The Philippine National Police is the first government agency to claim enormous success in the year 2024. At first glance, I thought the PNP must have done something earth-shaking as its claim was bannered by a local daily.

Halfway through the story, however, I was aghast to read that the PNP had listed as its top accomplishment the arrests of Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy and Bamban Mayor Alice Guo.

To claim credit for the arrests of Pastor Apollo and Mayor Guo is utterly shameless. The fact is the leader of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ gave himself up to the Philippine Army and there was not an iota of evidence that the PNP, which fielded more than 3,000 battle-ready special action force troops to arrest the pastor, had any participation in his surrender to the Army.

We Davawenyos know that when Quiboloy surrendered to the Army the PNP was digging for “hidden treasure” underneath the Jose Maria College located inside the KoJC compound. In the case of Mayor Guo, she was arrested by Indonesian police who later turned her over to Philippine authorities.

The complaints against Pastor Apollo stemmed mostly from the trumped-up charges filed by fugitives from the law — former trusted officers of the KoJC who fled the country in haste because of malfeasance in the offices entrusted to them. The cases are still pending in a US court but given President-elect Donald Trump’s detestation for questionable immigrants, it is likely the accusers of Pastor Quiboloy will have their own day in court.

I do not know much about Alice Guo’s case. All I know is that the POGO operation in Bamban, Tarlac was under the supervision of Pagcor which in turn is directly under the Office of the President. Why she became the target of a congressional investigation is a multi-million-peso question.

And what do you know? The PNP leadership took credit for the “rescue” of 800 Filipinos and foreigners, read Chinese, from the Pagcor-supervised Bamban POGO operations. But woe to Guo, for in the course of the probe, her personal identity was unearthed. That saved Pagcor and the Office of the President from a scandal but the poetic justice here is that Guo’s case led to the closure of POGO operations, including the biggest hub in Kawit, Cavite.

The next time the PNP spokesperson crows about their accomplishments, she better vet their data carefully. The last time you got the Commander-in-Chief in a fix was when she fibbed without batting an eye that not a single policeman who took part in the siege of the KoJC compound was armed.

The President’s declaration ran contrary to the live coverage of various TV networks showing the policemen clad in full battle gear complete with high-powered firearms, including sniper rifles. An unarmed guard was killed and scores were injured when they were tear-gassed.

The PNP running roughshod over people to serve a warrant on Pastor Quiboloy tarnished the image of the institution, especially in the eyes of Davawenyos. Despite all this, the city government augmented anew the Davao City Police Office with varied equipment, including 38 ambulances, dump trucks, excavators, fiber boats, vans and vehicles, to name a few.

The year 2024 has ended, maybe 2025 will see some changes in the PNP leadership.