Communities are threatened anew

IT’S only been two weeks since President Duterte ordered the PNP to pull out from the war on drugs, and we are already seeing drug dealers returning with a vengeance brazenly peddling their illegal drugs and marijuana on the streets and in schools.

Evidently, both the drug dealers and the local governments are misreading the order of the President. On the part of the drug dealers and users, the war is not yet over, far from over.  On the part of the LGUs, the order did not deactivate the Anti-Drug Advisory Councils in all levels and should therefore, remain proactive in the war.

As things stand, with the apparent return of drug dealers in many barangays, the towns and cities that have been declared by their respective police must be revisited and monitored as some are positively drug-affected again.

It’s still the responsibility of the provincial, town/city, barangay ADACs to look into the real status of the communities.

Mayors and barangay kapitans must be called out anew to protect their communities with more vigor in the light of recent developments.

 

Mending Marawi

TOMORROW is exactly the fifth month since the Maute murderers attacked Marawi on May 23.  In partnership with the equally barbarous Abu Sayyaf, the Mautes took hostage hundreds of civilians in their crazed criminal intent to conquer Marawi, in the process putting that charming Mindanao city in ruins and its people in economic and mental disarray. But with our military finally killing the terrorists’ leaders Isnilon Hapilon of Abu Sayyaf and Omar Maute of the Maute Gang on October 16, the Marawi siege is virtually over.

Did Hapilon and Maute seriously believe they could win and make Marawi their main base in trying to capture the entire Philippines?  Crazy demagogues. Misguided elements.

The next task at hand is the mending of Marawi.  Billions of pesos we need for this to begin with.

But on hindsight, what would be the chief lesson learned here?

No doubt, we were tremendously remiss in our intelligence work.  The terrorists would not have wreaked havoc of this madding magnitude—160-plus soldiers killed, 47-plus innocent civilians dead—had our men in the field done their job.  No more Marawi, please?

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