Punchline
Missing: BSL‘s kamay na bakal
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
I laud Mayor Benjie Lim for visibly trying to get the community to rise and join the fight against illegal drugs. But I am afraid it’s really all for show and little else but to cover up his administration’s ineptness.
His appeal to the stakeholders, from businessmen to parents teachers and students to get involved is trite, abused and much ado over nothing. I find it disconcerting that while he has outlined activities that the community can undertake in the campaign, he has so far failed to demonstrate his own political will to rid the city of drug dealers.
Worse, his appeal to residents to help in the prosecution of arrested suspects was insensitive as it was misplaced and an exaggerated play for drama. Does he actually believe that residents should risk their lives to identify the drug dealers? Duh? That’s the police’s job! That’s the city hall’s job!
Mr. Lim has no right to demand of taxpayers to do what he has not ordered his police station to do – to handcuff and haul all the known notorious drug dealers in the city. All the evidence are there for the police to pick up.
The mayor should stop using the supposed stakeholders as unwitting backdrops to cover up the city’s negligence and failures in the fight against illegal drug dealing in the city. He should get tough on the criminals for once.
Mr. Lim, be the city’s Dirty Harry!
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Our well-meaning school officials, desperate for help, found themselves profuse with pledges to help, having been told that the drug menace is hard to lick. Mr. Lim said: “I cannot do it alone.” Duh?
Out of sheer courtesy, nobody dared ask him – “What have you and our polic done besides picking up small-time pushers? Why haven’t you, Chief Caramat or kapitan Pedro Gonzales raided safehouses in Bonuan Binloc?”
Ironically, as Mr. Lim proceeded to collect “pledges of support”, two more drug dealers from Dagupan were nabbed by the PDEA in La Union. This means, while Mr. Lim, the city’s self-proclaimed anti-drug czar, pays lip service to the campaign, the drug dealers in Bonuan Binloc are slowly falling into PDEA’s dragnet, not of the city’s police.
If there’s anything sorely wanting today, it is to see Mr. Lim demonstrate his political will, his kamay na bakal, to make Dagupan truly drug-free. Sadly, all that he has done so far is to continuously warn and threaten the known drug dealers in Bonuan Binloc for the umpteenth time, as if the merciless drug dealers deserve every consideration.
Mr. Lim, the teachers, parents and students need not be told how to help…they have been in the frontline fighting off the well-connected and protected drug dealers known to the city’s police and your office. Instead, it is for you to assure them that their city government will do all to protect them, and that the city government is not helpless in the campaign.
The series of MOA signing staged by the city hall ironically point to Mr. Lim’s and police chief Romy Caramat’s helplessness (or unwillingness?) to stop drug dealers from victimizing families in the city.
* * * * *
WHO’S AFRAID OF CUNA? Now that the Dagupan City sanggunian was finally told by the Department of Agrarian Reform that the 30-hectare lot in Barangay Awai in San Jacinto is already under CARP coverage, the only thing left to do is for the city government to sue the seller, Mr. Jose Mariano Cuna, for reneging on the terms of the sale of the land that the city had hoped to locate its sanitary landfill.
The title to the land was never transferred by Mr. Cuna to the city after receiving P16 million from Mayor Benjie Lim.
But Mr. Lim will not lift a finger for the city and will never direct the city legal officer to file the appropriate case. As everyone in the city knows, Mr. Cuna is a business associate of Mr. Lim, something that the latter has never denied to the media at anytime in the past.
But as one texter last week asked me: “Is Benjie criminally liable for the loss of Awai?” My view is yes if Mr. Lim decides to absolve Mr. Cuna of any liability for the city’s loss by not demanding the return of the city’s payment.
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Without a doubt, the original onor-onors in the city council today, namely Messers. Brian Lim, Red Erfe-Mejia, Emong Vallejos and Chester Gonzales, would not even dare touch Mr. Cuna with a 10-ft pole. Didn’t they attempt to prevent the DAR official from reporting on the status of the Awai lot? It’s much too obvious they are there in the council only for one purpose – onor-onor kay Mayor Lim.
That leaves the majority (of 5, 6, 7, or 8?) to adopt the resolution directing the filing of the case for estafa (?) against Mr. Cuna. Would they be afraid to do what is right?
But in fairness to Mr. Cuna, he must be given the opportunity to explain how and why the farm estate sold to the city was lost to CARP. It behooves upon the councilors to extend the invitation before they even consider suing him.
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CRUEL, CRUEL. Guv Spines is back, and angry as hell!
The spam text about his failing health while hopping around US cities, clarifying and validating reports that Pangasinenses read in the PUNCH weekly, was, indeed, cruel at the very least.
However, I’m certain he found consolation in the company of kabaleyans who could only shake their heads in abject amazement how cruel politics can get today. Since Pinoys love the underdog, the text scam just made Guv Spines the most endearing Pangasinan politician today he-he.
Gee, I do hope politicians do not begin resorting to “spam text me” to gain some undeserved attention and sympathy in the run to 2013.
* * * * *
NO TO VERZOSA. Guv Spines’ adamant refusal to accept P/Sr. Supt. Mariano Verzosa as the next provincial director is understandable.
The position is a very sensitive one particularly in an election year. It is the PD that deploys personnel during the campaign period and on election day for whatever purpose. He can be instrumental in stopping violence or cheating at the polls or he can protect cheating political patrons by turning a blind eye to irregularities being perpetrated under his very nose. A PD can spell victory or defeat at the polls especially in a midterm election where a popular President may hold sway.
Agbayani is PNoy’s partymate. And if rumors reaching DDB Sec. Bebot Villar’s are true, there is no way the LP-NP-NPC coalition will hold in the province, since Guv Spines is an NPC stalwart.
While Guv Spines is realistic enough to believe that the coalition will not make him the official candidate for governor notwithstanding his NPC affiliation, he still is nobody’s fool to agree to Verzosa’s appointment.
The untenable situation will make Mr. Verzosa a greatly handicapped and a mistrusted PD if PNP will insist on his designation. Certainly not a healthy environment for a career officer nearing retirement. Methinks Mr. Verzosa should plead with the Agbayanis not to push the envelope at this time – for his own sanity.
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