Cops Nab General Chan's Killer

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

So, it was Friday night that the Special Investigation Task Force (SITG) Chan, who did the sleuthing on the assassination of Police Retired Brig. General Marlou Chan, arrested a “Person –of- Interest” Edwin Ferrer.

That’s two days after the grisly murder of one of the intelligent, eloquent, and shrewd alumni of the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio City. Chan is a native of San Quintin, Pangasinan thus media men with humor described him when he was a honcho in the gargantuan province as “from Chan Quintin, Pangasinan”.

He told me then that his father was a pure Chinese World War –II veteran from Amoy or Fukien, Mainland China.

Amoy is the present Xiamen Port City while Fukien is China’s province. So it is safe to say Amoy, Fukien just like Urdaneta, Pangasinan te-he!

“When China invades the Philippines, I’m sure I will be the chief of the Philippine National Police because the Chinese consul in Ilocos knew my father was from China,” he crowed to me ha ha ha!

FILE PHOTO: Police Brig. Marlou Cortez Chan  (extreme right) "Home Coming" Visit  on March 23, 2016 at the Police Provincial Office in Lingayen, Pangasinan. This was after his promotion to Star-Rank. Chan was assassinated at 2:50 pm last Thursday in Calasiao,Pangasinan.

Before Chan’s stint in Pangasinan as Police Provincial Office (PPO) Director in 2012 to 2013, he was the PPO Director of Ilocos Norte.

Two envying glamorous posts before the eyes of the brass of the PNP who settled on their swivel chairs and their less lucrative posts.

***

I digressed.

Let’s go back to the arrested gunman with an unmarked .45 handgun, bullets, and hand grenade confiscated from him as shown by the TV footage.

During the evening newscast of GMA-7 TV Monday, Calasiao Police Chief Lt. Colonel Joseph Fajardo said that Ferrer was a gun-for-hire.

Ferrer, who was inside the slammer, vigorously told the TV giant that he was fall guy.

The words of the week now is Person -of- Interest.

In College of Law Class when you arrest somebody, it’s not because of being Person -of –Interest (POI) but because of being a suspect or accused as cited by the Handbook on Criminal Procedure.

Excerpts of the book's Rule 113 for the education of the many:

“Sec. 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful. – A peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant, arrest a person:

(a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense;

(b) When an offense has just been committed and he has probable cause to believe based on personal knowledge of facts or circumstances that the person to be arrested has committed it; and…”

Was the cop or cops confused by their choice of words about POI versus Accused or Suspect?

I remembered in 2014 when Deputy Regional Director for Administration General Chan came from the Police Regional Office-1 in San Fernando City, La Union to brief the provincial police under acting Police Provincial Office Director Colonel Sterling Blanco (now a one star general) instructing them on the semantics for the PNP integrated Transformation Program Performance Governance System (PNP ITPPGS) 2030.

Chan and Blanco, members of PMA Classes of 1985 and 1989, were publicly editing the English words of some officers mostly Lt. Colonels, on their reports as police chiefs at the function hall of the PPO in Lingayen, Pangasinan.

“Editor din pala itong dalawa,” I told myself amused.

One’s savvy on the Shakespearean language of course came from a long process of voracious readings of newspapers and books since teenage.

With the mangling of the used of words on POI to suspect that resulted for his arrest, the police needs “Editor” to coach them how to properly use the words to avoid being ridiculed by the public.

 ****

According to news reports, after two of the four gunmen who rode two separate motorcycles, peppered Chan with bullets from their .45 caliber hand guns. Juanito Lozada, continued stepping on the gas and asked to stop for directions from a group of people. Ferrer volunteered and insisted to drive and help them.

Lozada, who is from Taguig City, agreed as he was not familiar with Calasiao and Dagupan City’s highways. Ferrer drove them to the Villaflor Hospital in Dagupan, where Chan was declared dead.

Three hours after the ambushed of Chan, a surgeon reacted to my blog that the general was DOA or Dead-On-Arrival at the hospital he was working with fatal wounds on the neck and chest.

Thereafter, I saw on some posts at the Facebook like from the local CNN, not the Calasiao News Network but the real CNN owned by Ted Turner, that the Good Samaritan that helped Lozada was Ferrer.

Was Ferrer a Hero or a Heel?

 According to PPO spokesperson Captain Ria Tacderan, as quoted by Rappler.com, the police ran a background check on Ferrer and found that he had a history of “involvement with gun-for-hire groups.

Police could not confirm whether he was even convicted of a crime, but Tacderan said that after the background check, they applied for a search warrant for Ferrer’s house, which yielded a .45-caliber pistol and a grenade.

For me, the whisking to the jailhouse of Ferrer as based on the news report above was because of Illegal Possession of Firearm, Ammunition, and Explosive and not directly as part of the conspiracy to kill a bemedalled police general.

There’s also a person of interest according to Rappler.com: Tacderan said that just 30 minutes before Chan was killed, he met with Pangasinan-based Indian-Filipino businessman Ashok Vasandani. Vasandani was not arrested, but identified as a person who could help solve the puzzle of the retired cop's murder. Vasandani is a survivor of an assassination attempt in Pangasinan in February 2018.

The retired general and Vasandani apparently met at the Panaderia Antonio, which was 10 minutes by car from the crime scene. It was unclear what the two discussed, but Tacderan noted that Vasandani immediately turned up at the police station after news broke of Chan’s assassination.

The cops nevertheless have not established the motive for Chan’s killing. 

READ MY OTHER BLOG:

Gunmen Know Ex- Gen Route Before They Killed Him

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)