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Whatever happened to the sensational slaying of a young student at the vicinity of a local bar in downtown Davao City? Originally the case filed by the law enforcers (police and the NBI) at the City Prosecutor’s Office was murder against the suspect, a prominent medical doctor who was then working as a non-uniformed personnel at the Regional Police XI hospital in Panacan, Davao City. When the resolution came out from the prosecutor handling the case against Dr. Marvin Rey Andrew Pepino, it was downgraded to simple homicide to the chagrin of the family of the victim, one Amierkhan Mangacop, a Muslim.
With all the evidence, CCTV footages, sworn statements of witnesses and others, the Mangacops then were certain they could build a murder case. However, the appreciation of the Prosecutor was way beyond their expectation.
There were talks that the victim’s family was set to appeal the prosecutor’s resolution. But it’s been about three months since the resolution was issued and there seems to have been no development on the case. No one from among local news reporters is able to come up with reports as to the status of the case and why the usually solicitous Davao media failed to work on some follow-up stories or even just come up with report as to the whereabouts of the suspect or the status of the victim’s family’s appeal, if any..
Indeed we cannot blame some people if they suspect that most of us Filipinos easily forget even heinous crimes if these infractions of the law, without question, clearly put society at the edge since those with criminal intentions are left wandering around the city as it nothing happened by virtue of their status in life – financially and influence wise.
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Some two or three weeks ago our friend and retired telecommunications firm executive Serafin “Jun” Ledesma verbalized his complaint of the stench odor from uncollected garbage in the subdivision where he resides. He called out the attention of newly-assumed Davao City Mayor Baste Duterte who is the superior of the local government unit’s agency charged with garbage collection and disposal, the City Environment and Natural Resources Office or City ENRO.
We, too, have our own long-aired protestation against the said office and the LGU in general. We are taking them to task for the still undistributed garbage bins delivered to recipient barangays months before the start of the CoViD 19 pandemic, or some three years ago. These bins, without doubt, cost the city hundreds of thousands of pesos, or even millions. But instead of being distributed to strategic locations in the barangays where the household and other waste can be deposited and later collected by contracted garbage collectors, these instead are piled and stored in some corners of the barangay hall compound or in its vicinity. These are in fact starting to deteriorate now and the piles are even slowly covered with fast growing tall grasses. Despite the number of times that we have brought this issue to the open hoping that by chance anyone from the LGU’s executive department, or the CENRO people can have a chance of knowing our importuning, still the waste receptacles are left to the mercy of nature until now.
Meanwhile, we have not heard of any action done on Mr. Ledesma’s complaint. Maybe he was immediately given the attention of the concerned local government entity. Therefore, the possibility could be that the garbage in his subdivision was immediately collected.
As far as our complaint is concerned however, it is not actually for our personal benefit. For all we care if residents in the barangay recipients will be disposing of their garbage anywhere at their convenience. What we are concerned about is the apparent waste of people’s money which was spent for the procurement of the garbage bins that remain idle until now.
Maybe the LGU executives – the mayor specifically – and the CENRO officials do not see anything beneficial if the bins are put to use for which these are purchased. Or, maybe, anyone from the city council could look into this and do the necessary.
