Punchline
Who’s not afraid of the police?
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
LATELY, the local media have been swamped with daily reports of hundreds of drug pushers and users surrendering to the police and barangay officials.
Here’s a quick latest update I received Dagupan Police Chief P/Supt. Christopher Abrahano on the running total of drug users and pushers that surrendered in the city as of July 15, Friday: Brgy. Pantal – 11, Brgy. Bonuan Binloc – 18, Brgy. Lucao- 24, Brgy. Lasip Grande -11, Brgy. Malued – 13 and Brgy. Bonuan Gueset- 149 or a total of 227.
What struck me most about these data?
Easily, the number of drug personalities that surrendered in Barangays Bonuan Binloc and Pantal don’t add up to their notoriety as the hotbeds of shabu trade in Dagupan City (and in Northern Luzon by PDEA’s reckoning). By residents’ own estimates, there can be no less than 800 drug users and pushers in their respective villages! Between the two, the city police only have less than 1% of what it had hoped to process and monitor!
Then, Brgy. Bonuan Gueset’s officials earlier reported some 500 drug users and pushers surrendered and signed pledges to reform but the police ended up processing only 149 (or only 30%).
Going by these numbers, and comparing these to developments in other cities, I shudder at the thought that the drug personalities in Dagupan are not afraid of the city police. And if the trend doesn’t change, Dagupeños cannot hope to see their city drug-free in six months (as President Du30 would want to see), not even in three years!
So residents are wont to ask: Haven’t Barangay Bonuan Binloc Kapitan Pedro Gonzales and Pantal Kapitana Julita Perez been confronted with allegations of their being protectors of drug trade in their barangays?
Residents have noted that Kap Gonzales never showed up to collaborate with police raiding teams armed with search and arrest warrants while Kap Perez hardly shows up at the barangay hall to attend to complaints about open drug trading in her turf.
The residents are crying for help!
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ACCURATE RUMORS. The seizure of the Chinese fishing vessel from Hong Kong off Subic Bay in Zambales last week by the police also got tongues wagging about its implications to Pangasinan.
Many residents of Brgys Pantal and Bonuan Binloc finally feel vindicated that their hushed claims about their barangay officials being responsible for the proliferation of drug pushers and users in their villages are accurate.
They are firm in their claim that it’s no secret to everyone (including the coast guard unit and the city police sub-stations in their barangays), that the millions-worth of shabu are regularly being fished out from pick-up points in the Lingayen Gulf, if not physically transferred and boarded to fishing boats that dock along the Pantal River and bancas that park along the Bonuan Beach shore!
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BREAKING UP FAMILIES. If Mayor Belen Fernandez doesn’t flex her political muscles soon enough, simply leaving the worsening drug problem to be resolved by the barangay kapitans and the police, her city will quickly earn notoriety in the region that can completely wipe out her administration’s gains as one of the child-friendliest cities in the country.
The helpless but angry residents are keenly praying that the seizure of the floating shabu lab will finally lead to the arrest of their criminal-minded officials whom they blame for the breakup of many families in their villages.
Barangays Bonuan Binloc, Bonuan Gueset and Pantal have remained hotspots in PDEA’s radar since 2001, so imagine how many families have been broken up by the drug syndicates to date!
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P2 SHABU FOR KIDS. Times are a-changing. Mayor Belen’s constituents need to see her soft motherly care now balanced by the image of a tough-talking disciplinarian mayor!
If the recent mandate that President Duterte got in the May elections is any indication, it was and still is his warning to drug lords: “If you kill the children, I will kill you!” that endeared him to the voters.
Parents want their children protected by all means, parents want their families intact in these difficult and dangerous times! Mayor Belen should take that cue to heart if she wants her child-welfare programs continue to mean anything to the city’s children under her watch.
In case families in our towns and cities are still not alerted, the drug syndicates have already started developing a generational market for the long term.
Read this: Shabu is now reaching the hands of Grade 6 pupils, they who are already entitled to P5 baon every day.
The vulnerable and impressionable 12-13 year old pupils are being targeted to experience shabu for only P2! And believe you me, parents will be the last to know if their children are already hooked.
And even if the police finally catches up with the nefarious activities of the neighborhood’s friendly pusher in school after a year or two, it’d already be too late to turn back the clock for their children who are already hooked on drugs.
If the real threat to our children today isn’t enough for mayors and parents-teachers groups to go berserk, I don’t know what will. In these situations, prayers and novenas will never be enough to protect our children and grandchildren.
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THE BUCK STOPS WITH MAYOR. Back to Dagupan City Agriculturist Emma Molina.
I sent a reporter to her office last week to get her update on the enforcement of the city’s ordinance banning illegal fish pens. I had assumed she didn’t have the time to send us an update so I thought she could be assisted with an interview.
Molina didn’t think the interview was worth her time. Instead, she referred our young reporter Serene to talk to the head of the Task Force Bantay Ilog’s Max Solis for the update.
To make a long story short, our reporter came back empty-handed. She was given the runaround by Solis as well, claiming he has not validated how many illegal fish pens have been demolished. So no numbers. No deadline. No answers for the city.
With no one in City Agriculture Office willing to be accountable for the enforcement of the ordinance, that pushes the buck to the office of the mayor and the Dagupan Sanggunian.
As Molina only takes orders from Mayor Belen Fernandez, she effectively wants the mayor, not her to be accountable. So, let’s have it Mayor!
And since Councilor Jigs Seen is the chairman of the committee on Agriculture and Fisheries while Councilor Jose Netu Tamayo is the chairman on Ordinances and Public Information, they are both accountable as well in ensuring that laws and ordinances are observed and enforced in the city.
They can start by castigating and suspending Molina for cause, specifically, for dereliction of duty. She’s been tolerating the destruction of the city’s river system since 2003!
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I wish to acknowledge belatedly the help extended to us by Rana Printing when The PUNCH needed a printing press to keep our issues going uninterrupted. Then, I also failed to mention that Rosalie Agas helped handle our administrative chores at one time in the past.
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