[The Slingshot] Alden Delvo has retired

And he has not arrested the fugitive Apollo Quiboloy.

While he was in office as regional director of the Philippine National Police Regional Office 11, Alden Delvo made several public statements assuring the nation that his team, together with the National Bureau of Investigation, are doing all they can to find and arrest Quiboloy.

But he was unable to. Was it because he could not?

He could not because he had ties to Quiboloy? Delvo admitted that he shared the same birthday with Quiboloy on April 25. During his Davao city years, he himself said that he would spend his birthdays in Quiboloy’s Tamayong Prayer Mountain.

What happens during Quiboloy’s grand birthday extravaganzas? The whole day festivities included Disneyland-like spectacles, with the pretty Ukrainian pastorals dressed like fairy princesses. Former Quiboloy pastoral Arlene Stone, who is now in the US, revealed to vlogcaster Armand Dean Nocum that they would prepare large brown envelopes stuffed with thick wads of cash. These would be given as gifts to the visiting VIPs, mostly senators. Were police officers like Delvo also showered with Quiboloy cash?

He could not because Delvo was actually too much invested in the police protectors of Quiboloy? It is officially known that Delvo was part of the close network of Bato dela Rosa. When the latter was appointed chief of the PNP, he brought Delvo with him to Camp Crame as his personal assistant, then as director for comptrollership. It is on record that lawmaker Dela Rosa is against the arrest of Quiboloy.

Delvo could not arrest Rodrigo Duterte’s “spiritual adviser” because he did favors for him? Among Delvo’s assignments at the PNP during the last months of the Duterte administration was as chief of the PNP’s Firearms and Explosives Office. That is also the same time that Quiboloy’s license to own 19 firearms was approved.

Of the nineteen, 13 had expiry dates of April 2033. That indicates he had them registered in May 2023. Republic Act 11766, which Duterte maneuvered his pliant Congress to pass (of course how else can we think of; Duterte immensely benefitted from it), extended the validity of a firearm’s license to 10 years.

Was it incidental that, that was also the time when Duterte had 358 firearms registered with the same PNP office, that it appears now, was headed by Delvo? Duterte signed it into law on May 6, 2022. In June Duterte applied for his 358 licenses. Coincidence?

Even though the PNP has now revoked the licenses of Quiboloy’s firearms, the handwriting on the wall appears to connect the dots between Delvo and Quiboloy. Unfortunately for Delvo, that kind of information is irrevocable, the kind that will go down in history.

Delvo could never have arrested Quiboloy because he was actually on the payroll of the Dutertes as a Davao Death Squad cop? Confessed hitman and former cop Arturo Lascañas has named Delvo as among the policemen involved in Davao city’s extrajudicial killings in his affidavit to the International Criminal Court. Delvo has not refuted those allegations.

The question begs for an answer – how many of our police generals continue to be beholden to the Dutertes? What was it that makes them beholden? Take the last as a rhetorical question.

It is a curious situation that the cop who gets to be appointed as PNP 11 regional director turned out to have ties to both Quiboloy and the Dutertes. Has the Department of the Interior and Local Government not screened such appointments to the Davao region? Secretary Benhur Abalos has much to answer for.

Now comes Delvo’s successor at PNP 11, the police brigadier general Aligre Lamsen Martinez. Will he be able to finally collar the fugitive pastor? Unfortunately, not again.

Davao City’s Mindanao Times has revealed that Martinez “used to be assigned for a long time at Davao International Airport in 2019.” The turn-over was exceptionally rapid. Martinez’s appointment was signed on the day of Delvo’s birthday. Next day April 26, Martinez took over. What are Martinez’s conflicts of interest in his Davao region assignment?

The statement of the PNP Davao region is interesting. It said that, “under the current leadership (Martinez’s), the plan is to sustain the performance of the past leader (Delvo) and continue the search for Quiboloy.” Yes, continue the search even though he is just hiding in Tamayong.

Take note: Dela Rosa attended the turnover rites in Davao City.

Contemplate the repercussions of this appointment vis-à-vis Quiboloy’s arrest. And then later of the father and daughter Duterte, once the Interpol releases the ICC arrest warrants for them. It will just be a pathetic game of cat-and-mouse hide-and-seek.

The last laugh belongs to the Dutertes. – Rappler.com

Antonio J. Montalván II is a social anthropologist who advocates that keeping quiet when things go wrong is the mentality of a slave, not a good citizen.