Probe politician’s links with criminals, Palace asks

By Aytch S. de la Cruz

11/03/2009

Speculations about hardened criminals on the rampage to raise funds for certain politicians were rife yesterday when a member of the notorious Alvin Flores robbery gang, arrested three days ago, admitted that he and his cohorts used to work as security men for a Pangasinan town mayor, prompting a Malacañang official to seek an investivation into the politician’s alleged links with criminals.

The police tagged the Alvin Flores gang as responsible for the recent Greenbelt heist in Makati City and for several robberies across Metro Manila. Last week, members of the police and the National Bureau of Investigation killed gang leader Alvin Flores in an encounter in Tripina Ceneca compount in Barangay Campostela in Cebu City.

On Saturday, elements of the Police Regional Office 1 arrested another member of Alvin Flores gang, identified only as Dennis Serquina, inside his residence at in Purok 2, Barangay Aloo in Umingan, Pangasinan. During an interrogation, Serquina admitted that he, along with four other cohorts — whom he personally identified as Jay-R Zaldivar, Roger Carbonell, Walter Rodriquito, and a certain Joseph — used to work as security attendants for a town mayor in Pangasinan. It was never mentioned, however, who that mayor was.

Because of Serquina’s admission, coffee shop talks already raised the possibility that the Greenbelt 5 robbery was pulled for purposes of generating campaign funds for certain politicians seeking elective posts in the 2010 national elections.

The loose talks prompted an indignant Malacañang official to condemn the violence being employed by some politicians in order to help them keep their elective posts or gain public seats. “That serious accusation needs to be investigated on because this government will never allow anybody… in the powers of being an executive of a local government unit to take advantage of their influence or authority or their power for heinous crimes and it has to be looked in to by the proper agencies and we expect them to give us or furnish us an updated report regarding this investigation,” Press Undersecretary Anthony Golez Jr. said.

Golez also stressed that President Arroyo herself had always been determined to keep the coming elections violence-free as much as possible. The president has tasked the Philippine National Police (PNP) to closely monitor the situation of loose firearms in the country.

The PNP, meanwhile, has asked the president for an extension for the registration of loose firearms to make sure that all firearms would be accounted for, which Arroyo granted immediately.

The measure was part of the government’s national amnesty for loose firearms program that aimed at legalizing guns in the possession of civilians in order to make sure that they would be responsible for handling such a lethal weapon.

Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) vowed to hunt down the other members of the Alvin Flores group who were still at large.

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