Failon's multiple tragedies

I pray that nobody, especially lesser mortals like me, will go through the multiple tragedies that happened to Ted Failon, one of the country's top broadcasters. It was tragic enough that a suicide has happened to the Failon family. It was double tragedy that a number of them became suspects and worse, they became victims of police arrogance and cruelty. Many who witnessed the policemen's rough treatment of Max Arteche and Pamela Arteche-Trincheta, siblings of Trina, Ted's wife, who passed away Thursday, as well as that of their driver and household help lament that if that can happen in a case involving a broadcast celebrity under the glaring lights of live TV, how much more to ordinary citizens. On the other hand, maybe it happened because Ted is a famous journalist. Through his popular radio program, in tandem with another hard-hitting broadcaster Korina Sanchez, he hit hard on those who violated the law and demanded accountability from government officials for their transgressions. That's probably the reason the policemen gloated when Ted was being subjected to the humiliating process that suspects in a crime go through. When they could not get enough of Ted, they took it out on Ted's in-laws and household helpers. It's difficult to accept the denial of PNP Metro Manila Chief Roberto Rosales that the “lapse in procedure” was not a way of the police getting back at Ted and ABS-CBN; that the Failon case is “being treated like any other case” and that they are “giving those involved fair treatment.” I know that Rosales has to do damage control on horrendous damage that Senior Supt. Franklin Mabanag to the image of the police that PNP Chief Jesus Verzosa (as well as his predecessor, Gen. Avelino Razon) has been trying to correct and improve. Mabanag showed insensitivity as well as ignorance of human nature. We still have to know the result of the police investigations but with the many interviews that we have seen and heard, we know that Trina was still alive when Ted found Trina in the bathroom of their house. If you were in his place, what would you do? Bring her to the hospital, of course. If they forgot to report it to the police in that stressful situation, is that a crime? In the first place, suicide is not a crime. A lawyer friend said until such time that a shooting is determined to be suicide or self-inflicted, the police has the mandate to investigate. I understand that. But it doesn't mean forcefully extracting relatives from the deathbed of the victim. Mabanag justified their use of force on Max and Pam saying, “All tactics are being deployed by them from hysterics to dramatics.” What kind of a human being is this Mabanag not to understand the sensitivity of being on hand, praying and giving support to a dying relative? He calls Pam's refusal to leave her sister's deathbed “hysterics and dramatics?” If you were Max and you see your sister being dragged by burly policemen out of the hospital, what would you do, just look? Of course you will intervene. Max was then bundled up also for obstruction of justice. All these arrests were done without warrants of arrest. We heard the police announce “warrantless arrest” when they were manhandling Max. Don't these policemen know they can only do warrantless arrest under three specific circumstances, which are in flagrante delicto or in the act of committing a crime, hot pursuit, fugitive from justice. None of these three elements were present in the arrest of Max and Pam. These things can only happen in an environment of lawlessness and impunity. The dreadful thing about this is that perpetrators are so called agents of the law. God save the Filipino people.