Camp Delgado, the headquarters of the Police Regional Office 6. Various offices of the Armed Forces of the Philippines also hold office at the camp named after Ilonggo revolucionario, Gen. Martin Delgado of Sta. Barbara town.

As fate would have it, yours truly was able to establish rapport with prominent police officials, some of them now occupying ranking posts at the PNP national headquarters in Camp Crame. Police Director Geary Barias, who is rumored to be gunning for the top PNP post, is one of them. From the military, I was acquainted with General Jogy Leo Fojas who is now the provost marshal.

Since crime stories are always interesting to report, especially if a journalist digs into the hows and whys of the story, he or she somehow could develop the proverbial “nose for news” value. Reporters ought to possess this trait.

But crime reporting is also a sensitive spot since most of the time a journalist will have to deal with accusations against persons. Thus, balanced and truthful reporting is still the best panacea against legal implications that police stories might cause.

Before, rape cases were staples in newspapers, radio and TV. But I have made it a personal policy to be careful with such items lest I get sued for violating laws on rape and violence against women and children.

Friends from the police and legal circuits have cautioned me against being reckless in reporting rapes and family cases. I already got sued for indirect contempt (which was dismissed afterwards) when a party to a murder case accused me of leaking details of the judicial affidavits of minors in a news report. Of course, I did not get any affidavit since the documents were already sealed and kept by the court. Getting a copy would be like penetrating the impregnable Fort Knox.

I guess the case was just a money making venture of the plaintiff’s lawyer (he was a big shot lawyer from Manila and getting sued by this chap somehow has a delicious ring to it) and an attempt to sway the public from the high profile murder issue. Nonetheless, it made me more careful in verifying my information and about the limits set by the law.

Last week was one productive period for the media what with the successive developments in major crime stories that gripped the city and province of Iloilo.

Topping the list is the death of Edgar Cordero and the subsequent arrest of Dennis Cartagena, two of the main suspects in the killing of Ajuy vice mayor Ramon Rojas. In a Mafia-like manner, Cordero was shot to death while hiding in Butuan City. Cartagena survived after slipping quickly away from the scene.

Cartagena accused a certain Jose Bahadi and Lindsey Buenavista (who was included in the Rojas murder case but was later exonerated by the prosecutor) as the shooters. The Butuan City incident is another sidebar to the Rojas murder case which is worth pursuing if not for the distance involved.

Similar to action movies and novels, Cartagena was brought back to Iloilo last September 5 by a retinue of heavily armed police. He was like a celebrity police character what with the heavy media coverage and the suspense for the beans that he was supposed to spill relative to the Rojas murder case.

Then Cartagena sang like a canary, albeit only in his sworn affidavit. He tagged a certain Vicente Espinosa as the one who ordered and financed the assassination plot. Mr. Espinosa’s lawyers, however, made a wise move of not issuing any comment until they have read Cartagena’s testimony. Just like in the game of poker, you don’t just lay all your cards on the table and lose the whole deal.

During the press conference at the capitol, everybody was antsy to hear Cartagena drop the bombs. But it all ended in a dud when a ranking police official dissuaded Cartagena from making any statement to the media lest he will incriminate himself. Darn, what more can Cartagena do when he himself was thankful to be alive and vowed to tell everything he knows?

Such a spoiler from someone I thought was respectable is worse than a postponed orgasm. Still, the police released copies of Cartagena’s affidavit which he signed and swore before the prosecutor, lawyers and the media.

The second development would be the uncovering of the suspects in the robbery, rape and killing of Claire Nueros who was found dead inside her home in the posh Savannah subdivision. The gated community is owned by no less than Senate president Manny Villar and is reputed to be flood free and ultra secured. Well, not anymore since one of the subdivision guards was tagged in the case.

The police have recovered the crime weapons and the stolen items, putting their case against the suspects in a monolithic situation. All that remains is the arrest of the suspects who entered Nueros’ house.

The Nueros case only proves that there is no such thing as a perfect crime as long as authorities worm their way into the case. Even if you bury all the evidence, somewhere, somehow they will be uncovered.

The third development and my favorite is the case of Chief Insp. Musa Amiyong, the intelligence section chief of the Iloilo City Police Office, and his sidekick, media barker-turned-police asset Niel “Lito” Jimena.

Amiyong and Jimena hogged the headlines when they shot Federico Dolar and Roy Balsote whom they tried to bust for illegal drugs.

Then the tables were turned on Amiyong and Jimena. Dolar and Balsote said Amiyong and Jimena tried to kill them because of a grenade throwing incident in Jaro. It turned out, according to Dolar, that Jimena and Amiyong ordered him to bomb the floodway project to please an unidentified contractor who lost in the bidding.

Now, if Dolar’s accusations are true, what will this make of Amiyong? He is supposed to be the intelligence chief, the one who must keep tabs on crime and criminals. These accusations would put Amiyong on the hot spot because it would appear that he is also inducing others to violate the law. Hopefully this is not true although we have been hearing a lot about Amiyong’s activities lately. Is it because he has under his spell a ranking government official who can always make life difficult for us?

Amiyong has declined to comment on this issue and tried to smile his woes away. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Nevertheless, Amiyong will have to face the music or he might fade in ignominy.

Indeed, crime does not pay. But reporting crime stories always do.

One Response to “Crime stories”

• 1
  Zayber Balsote
  September 19th, 2008 19:19

  pls invistigate that case wisely… balsote family has a dignity to be protected.

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