Walking the talk with mailed fist

LAST week’s P2-million haul of shabu during the police raid of a drug den in Barangay Binloc in Dagupan City illustrates how big and extensive the drug trade has grown in Dagupan City. The P2-M haul easily translates to 20,000 sachets daily being bought by 20,000 current and new young victims in the city. Still the volume seized is estimated only to be a drop in the bucket because what was not in the den during the raid were still millions-worth in the hands of drug peddlers and carriers that include minors.

One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to surmise that a big number of our elected officials and law enforcers have been coopted and corrupted by the lure of easy drug money in their bank accounts in return for official passivity and inaction while mouthing motherhood statements contra illegal drugs.

See how the officialdom in Davao City is battling the illegal drug trade with great success. Led by Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, the city government walked the talk with mailed fist minus motherhood statements. In Davao, the drug syndicates feared the city government; in Dagupan and Pangasinan, the drug syndicates not only thumb their noses at law enforcers but flaunt the official protection from the barangay kapitans, councilors and mayors by openly operating drug dens in the communities.

As Mr. Duterte has amply demonstrated, no drug lord will dare operate in any barangay without the blessing of elected officials, from the barangay kapitans to the mayors.

Wherever illegal drugs thrive, helpless residents know who their shameless corrupt officials are yet can only hang their heads in sheer desperation and frustration. God help Pangasinan.

 

Waiting game

ALL talk about politics today could easily shift animatedly to the 2016 Philippine elections with a mere mention of a presidential candidate. Like Digong Duterte, the reluctant presidentiable.  Almost like instant coffee, Duterte’s name would immediately crop up in a barbershop political word war and—lo and behold—his vacillating position on a possible candidacy would be hot topic for debate.  At times, Grace Poe’s citizenship issue would crowd out Duterte’s unwilling stance at a stab at presidential glory.

And never doubt it: Alan Peter Cayetano would be Duterte’s running mate if and when the Davao City mayor would finally substitute Martin Dino on or before December 10 as candidate for president under the PDP-Laban party.  We can only wait with bated breath.  Now if it happens, Duterte-Cayetano in 2016 would be a formidable tandem.  But only when it happens.

Meanwhile, the waiting game continues.

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