Partnership … Gold miner Ronnie Habitan
of Jose Panganiban, CamNorte (second, from left) met with four of the Atimonan
13 -Michael Pajarillo, Vic Siman, Supt. Alfredo Consemino and Maximo Pelayo - during
the office blessing of New Marc Security Agency in Calamba City in Laguna. -Contributed
photo
By NANCY C. CARVAJAL
THE MOTIVE for the police-military
operation that resulted in the killing of 13 people in Atimonan, Quezon
province, on Jan. 6 has not been established, but several theories have been
advanced.
It was part of the government’s intensified
effort to eradicate private armed groups (PAGs), but it went awry.
Among the priorities of the Presidential
Anti-Organized Crime Commission, or PAOCC, is to disband PAGs immediately, if
possible, to prevent their use in May’s midterm elections.
The PAOCC has admitted giving Supt.
Hansel Marantan, the leader of the police team in the Atimonan operation,
P100,000 for intelligence gathering to build up his “Coplan Armado", the
operational plan to arrest Victor “Vic” Siman, allegedly an illegal gambling
lord who also headed a PAG in Southern Luzon.
“Marantan pushed the right buttons by
going to the PAOCC. He knew that if it’s about PAGs, he’d get support and
funds,” a source who has knowledge of PAOCC operations told the Inquirer
recently.
But Marantan overdid it and the
operation turned into a bloodbath.
It was the end of a battle for turf and
control of the multimillion-peso numbers racket jueteng in Southern Luzon.
Siman was expanding in the areas
dominated by another alleged jueteng operator, Cenen “Tita” Dinglasan, in
Laguna province, and Marantan was allegedly Dinglasan’s protector.
Some people believe Marantan and
Dinglasan are siblings but, according to various police sources, the two are
not, although they are “very close, more than siblings.”
Siman operated small town lottery (STL)
outlets, which he set up as fronts for his jueteng operations.
STL is a government-sanctioned lottery
that generates tax revenue from franchise holders. Jueteng operators who use
STL as cover for their real business report minimal income; the smaller the
income, the smaller the taxes.
To keep their taxes low, jueteng
operators hiding behind STL use their STL bet collectors as bet collectors for
their illegal bookie operations.
“Using the same collectors for STL and
bookie [operations], only a small portion of the collection is declared as STL
bets. The bulk of it goes to the bookie collection and to its operator,” the
source said.
Avenging Kua
Theorists have offered a curious angle:
The operation was revenge for the
killing last year of journalist and former tourism official Nixon Kua to please
a powerful friend of Kua.
Kua was shot dead in Greenfields Estate
in Laguna in July last year, allegedly by the group of Siman on a contract put
out by some rice smugglers whom the journalist had displeased.
While waiting for the group of Siman to
arrive in Atimonan, Marantan was overheard telling his closest ally in the
operation, Chief Insp. Grant Gollod, Atimonan police chief, that the operation
had go-signal from Kua’s powerful friend.
Legal cover
It gets curiouser: Siman and Jose Panganiban, CamNorte gold miner Ronnie Habitan, a principal character in the Atimonan drama,
were partners in Marc Security Agency, a private security company that was
trying to win a contract from the Ayala-run Greenfields Estate.
Marantan, whose Coplan Armado had only
Siman for a target, monitored all of Siman’s activities, including getting into
legitimate private security operation to provide a cover for his gun-for-hire
business.
“Siman owning a legitimate business
might jeopardize the case Marantan was building against him,” the source said.
So Marantan, allegedly a target of
Siman’s group, which lost a collector to a police operation led by Marantan in
Calamba City in November last year, used Coplan Armado as cover to bring the
fight to Siman.
And, the theory goes, Marantan ended the
fight in Atimonan.
Getting even
The theory of double-cross and skimming
profits off gold sales involves gold miner Habitan who, Marantan claimed, was
his tipster on the movement of Siman’s group on Maharlika Highway in Quezon on
Jan. 6.
Marantan visited Habitan in the gold
miner’s house in Jose Panganiban town, CamNorte, that morning.
Nobody
else knew Siman was on the road to Laguna.
Siman, according to this theory, may
have double-crossed Habitan in some deal and may have been cheating him in the
sale of gold.
It is not implausible that the gold miner wanted to hit back on
Siman.
Habitan had heard of that theory and
denied he was Marantan’s tipster.
He said he could not have offered to help a
police officer who once extorted money from him and that he was preparing to
bring charges of extortion against Marantan.
Habitan also denied having differences
with Siman. He said Siman had been good to him. -- Inquirer
No comments:
Post a Comment