Punchline
Another “wrong mistake”
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
THE PNP’s decision to finally lift the suspension of the permit to carry outside of residence (PTCFOR) can only be viewed as a correction of a “wrong mistake” of the PNP leadership ordering the suspension, and therefore, welcomed.
The suspension was evidently a knee jerk reaction of ranking PNP officials that many suspect was also influenced by politics. To this day, in spite of the statistics shown by the PNP provincial office, there is no proven correlation of the suspension to the decrease in the number of shooting incidents involving firearms. Why the PNP refused to take full credit for its touted intensified campaign against loose firearms and checkpoints that resulted in lower incidence of crimes involving firearms, I simply cannot comprehend.
I thought the PNP provincial office risked over-stretching the unstated reason for the lifting of the suspension bordering on absurdity by “challenging” gun owners to prove that the lifting of the suspension will not lead to more shooting incidents! Is the spokesman for real?
If the PNP is looking for a justification for its ill-advised suspension of the PTCFOR, it has to look elsewhere because that logic will not fly ever. Besides, if, indeed, the PNP truly believes a suspension of PTCFOR leads to a decrease, then why hasn’t it decided to suspend the PTCFOR across the country years ago? Hello?
If it is looking for a scapegoat to blame for its failure in the months ahead to stop the killing by hitmen riding in tandem, then we are looking at a police force that cannot be trusted to be professional and effective. Is this what the PNP office here wants the communities to think?
The PNP regional office was prudent on being silent about the reason for the lifting of the suspension obviously because it could not justify the suspension from the very beginning. What was the PNP provincial office thinking by challenging gun owners today?
Another “wrong mistake” over a “wrong mistake.” Tsk-tsk.
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LTO’s INSIDER-FIXERS. Here’s one reaction from a PUNCH reader about our item on “LTO-insider-fixers” last week.
He says the LTO employees offer a menu of services, from single-itemized facilitation to a “packaged-combo” which they refer to as “NO APPEARANCE” – for P400-P500! He opted not to avail of the “package” and allowed the inspectors to do all the tests on his old car. He was luckier than the two car owners whom we cited last week, they who had to wait 3 hours to complete the process because in his case he said it only took a little more than an hour for the whole process to finish. But I can surmise why they did it within the normal processing time: our PUNCH reader is a known personality in the city.
So, unknown mortals out there who have no name recall and do not choose to contribute to the employees’ “welfare fund,” will risk a 3-hour wait if they don’t use LTO’s insider-fixers. Paging LTO regional director Jojo Guadiz! (We will know soon enough if Mr. Guadiz himself shares in the loot if the “official fixers” continue to operate).
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ABOUT POLITICS NOT MURDER. The public outcry over the death of transgender Jennifer Laude allegedly in the hands of a US marine did not really come as a surprise. The outcry, however, has little to do with the fact that the victim was a transgender but because it involves sovereignty issue. And sadly, there lies the double standard in our society.
There are homicide cases and there are homicide cases, and members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) are just part of the statistics on victims. In fact, when media reports the death and murder of a LGBT person, the victim is not even identified to belong to LGBT. The public only gets a hint of the victim being in the LGBT sector if the suspect belongs to the same sex as the victim and if there is mention of a relationship between the two, or if the victim was killed inside a beauty parlor by a male suspect. And it ends there! Nobody but the family and friends of the victims cry for justice.
So what’s the big deal about Jennifer’s death this time? If the suspect were not an American soldier, would there be an outcry? I seriously doubt it.
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DOUBLE STANDARD. When a Pinoy is sentenced to death in China or in Saudi Arabia for drug trafficking, we see a public outcry against our government for not having done enough to save the life of the Pinoy from the gallows. And when blood money is finally paid and the convicted Pinoy is allowed to return home, he/she is looked upon like a returning hero. The returning convict is not even made to continue serving a prison sentence here for the crime committed overseas.
Consider the same Pinoy being caught in a buy-bust operation over shabu in Pangasinan. Nobody raises hell and most everyone except family members will cry and deny that their relative-suspect is a drug pusher. The suspect can rot in jail and nobody gives a hoot. Our government simply shows no leniency if the crime is committed by Pinoys on Pinoys, or Pinoys on foreigners.
The same for OFW Pinoys killing a national of the host foreign country or a fellow Pinoy overseas. The government goes on auto-pilot to seek leniency from the foreign government. It’s usually the cue for Veep Jojo Binay to make a trip to plead for the life of the convicted Pinoy. When his freedom is secured, he doesn’t serve a jail sentence here.
But consider the Pinoy killing a Japanese or a Korean businessman here. Will the murder push local human rights groups to invoke the declaration of magna carta of international human rights? Not on your life, not here anyway.
My point here is, why can’t we act and react based on a uniform standard whether the victim or suspect is a Pinoy or not? Why should we plead leniency for convicted Pinoys overseas but not here? Why should we condemn a foreigner for killing a Pinoy but not when a Pinoy kills a foreigner? Why is it OK for a transgender to be killed by his lover but not by an American soldier?
I hope the case of Jennifer, being a transgender, will evoke the same outrage when another LGBT is killed or kill whether or not the suspect or victim is a foreigner or a Pinoy!
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MR. ACC’S NEW ACQUISITION. There is an exciting development in the national TV media industry.
The RPN 9 TV network that has been hemorrhaging for over three decades will finally have a chance to survive and be competitive under a completely new management structure. From what I’ve read, it will be restructured and given a new corporate branding as CNN Philippines. For now, it is 9TV, minus the RPN brand of the Benedictos of the martial law era.
The new major player in the soon to be finalized new brand as CNN Philippines is Mr. Antonio Cabangon Chua, who has acquired a 34% equity through a deal with the Tieng family of Solar Entertainment in order to acquire 34% equity. Obviously he had a seamless business negotiation this time.
From what I can glean from 9TV’s programming today, it is set to give ABS-CBN’s ANC news channel a run for its money. Hopefully, this new strategy to square off with ANC will bring about a more professional real time delivery of news to better equip the populace with the kind of information that will enable our people to arrive at decisions to benefit their families and ultimately the country.
This corner wishes the new management (and yes, Mr. Cabangon Chua) best wishes for a successful venture. It will not be a walk in the park for the new owners because the internal labor problems of RPN 9 that I presume the new management has inherited, had made it difficult for government to manage it through the decades, causing it to lose millions every year. I know this because I had an opportunity to serve in its board during the FVR administration and to say that it was frustrating watching it run like a roller coaster periodically would be understatement.
So far, 9TVs line-up of journalists in that network is impressive. Their individual credentials as journalists are impeccable. Hopefully the 9TV-cum-CNN news team’s independence, integrity and credibility will not be sideswiped by an untenable policy that Pangasinenses are seeing in Mr. Cabangon Chua’s DWIZ-Dagupan. Or let’s hope the professionalism we are seeing in 9TV today will rub off on one of DWIZ-Dagupan’s commentators (kuno), who I am told by his broadcast colleagues, has been doing a good job at damaging the station’s credibility and respectability as a news media. Tsk-tsk.
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