All Cops are Bad Cops
News of hapless victims of police impunity once again echoed throughout social media feeds this morning. Police Senior Master Sergeant Jonel Nuezca from Parañaque City shot dead Sonya Gregorio, 52, and her son Frank Anthony Gregorio, 25, over noise complaints on the use of ‘boga’ bamboo cannons in Paniqui, Tarlac.
In a DZBB interview with Paniqui Police Chief, Lieutenant Colonel Noriel Rombaoa, he said Nuezca initially went to confront his neighbors about the noise. The situation intensified when the property right-of-way dispute was brought up. An argument between the 52-year-old and the gunman’s daughter was the breaking point, leading Nuezca to shoot Sonya and Frank twice at point blank range.
“Pumunta doon para i-confront sila then naungkat na ang usapin sa right of way, hanggang napunta sa insidente na iyon. Parang na-trigger ang galit ng suspek nang magkasagutan iyong anak niya at ang biktimang matanda,” said Rombaoa.
Hours after the shooting, Nuezca reportedly surrendered to the police in Pangasinan, and they are now said to be preparing for a double murder complaint against the murderer. Besides this, Nuezca also faced several cases starting from 2010 with suspension for 10 days, 2013 with grave misconduct, 2014 with neglect of duty when refused to be tested from drugs and left the premises without prior permission from the NAPOLCOM, 2016 with another neglect of duty when he failed to attend a court hearing as a prosecution witness on a drug case, and two grave misconduct cases due to homicide in May and December of 2019.
To say that the gunman was “triggered” by the confrontation, leading to him gunning down the mother-and-son, discounts the fact that the same officers are supposedly trained to properly handle firearms. Last April, Winston Ragos, a mentally ill soldier, was shot dead by police in a confrontation near his own home. In June of the same year, police also shot 4 intelligence soldiers in Jolo without provocation. A few months later in September, two policemen were charged as suspects in the rape-slay case of a 15 year old girl in Ilocos Sur. This event, like all others before it, insinuate the inability of uniformed men to keep their guns holstered.
The clear-as-day crime of a non-uniformed policeman was yet again tagged as another isolated case. However, the calls on social media are as clear as the video of the killings: there is systemic impunity within the internal reigns of the police. Isolated incidents are incidents that have no connection to one another. However, when there are more than a handful of isolated incidents, it becomes a pattern. This pattern is a product of its system, and it’s the same system that emboldens them to exercise impunity in their actions.
Eduardo M. Año, secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, was quick in claiming that “justice will be served”, and that “the sin of Nuezca is not the sin of the PNP.” It’s clear that Nuezca only served as the PNP’s fall guy — a mere pawn in the larger web of killings that have long been perpetrated by the current administration. How will uniformed personnel claim accountability when the very head of state promises that he will never allow a military man or police man to be put in jail for following his orders? When the very president commands his men to tyrannize the populace, to not care about human rights, and to “shoot them dead”, how then will justice be served?
