on the 43 college students who were seized, killed, burned,
their bodies thrown into the San Juan River
and 15 community leaders who went in search of the murdered students, shot to death this August…
because we will be polite
(photo of the Mexican president rightclicked from Philippine Star used here non-commercially for academic purposes)
From Al Jazeera, Aug. 10, 2015: “At least 15 people were killed over the weekend in the troubled southwestern state of Guerrero, including an activist who helped lead efforts to find the 43 students who disappeared and were presumed murdered last year, according to Mexican officials.
“Ten of the murders took place in the resort city of Acapulco, which is packed with tourists visiting for their summer vacations, local police said.
“One of the victims, Miguel Ángel Jiménez, was a leader of a community police organization known as Upoeg (Unión de Pueblos y Organizaciones del Estado de Guerrero). Jiménez was found shot to death on Saturday inside the taxi he drove in the rural outskirts of Acapulco, according to local police.
“Jimenez, 45, who also founded a citizens’ self-defense group in Guerrero in 2013, led a group that searched for approximately 300 people who have disappeared in the state, helping uncover mass graves found around the city of Iguala, where 43 Mexican students went missing last year.
“The students were teachers-in-training at Ayotzinapa Normal School, in Tixtla, Guerrero — a school that caters to the rural poor and is known for political activism.
“Police reportedly opened fire on the students in Iguala at the behest of its mayor, and in the aftermath 43 students went missing. Classmates of the missing students say they were “disappeared” for speaking out against government policies.
“The government, in turn, has said the students were abducted by police and handed over to drug traffickers who allegedly killed the students and burned their bodies. Critics have questioned the government’s version of events.
“Frustrated with the Mexican government’s efforts to find the missing students, Jiménez led a group throughout Guerrero in search of the missing. Last December, Jiménez described the hills that surround Iguala as a cemetery, according to the BBC. So far the group has found 130 bodies and turned them over to authorities, according to several media outlets.
“Acapulco, a city of about 800,000, saw 404 homicides in the first six months of this year, compared to 281 in the same period of 2014. The murder rate still remains below the peak of 524 murders in the first half of 2012.
“Javier Morlet Macho, a community activist who sits on the citizens’ police advisory board in Acapulco, said the rise in killings suggests a new gang may be carrying out “a cleanup operation” to eradicate rivals as it moves into the territory.
“Guerrero state, which has one of the highest murder rates in Mexico, saw 1,514 homicides in 2014, according to federal statistics, which report 943 homicides this year through June.
“Decades of Mexico’s so-called Dirty War, and the heavily militarized “war on drugs” that followed, have led to the disappearance or deaths of thousands who opposed government policies. In Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states, citizens’ self-defense groups have risen in reaction to drug-related violence.”
The so-called Laglag-bala gang of NAIA airport (“laglag-bala” or drop-a-bullet, roughly), the curious case of passenger Gloria Ortinez, & the magic bullet that changed shape upon presentation to the fiscal
Ms. Gloria Ortinez, a dedicated and hardworking OFW of more than two decades of unblemished record of shuttling back and forth Hong Kong to Manila, was stopped the other day by NAIA personnel at the X-ray screener and informed by NAIA security that her hand-carried bag had a bullet inside the outer pocket. She was arrested and detained until she was able to get a lawyer.
ABS-CBN reported contextually on the incident, in view of previous reports of a “Laglag-bala” gang at the airport.
In previous news reports, passengers complained to the news media that there were certain airport personnel operating in the terminals with a modus operandi of planting a bullet inside the hand-carried bag of any unwitting passenger, then asking for P500 to P1,000 pesos in exchange for not apprehending the passenger for illegal possession.
But…in case you are prosecuted, just remember that:
In the prosecution or defense of any illegal possession case, the chain of custody is key in making the case rise and fall. Chain of custody of evidence refers to keeping track of how the evidence changed hands from the time of arrest and seizure (and in this case, perhaps, even before arrest) to the time the evidence was bagged and tagged to the time it was transported and who transported it, to the time it was recorded and kept in the evidence room and who handled it, up to the time it was presented in court. Any break in the chain of custody, such as for example, failure to account for how the evidence was transported, who transported it, what time and who signed it in and recorded it as received, will serve to put a cloud of doubt as to the authenticity of the evidence and therefore cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution and the guilt of the accused. [in one illegal possession case in the RTC Caloocan, the serial number of the gun presented in court was different from the serial number stated in the Information or formal charge: on oral motion for dismissal right there and then, the Caloocan judge refused… the lawyer for the accused sort of picked up the gun and put it in front of the judge’s face so he could see it bore a different serial number, he got angry and issued a warning for contempt (“put down that gun…” “it’s not loaded your honor” “put down that gun and shut up if you don’t shut up i will cite you in contempt and have you locked up in the supply room…”) — anyway, probably because the judge did not want to see the lawyer’s face ever again, the case was dismissed a week after without any more hearing on the motion or any other proceeding. (it was a good thing i was “curious” and compared the serial numbers while the fiscal was prepping the SPO1 witness)]
In the case of Gloria Ortinez, it was reported today that on presentation by the police with the fiscal or prosecutor for investigation (to find a prima facie case for prosecution, or not), the bulled in evidence had changed shape from the time it was bagged and tagged to the time it was presented.The sharp-eyed fiscal looked at the photo of the bullet when it was bagged and tagged at the airport, and at the object evidence being shown to him. The bullet had shrunk considerably and was no longer a Carbine bullet. The fiscal said he did not have to be a gun expert to see that the bullet had shrunk and was not the supposed evidence that was handled at the airport. The case was dismissed right there and then, today.
And Gloria Ortinez lived happily ever after.
Pero ganun na lang ba iyon? (But is that it?).
Only because the President is an avowed gun expert and because airports and security matters are right up his alley, isn’t he a bit curious about the magic bullet?
Bullets don’t change shape unless fragmented with firing, and the only possible explanation why it shrunk upon presentation to the fiscal is (multiple choice, choose one only, right minus wrong, wrong spelling, wrong):
(a)the original evidence was lost in transit because it was laglagged (nalaglag), that’s why it’s called the laglag-bala gang;
(b)the Carbine bullet was so ancient that it disintegrated into powder when exposed to nervous sweat;
(c)the Carbine bullet could be traced, it had a homing device that caused it to attach to its real owner;
(d) the Carbine bullet was used and tagged before in a previous case and so, a clerk put it back in its old case file bag.
(e)truly, the old Carbine bullet of World War II vintage was really an anting-anting (amulet) and will show up and disappear again in the future and forevermore.
All those who handled the Carbine bullet, now a shrunk evidence — all personnel — from the time of arrest to the time of presentation with the fiscal, should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for, at the very least, tampering with evidence, maybe one of them will talk on the laglag-bala gang — but whom are we kidding, the President is busy campaigning.
