Punchline
Dumaguete Diocese shows the way
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
LAST week, the Sun Star Dumaguete reported a news that could be an item in Ripley’s Believe it or Not! if we knew it wasn’t true. – “Diocese of Dumaguete to donate 14 hectares for drug rehab facility”
For a while I thought it was a lampoon edition of the paper. After all, nothing but critical of the war of drugs was heard from most of the leaders of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. So to read that a bishop is willing to be part of a solution by donating the church’s asset was unheard of.
The surprise donation of the Dumaguete diocese just underscored the gravity of the drug problem in the country. What I thought admirable about the donation was the realization of the diocese that prayers alone were not enough to help the community, particularly the victims of drug syndicates.
Here are excerpts of that news item:
“Fr. Ben Eric Lozada, diocesan clergy president, said that Dumaguete Bishop Julito Cortes and the Board of Consultors have approved in principle the donation.
“This is a concrete response of the Church” to the government’s ongoing campaign to rid the streets of illegal drugs, Fr. Lozada said.
He pointed out the need for the Church to step in and offer the drug addicts another chance at life by recovering through a program offered to them at the proposed rehabilitation center.
Lozada said the donation is “borne out of prayer,” as he has “heard the cry of the drug addicts,” referring to the many who have voluntarily surrendered to the police but who are not provided with options to get out of their addiction and live a normal life again.”
Last week, I wrote about the misplaced eloquence of the CBCP. I was proved wrong by the Dumaguete diocese. This one diocese had the eloquence of Christ’s teaching in action.
Besides organizing processions, walks-for-a-cause, crafting prayers, etc. can the rich dioceses in Pangasinan provide more tangible help for the province’s thousands of victims of the drug syndicates? Even just 5 hectares and lots of prayers for another drug rehab center in the province will make a whale of a difference.
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ANOTHER FINAL DEADLINE? Also last week, I received a press release from the Dagupan City Hall about the “final” and last deadline ordered by Mayor Belen Fernandez directing the Task Force Bantay Ilog to dismantle all remaining fish pens in the city’s rivers and tributaries by October 30!
I had to read it twice because I thought it was an old press release. There was the quoted statement of City Agriculturist Emma Molina: “We will no longer allow anyone to release any fingerling in their fish structures after the deadline. No more humanitarian consideration and no more surreptitious release of fingerlings will be allowed.” I thought I read that statement four months into the Fernandez administration in 2013!
Molina was further quoted to have “assured that from the time the mayor made the pronouncement, the City Agriculture’s Office and the Bantay Ilog have been strictly monitoring all fish pen within the navigational lane, giving the owner and operators a verbal notice and a letter of notice warning them of not releasing anymore fingerlings in their structure.” Now, that’s what I call a “broken record.”
The only new and added statement in that press release was the quoted warning issued by City Administrator Farah Decano. That’s when I thought city hall is finally serious.
So, the only unanswered question to my mind is: Could they mean October 30, 2016 or October 30, 2017? There’s only one way to find out: Check it out on Oct 31, 2016!
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SELLOUT ORDINANCE. Frankly, I don’t see the fish pens vanishing completely because the 2013-2016 Dagupan City council is encouraging it.
Why so? Elementary!
The amended fisheries ordinance that specifically banned the installation and operation of fish pens still does not include penalties for the violation of the ordinance, not even a P1 fine!
Looking back, it just dawned on me that Mayor Fernandez’ warning to violators that if they don’t dismantle their illegal fish pens, the city government will make them pay for the costs of demolition, was actually an empty threat! The ordinance does not even suggest anything remotely close to that.
So effectively, Councilor Jigs Seen, who crafted the amendment, did not actually mean to ban the fish pens but only to make the ban a mere suggestion! What a sellout! Believe, you me, it’s the only legislation of its kind. Only in Dagupan City!
And, it doesn’t seem like the rest of the councilors themselves see anything wrong with an ordinance that doesn’t impose penalties for violating the ban. We have yet to hear any of the councilors suggest the imposition of penalties. Surprisingly not even one of the minority councilors, the supposed fiscalizers!
I can only surmise what that means to them. Thousands in their ATMs every 3 months? Tsk-tsk.
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NOTHING IN THERE. So far, we’ve heard nothing in the ongoing House of Representatives’ investigation in aid of legislation that would implicate Cong. Spines Espino and ex-provincial administrator Raffy Baraan in the drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison.
Not even the revelation of convict Herbert Colanggo implicating ex-DOJ Usec. Toti Baraan in the transfer-racket (not on the drug trade) of inmates remotely suggest anything that would point to the involvement of Messrs. Espino and Baraan in the drug trade. Not even a hint about BM Raul Sison’s involvement so far.
Except in the case of Ronnie Dayan and his boss then DOJ Sec. Leila de Lima, one begins to wonder now about the plausibility of the drug matrix inside the NBP as alleged by PDu30.
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LEADERSHIP BY EXAMPLE. It’s been three weeks now since Federation of Liga ng mga Barangay president and BM Jinky Zaplan filed a resolution requiring all barangay officials to voluntarily take the drug test to help in the effort to crush illegal drug trade in the province.
It appears she only went through the motion of filing that resolution if only to give the impression that her leadership is serious about supporting the war on drugs.
But she herself has not taken the drug test administered by PNP. Where’s the promised leadership by example?
The last thing we heard about her drug test plan for her own Liga in Sta. Barbara was she was still looking for a cheap drug test kit. Duh? Surely the PNP would not think of profiting from the drug test! Tsk-tsk. Besides, she ought to be warned that a cheap test kit might make all of her colleagues positive of drug use.
BM Zaplan’s litmus test of leadership is here and now. She either walks the talk and be a real leader, or just leave it to talk and be another useless, irrelevant functionary. Besides, she can do her colleagues a favor if she will seriously pursue her resolution. The longer she delays the implementation of her resolution, she’s lending plausibility to the suspicion that she and her colleagues are protecting the drug syndicates operating in their towns.
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