Others were left only with memories, never free to grieve, never able to recover from the unhealed wounds. The same lunatic approach to crime prevention is being adopted by the police organisation. It is no accident that the summary killing in 1995 of 11 bank robbers belonging to the Kuratong Baleleng gang involved police officers who came from the constabulary and were trained as military soldiers. The rise of crime in the country, particularly organised crime, has to be recognised, as well as the need to take it in hand. The country is today believed to be a major transshipment point of the illegal drug trade and the fourth country in the world with the most number of kidnap incidents.
Crime syndicates operate with impunity.
Of about 200 suspects in kidnap cases during the first 11 months of 1998, only half were arrested, most of them former soldiers. Members of the police and the military have been frequently linked with crime gangs, sometimes turning up as the brains behind illegal gambling or prostitution syndicates. This is an indication of how close human rights concerns are to the president's heart. Lacson is an Estrada protege, in the hoodlum tradition of the bata-bata system. MISG is one of several intelligence agencies under martial law which appeared frequently in human rights records as responsible for hundreds of torture and summary execution cases of suspected political dissidents in Metro Manila.