Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 23:33:00 04/17/2009 AFTER watching the way the police have been handling the investigation of the death of Trinidad Arteche Etong, ABS-CBN news anchor Ted Failon’s wife, Filipinos have reason to be afraid -- very afraid -- of their so-called protectors. From the time the Quezon City police began working on the case, it was clear they wanted to pin down Failon in a murder charge. With little to go on but a fertile imagination, Superintendent Frank Mabanag, chief of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, theorized that Etong could have been killed in their Pajero and brought up to the bathroom where Failon claimed to have found her lying in a pool of blood. Right in his own house, Failon was made to undergo a paraffin test as police investigators gleefully posed behind him for souvenir photos. Even as Etong was undergoing emergency treatment for a bullet wound to her head, the police “invited” Failon to submit t...

By Mon Casiple | April 16, 2009 www.moncasiple.wordpress.com It is amazing to view the Quezon City Police Department, the Justice Department, and specific police officials acting like the old martial law bullies in the handling of the Trinidad Etong case. The late Ms. Etong is the wife of well-known media personality Ted Failon who died today. She died from a gunshot wound to her temple, self-inflicted in a suicide, according to her housemates. The police so far are not buying the story. So they arrested without any warrant the four housemates and also put Failon under their custody, basically accusing them (at this time) of “obstruction of justice.” In the process, they violated a whole series of human rights enshrined in the constitution. These include violating the rights of due process, the right to be informed of the charges against them, the right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the right to privacy, and the right to a lawyer. The behavior the police showed befor...