Colonels and their Patrons on a PD Post

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

A police brass told me that in case Pangasinan Police Office Director Colonel Redrico Maranan leave his post this month in the gargantuan province, there are three police full colonels being groomed to replace him.

“One of them is that Espinosa guy?” I posed.

“No, he was already a provincial director in CARAGA Region 13. He was brought there by his patron cops’ Brigadier General Romeo Caramat who was just whisked out from his PNP Drug Enforcement Group in Camp Crame to become a regional director,” he retorted.

Caramat, from San Jacinto, Pangasinan, is the husband of Nalsian, Calasiao Barangay Chairwoman and Liga President Mamilyn Caramat.

Caramat was my classmate at the College of Law in the University of Pangasinan.

GROOMED TO BE P.D. (From left) Police Colonels Noel Vallo and Neil Miro. 
Not in photo is Colonel Ronald Gayo.

I saw him when he was a cadet at the Philippine Military Academy when I worked at the Public Information Office there in the late 1980s. He is a member of Class 1992 the last batch PMA produced for the Philippine Constabulary - a gendarmerie-type police force founded by the Yanks in 1901 and ended by the Philippine Congress in 1991.

Opps, I digressed to my real topic son of a gun hahaha!

My Colonel source told me those who “jockey” for the likewise most prestigious post in the four province’s Region 1 are Colonels Ronald Gayo, Noel Vallo, and the dark horse my friend Mangatarem raised but Bisayan Speaking Neil Miro.

“Who are the patrons of those three that would pluck one of them to run the cop show in the former Kingdom of Princess Urduja,” I inquired to my source who asked for anonymity.

“Gayo backers are the Espinos (the former and present governors) while the benefactors of Vallo and Miro are (Region 1 Police Regional Director) Rodolfo Santos Azurin Jr., and former police two-star general Greg Pimentel ( a friend of President Rodrigo Duterte who brought Miro to be Dagupan City’s Chief of Police when he became the RD of Region 1 in 2017.

Azurin is a member of the Makatao Class of 1989 of the Philippine Military Academy.

I know about Greg Pimentel fancy’s on Miro because the latter told me about his friendship with the former when he first met Pimentel, a member of PMA Class of 1985, when the San Quintin, Pangasinan resident was a struggling Colonel of the Highway Patrol at the Aviation Security Group where Miro was assigned.

That was during the Aquino Administration and how time flew when Duterte catapulted him to two-star general to be the top honcho of the Directorate for Intelligence and as Philippine Drugs Enforcement Agency Deputy Director when he retired from the PNP.

I had a chat with Pimentel when then Pangasinan Second District Congressman Leopoldo Bataoil introduced him to me when we were waiting for the arrival of President Rodrigo Duterte in one of the five four blades’ Bell 412 Helicopters of the Presidential Security Group and the Air Force at the Port of Sual, Pangasinan.

“Greg, ito si Mortz dating taga RFC sa PMA,” Bataoil, a former police general and my superior at Tactics told the regional director.

My source said that PD Maranan, Gayo, and Vallo are mistah or classmates in Class of 1995 at the Philippine National Police Academy in Camp General Mariano N. Castañeda Silang, Cavite while Miro, a member of Class ‘97, is their underclass man.

“How about Espinosa, what was his class?

“1998,” he quipped.

“Oh he was too young to be a PD in my Southern Island Mindanao,” I said.

“No, there are provincial directors who are members of Class 2000 who are already PDs”.

He said there are no one star general as of present in PNP Class 1995, when I asked him.

“I don’t know if there are already one star in the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines),’ he added.

Talks about some PD’s stuffs:

I told him that when the lorry I rode had a stop at the other end of the 2.5 kilometers San Juanico Bridge that connects Leyte-Samar Province after I ‘absconded” last July 4 my four months locked down in Mindanao, I texted Colonel Rod Samson that I was in his turf in Western Samar.

“I am based in Tacloban City (just at the other end of the historic bridge that defied the monster killer Super Typhoon Yolanda in 2013 – MCO) I am not the PD of Samar but of Leyte,” he texted back.

My source told me that my bilas Director for Intelligence (D.I) Major General Mariel Magaway (PMA 1986) interceded for Samson’s assignment there. Magaway was the RD of the Visayan Region for a while and was replaced by my College of Law’s Classmate Brig. General Ferdinand Divina, a son of Tayug, Pangasinan – who is now the acting chief of the D.I after Magaway figured in a chopper crash with then Chief PNP Chief General Archie Francisco Gamboa and two other generals in Laguna last March 5.

“I should be the PD too of one of the provinces there (Region 8) through the intervention of Sir Mariel. But the following day he was involved in that crash. Malas ko talaga!” he deplored.

I asked him what happened why the Chief of Police (COP) of Dagupan City, the most prestigious post in the 44 towns and 4 cities’ Pangasinan had been “yanked out” and replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Luis Munar Ventura Jr. - a non-PNPYer.

My source explained that it’s normal for a new regional police director like P/Brig. Gen.Azurin PRO1 director to bring his “Bata’ or Man Friday whenever he is assigned in his new Tour of Duty.

Lt. Colonel Abubakar Mangelen Jr. he told me was the protegee of then but now retired RD Brig. Gen. Joel Orduna.

“I found Lt. Colonel Mangelen Jr. intelligent and charismatic. He came from the same region where I was brought up when my military father was assigned in Maguindanao and Cotabato,” I declared.

Mangelen, my source said, is presently assigned at the PPO while he prepares for his schooling.

READ: 

Why snipers are glorified, glamorized?

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