Ambrosio De Vera
10 March 2010

Re: Cattle Rustling in San Carlos City

There you go. . . rustlers are back . . .

This is just one of the problems in our communities. The rustlers armed and what’s absurd is the excuse of the law enforcement agencies that they don’t have enough resources to tackle the issue and solve it once and for all. The provincial government solution was to provide barangay kapitanes with shotguns to defend themselves. I was not surprised with the steps taken since the current governor is a retired military officer. Now the issued guns were recalled because of the election gun ban. Was there a move to disarm the rustlers too? I bet none. How about rustling ban during election period COMELEC? Or are you too busy with the election bidding?

If only these kapitanes are being effectively utilized as intelligence resources, they would be great help to our law enforcement agency. I’m certain that these barangay kapitanes (including consehales) know each of their constituents, and chances are also familiar also with their activities.

Here’s one story . . . .

Once upon a time . . . in a little big town of Central Pangasinan. . . a story was told of a mayor who came up with an idea to solve the same problem. The mayor summoned all his barrio kapitanes and asked for a list of suspected rustlers in their respective barrios. The mayor then invited the people in the list to the town hall and talked to them individually. According to the story. . . the mayor extended the invitation  requiring each of them to sleep or stay in the town hall from 6 pm to 6 am every night. As expected, there was no incidence of rustling the whole time involving any of the suspected individuals who stayed overnight in the town hall.

I’m not saying that this concept is going to work all the time. But maybe it’s worth trying to get rid of this menace in our society. I want to add that whoever is included in the list should be tasked and be made to swear to help secure his barangay and make sure that no cattle will ever stolen in the barangay.

Going back to the story, the mayor admonished his guests before sending them home warning that it will not be his fault if one was caught and got shot or killed while stealing in his town. True enough, after number of months several rustlers were shot and killed in the act of stealing. It was found out later that the killed rustlers were from another town. And there was some rumors that one of those killed was a kapitan del barrio.

Spare no one in intelligence too.

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