Ill-advised, ill-timed

THE decision of President Duterte to pull out the PNP from the war on drugs is not only ill-advised but ill-timed.

Just when we are seeing the drug lords, their protectors and dealers on the run for the first time, the unprecedented momentum is abruptly stopped leaving families easy prey to the narcos again.

In Pangasinan, the provincial PNP already predicted a drug-free province by December, does this mean that mission will no longer be accomplished?

While Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’ has the edge in intelligence work, it does not have enough operatives in Pangasinan (and in the region) to act on drug peddling in the towns and cities, the bane of thousands of families.

Recall that when PDU30 suspended PNP’s Double Barrel campaign last January, drug peddlers in barangays resurfaced overnight. Without Oplan Tokhang and buy-bust operations, the drug peddlers no longer feared being busted.

Also, recall that it was during the PNoy administration when it was PDEA alone that was focused on the anti-drug campaign, a situation that was fully exploited by the drug syndicates and narco-politicos.

Admittedly, the PNP failed to stop the guns-for-hire riding in tandem, one of the factors that gave human rights groups’ claim of EJK behind the war on drugs credibility, we have reason to believe that PNP has enough muscle to contend with both concerns: illegal drugs and murder in the streets.

We hope the Pangasinan PNP leadership will continue to guard the province from the drug syndicates as it wages a new war against hitmen riding in tandem.

 

Immediate resignation or impeachment?

CONTROVERSY seems to hound Election chief Andy Bautista. After filing his written resignation effective by the end of the year, Bautista got himself impeached via the one-third vote in the plenary session of the Lower House.  It came on Wednesday night, just hours before he quit effective December 31.

To be impeached means Bautista will face trial before the Senate, which will decide whether or not the Comelec chair is guilty of charges found in the articles of impeachment, including alleged graft and corruption and betrayal of public trust, among others.  But if Bautista changes his resignation from December 31 to “immediately?” If he does that—if he hasn’t done it yet—his impeachment will become moot and academic.

While others will feel relieved if he resigns irrevocably and immediately, still others are keen on seeing the impeachment trial at the Senate to proceed if only to probe rumored cheating in the 2016 polls involving Smartmatic.

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