PARANOIA IN THE PNP RANK AND FILE

Press  Statement

Reference: Vince Casilihan

                 Spokesperson, Karapatan-Bikol

                Some PNP personnel of Legazpi City Police Station (LCPS) are suffering from paranoia.  Whether this malady, is the result of their training or sheer stupidity?

                Vince Casilihan, NUPL lawyer Atty. Duna Escio, and Redemptorist priest Rev. Fr. Alex Bercasio visited the protest camp of ALECO Employees Organization (ALEO) last April 11, 2014 night   in front of ALECO main office in solidarity with  the union members in their collective action against the ALECO management’s   defiance of the return-to-work (RTW) order of the Secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

Members of AMSSO received a  report that  Police on duty  inside ALECO compound reported a brazen lie to  superiors  that “Vince Casilihan together with more or  less  seven (7) men and women  believed to be from hinterlands” were seen in the protest  camp  and even had a meeting with the protesting  ALECO employees.  

The paranoia that affects the PNP rank and file is so brazen that any legitimate protest action in   the exercise of civil liberties and in defense of human rights is given a red tagging.  The same malady also affects all of the State security forces. 

In our country where the culture of impunity prevails in the institutions in-charge of the operations of the   state security forces, paranoia aggravates human rights violations.

The protesting ALEO members are fighting for their rights under the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) which was upheld by the DOLE through the return-to-work order.

The collusion between the ALECO Old Interim Board headed by Bishop Joel Baylon and Atty. Dondon Fernandez on one side; and San Miguel Corporation Global Power Holdings, Inc., through   Albay Power Energy Corporation (APEC), that presently manages ALECO by way of  unratified, illegal and deceptive concession contract   on the other side,   grossly violates the rights of the  protesting ALECO  workers and plunges their families into deeper misery  because they were not paid the salaries due them since September  2013 when they went on a strike until the present when the return-to-work order was issued by DOLE.  To these people managing ALECO the workers are expendable commodity. Their continued stay in ALECO is a menace and a threat to corporate greed and interest.    Thus, paranoia has crept even to the ALECO management.

What we have now in ALECO are the paranoid management people, ably supported and protected by the paranoid Old ALECO Interim Board, paranoid PNP, and paranoid politicians.