Urgent twin strategy

THE collapse of the peace talks with the NDFP-CPP-NPA forebodes of not just skirmishes but of several major armed offensives.

While we can expect our government’s military and police forces to effectively counter these, it cannot be expected to result in overnight dissipation of the forces of the communists. What can effectively stop aggression in the countryside is a twin strategy: provide palpable economic development for inclusive growth coupled with ability of industries and villages to withstand pressure to pay revolutionary taxes.

We must accept the realities that the seeming continued successful recruitment by NPA is fueled principally by desperation of families over absence of opportunity to survive poverty, and the capability of NPA to offer compensation made possible from revenues extracted through revolutionary taxes.

It is, therefore, imperative that our local governments in Pangasinan be made more conscious of the need to adopt measures to address the two issues in their communities.

The support for the agri sector, particularly in the face of natural calamities, must be sustained. For starters, local governments must begin to make subsidized crop insurance and credit facilities available to our distressed farmers. Simple dole-outs will not cut it.

Then, our police and military forces should begin to arrange for the deployment of more personnel to protect the industries and our boundaries vulnerable to incessant attacks by the NPA.

With these in place, our communities can be assured of a more lasting peace and prosperity in the countryside and defeat the agenda of the NDFP-CPP-NPA.

Sereno still standing

THE move to impeach Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno is on at the House of Representatives.  Acting on the impeachment raps filed by Larry Gadon against Sereno, our congressmen will soon have to decide whether to impeach or absolve Sereno.  if the Lower House declares Gadon’s articles of impeachment as lacking in form and substance, Sereno goes scot-free. However if the chief justice gets impeached, the Senate will have to conduct the trial.  Note that after Chief Justice Renato Corona was impeached in 2012, Corona’s health took a serious slide.  Forlorn and consumed by sadness and a recurring illness, he died not long after.

Seemingly, Sereno, like Corona, would fight it out and will not resign.  Godspeed, Madame Justice.

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