If one is wondering when the current spate of shooting incidents began, mostly involving people in government, with the bloodiest killing redolent of jueteng cash, go back to the first three months of the Aquino administration.

From the start President Benigno Aquino 3rd could have set the unmistakable tone of his rule not just with a no-wangwang inaugural speech, but by firm, just and principled action without fear or favor. Yes, he fired hundreds of Arroyo-era officials for allegedly being “midnight appointees.” But when it came to whipping his own people and law enforcers into line, he failed.

In one of his first appointments, PNoy made his shooting buddy Rico Puno undersecretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government to oversee the Philippine National Police, undercutting the authority then DILG head Jesse Robredo, one of the earliest in a continuing string of legally dubious presidential acts.

Soon after his appointment, Puno was named in the Senate by Archbishop Oscar Cruz as jueteng bagman, along with then PNP Chief Jesus Versoza — the first time the anti-gambling crusader had explicitly implicated top officials. The President dismissed the prelate’s charge with no investigation.

Aquino did order Secretary Robredo to crack down on the illegal numbers game, which the former Naga mayor eradicated there in the 1990s. But with police under Puno, Robredo made little headway. For his part, Aquino said nothing more in public about his directive. In effect, he allowed the vice to flourish and continue as a rich source of political funding.

Also in September 2010, Aquino trashed the official report on the bloody Rizal Park hostage crisis the month before, sparing Puno and police from any sanction, even a reprimand. That angered China and showed all officialdom that friendship with the President counts more than law and governance.

Instead, the Palace probed and fired then Deputy Ombudsman Emilio Gonzales, on the claim by hostage taker and dismissed PNP officer Rolando Mendoza that Gonzales wanted a bribe to reverse the Ombudsman order firing him for grave misconduct. That reversal was Mendoza’s demand in taking hostage a busload of Hong Kong tourists.

Thus, instead of holding law enforcers to account for the Luneta debacle, they were let off the hook. Even the killer cop ended up a purported victim, while a long-serving anti-graft official was blamed for the crisis—a casualty of PNoy’s campaign to oust then Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez. Politics trrumps justice.

Our Sept. 27, 2010, column urged then: “If the President aims to fight corruption, he should be as tough on his loyalists as he is on other officials, if not tougher, to make it clear that he will not tolerate graft.” As for jueteng, the Sept. 24, 2010, article argued: “Even more than exploiting the poor, jueteng’s most destructive social impact is corruption, especially of police and government officials, now alleged to be all the way to the Palace.”

Indeed, how can government and police leaders tell rank and file to keep to the Tuwid na Daan when they wallow in illicit largesse? Everyone will naturally want a piece of the payola pie.

It’s even harder to probe and punish offenders. See what’s become of the supposed probe into the overpriced P1-billion PNP rifles contract, for which Puno was being investigated by Robredo before the beloved secretary was killed in a plane crash last August. It has gone the way of other PNoy-ordered inquiries, like those on Political Adviser Ronald Llamas’s guns and DVDs, PagCor head Cristino Naguiat’s Macau junket, or the repeated New Bilibid anomalies (remember them?).

Other mega-scams were never even investigated, like the P400 million PagCor casinos lost in May 2011 to cheating foreigners, who were then allowed to skip trial and leave the country. Then there was the disappearance of several thousand containers in transit, sans inspection and duties—the worst spate of smuggling in the country ever.

That contraband flood helped fuel the surge in violence and crime (imagine how many firearms and narcotics just one container can hold). Now, it emerges that smuggling has leapt tenfold under Aquino, based on International Monetary Fund trade data.

Worst of all, Malacañang has time and again flouted law and ethics for political ends, whether pressuring Congress to pass pet bills and impeach adversaries, openly disobeying a Supreme Court restraining order, or squelching court cases after years of trial. Plus offering immunity from prosecution to accused mass murderers for them to speak against those the Palace wants imprisoned.

Hence, with jueteng and smuggling rampant, cheaper guns and drugs abounding, and rules bent for friends and against enemies, is it any wonder that a child was killed by New Year celebration gunfire, a drug-crazed barangay official decimated a family, and uniformed men died escorting a jueteng lord, and their alleged stash of tens of millions of pesos vanished in an apparent rubout by fellow police?

Not to mention unrelenting activist and media murders, the brazen removal of election rivals ahead of the May polls, and the penchant of administration appointees to violate procedures and propriety, like Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno’s repeated disregard of High Court collegiality.

What to do? First, tell people about these excesses, especially abuses ignored by pro-Aquino media. Second, support those protesting anomalies. Make informed choices on May 13. And pray.

Ricardo Saludo serves Bahay ng Diyos Foundation for church repair. He heads the Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence, publisher of The CenSEI Report on national and global issues ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).