Wrong training style for ARMM police recruits?

MAGUINDANAO – Relatives want an independent probe on what is for them self-styled endurance orientation for recruits of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police following Wednesday’ demise of one and the earlier admission of another in a dialysis clinic.Parents first got frantic when they learned that a trainee named Jomar Kudalat underwent a dialysis at a clinic in Cotabato City early this week after his creatinine count rose to 1,000 micromoles (umol/L), dangerously higher than the normal 53-97 count for males.Another trainee Hassan Abubacar, from Datu Paglas town in the second district of Maguindanao, died on Thursday at the intensive care unit of the Cotabato Regional Medical Center in Cotabato City, just hours after he collapsed and passed into coma while jogging along with co-trainees. Abubacar’s creatinine count reportedly soared to 300 umol/L, hospital sources said.Physicians said Abubacar suffered from rhabdomyolysis, which is destruction of muscles in layman’s term.Rhabdomyolysis is a conditionin which damagedskeletal muscle tissue breaks down rapidly.Harmful products of the damaged muscle cells, such as protein myglobin, gets into the bloodstream, leading to kidney malfunction. They were allegedly forced not to pee and given only a very small amount of water and food as part of the training,” a hospital worker told reporters.The director of the ARMM police, Chief Supt. Ronald Estilles, denied insinuations of hazing and maltreatment of dozens of recruits presently being trained at the regional headquarters, Camp S.K. Pendatun in Parang, Maguindanao.Estilles told the Cotabato City-based Catholic station dxMS via mobile phone Thursday morning that he had talked to the trainees and learned directly from them that they were being treated humanely, supplied with adequate food and water. I even told them they can quit if they want, but none of them signified intention to leave,” Estilles told dxMS.Estilles seemed virtually informed of the real situation of the trainees.Trainees, among them Muslims, said officers managing the ARMM’s police training center had warned them not to talk to reporters about the issue. It’s Ramadhan and our children will never lie,” a Maguindanaon peasant, who asked not to be identified, told reporters.Parents had told members of the media community in Cotabato City that many of them went as far as either selling water buffaloes, or using titles of their farms as collateral for loans from usurers just to raise funds for the documentary and travel requisites of the police enlistment process.