LOCAL civilian authorities in Davao City are suspicious of the rise in crimes and the sudden prevalence of illegal drugs in Davao City over the past few months are the handiwork of people from the outside interested in destroying the reputation of Davao as the safest and most livable in the whole of Southeast Asia, and with the burning desire to tarnish the credibility of the ruling political clan – the Dutertes.
While the civilian authorities did not mention any name of a person or group that is allegedly orchestrating this damaging scheme, it is easy for those initiated to read between the lines to establish the suspected orchestrator and the group he belongs to.
Meanwhile, the Davao City Police Office (DCPO) through no less than Police Director Col. Hansel Marantan, agreed with Davao City’s civilian authorities that indeed, the perpetrators of the most sensational crime committed in the city over the last four months of 2024 up to the first two months of 2025 – the popular pawnshop robbery last week – were from outside of Davao City. Colonel Marantan claims that after their initial investigations were conducted, the suspected Hannah Pawnshop robbers were from Ozamis City in Misamis Occidental.
The DCPO director said that the robbers are members of the Tolentino robbery gang, which is a splinter group of an Ozamis-based notorious hold-up gang with records of highly publicized successful robberies of several branches of a famous forwarding company.
That the members of the Tolentino robbery and hold-up gang came to Davao City and did their dastardly act of robbing a well-known pawnshop is indeed done with a much deeper interest behind its execution.
First, the notorious Tolentino robbery-hold-up gang, according to the DCPO chief, is said to be funded in its operation by a well-known notorious criminal gang in Ozamis City. And if indeed the Tolentino gang who robbed Hannah’s Pawnshop was provided funding for its Davao City operation by a certain influential crime group in Ozamiz City, then Davaoeños should not be surprised.
Remember that the Ozamiz rob gang has several axes to grind against former President Rodrigo R. Duterte? The latter ordered then newly assumed Ozamis City Police Director, Col. Jovy Espenido to eliminate the city’s well-heeled crime group whose leaders became politicians. Several family members were killed in a bloody raid on the house of the alleged gang leader-politician. Other well-known personalities were also arrested and later convicted.
Hence, if Davaoeños assume that the Marantan narrative is more credible than that of the insinuations of the city’s civilian leaders, then easily, the motive of those who funded the Tolentino gang members to do their heist in Davao City can be readily established – vengeance.
That is, to avenge the shame and indignity suffered by Ozamis City after that bloody take-down done by the police on orders of the then President who is from Davao City.
That, of course, is on the assumption that indeed some people from that Misamis Occidental city are out to bring Davao’s and its ruling political clan’s reputation down.
Now, whose claim is correct, is it that of the local political leadership, or that of the police, which is said to be derived after some investigations conducted on the Hannah Pawnshop robbery? We can only hope that the people of Davao City can be provided a clearer and more credible narrative on the issue.
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Indeed it is election time. Many aspirants for the Davao City Council, including re-electionist candidates, are now able to remember certain projects promised by their predecessors as early as 2016 or before the 2016 local and national elections – the multi-billion pesos Waste-to-Energy (WTE) project.
We remember that city officials then were bullish about the project. According to the study, tons and tons of waste in Davao City that will be incinerated in the plant can produce as much as 12 megawatts of power, which could be utilized by the city at a much lower cost.
In fact we learned that there were already initial negotiations for the purchase of a land in Biao Escuela in Tugbok district. The Biao land was the proposed site of the WTE plant and the power generated will be transmitted to the grid intended solely for Davao City.
However, after the reported initial negotiations of the land acquisition, nothing was heard of the project anymore.
Today, after ten years since the WTE project was brought to the public attention, talks about its resurrection are again floated by some Council aspirants – again a few days before the local elections come May 2025..
Well, we can only suspect that this is because of a lack of concrete local legislations introduced in the Council that lead to the implementation of relevant projects for the people of the city. So the candidates have to find moribund projects that could ignite the people’s interest like the environment-inspired WTE plant.
