The fiscal and judge returns to crimebusting (1)

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. summoned him to Malacañang last April and asked him if he could return to public service after 21 years as a police officer, three years as a government prosecutor, and 17 years as a judge.

Coming off a bad fall that required surgery to remove blood clots in his head, Jaime “Jimmy” Santiago, who was so feared by criminals that the mere mention of his name drove many of them to surrender and release their hostages unharmed, gave the President his snappiest salute.

“Yes sir, I will be of service,” the 65-year-old Santiago recalled telling the President, during his guesting on DAILY TRIBUNE’S digital show Straight Talk on Wednesday, after the Chief Executive said he wanted him to head the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

Santiago said he had dedicated his life to law enforcement and serving the ends of justice that he did not think twice about unretiring himself for the nth time to head the NBI, the country’s premier investigative agency.

He reckoned that fate must have paved the way for the President to offer the NBI post to him after he had retired at age 41 as a police officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

“The general allowed me to study to become a lawyer, and I got lucky,” Santiago recalled, referring to the late Vicente Vinarao, his many-time boss, including at the Manila Police and later the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), in charge of penal facilities in the country. Vinarao himself was a lawyer.

That he got bored with police work — he found himself “neutralizing” hostage-takers as a Manila Police SWAT operative when he thought he was well-equipped to be an investigator — made him fall in love with the majesty of the law.

Until recently, one must be a lawyer or a certified public accountant to become an NBI agent. During a recent talk with criminology students, Santiago said any board passer like doctors and engineers can now aspire to join the NBI.

“I told them to pass the criminology board and consider a career at the NBI and not just the police,” revealing that the starting pay at the bureau is presently about P60,000.

Entry-level posts in most other uniformed services offer P20,000 less than the NBI now gives new recruits.

Santiago explained that the governments of many countries, including the Philippines, have had to rethink their law and order policies, including using a multi-disciplinary approach, with the ever-evolving nature of crimes.

While the NBI uses cutting-edge technology to solve traditional crimes like murder with its intrepid set of investigators, he said the challenge at present is fighting cybercrimes.

“I was a cop, a prosecutor, a judge, and (with Vinarao) a BuCor official (tasked with overseeing the reformation of those who needed to pay their debts to society). Now, with the NBI, I have touched all five pillars of the justice system,” he said.

Santiago said that while he cannot reveal the technology and techniques the NBI is using to get the upper hand in the cat-and-mouse game with cybercriminals, their approach now is pro-active.

He said that as the NBI in the past mainly acted on the complaints of crime victims, the bureau is now going after elusive, white-collar, tech-savvy crime minions.

“We are trolling online. We’d ask if anyone can provide us girls, and you’ll be surprised there’d be offers coming. We pounce on them,” he said of human and sex traffickers.

For those joining the NBI, he said they need to pass through extensive background checks because one thing he could not allow is to have scalawags within its ranks.

“The legacy I want to leave for this government, my children, grandsons, and granddaughters is one that has neven been tainted by corruption,” he said.

“I may be co-terminus with the President but, not to boast, whether as a cop, prosecutor or judge and now as NBI director, I am not corrupt,” he said. “I will leave the government the way I entered it — untainted.” To be continued