NICE TO read about this development in the efforts to flush out the suspect or suspects in the recent Bragas rape-slay case in Calinan, Davao City.
We are referring to the published report that Frist district Representative Paolo “Pulong” Duterte is offering a cash reward of P1 million for the identity/ies of the suspects at the soonest possible time. It was on that same day that Congressman Pulong thought of the idea that we also suggested in our column that such a strategy earlier used by his father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, for the hit-and-run driver in a Matina incident surfaced along with the owner of the vehicle.
In our column in this paper yesterday, we were calling on Davao City Mayor Baste Duterte to do the act or ask his father to repeat what he did in that hit-and-run case. But the first district congressman could have sensed the sentiment of many Davaoenos, including our own, that even before the end of Sunday, his reward offer was fanned out to reporters.
Now, the people of Davao City, whose blood is at a boil because of the heinous crime committed on a hapless lady architect, must wait for the result. We are confident, as we said in our column, that the perpetrator/s of the crime would surface or will end up dead if they prefer to ignore the nearing end of their line.
And the tricycle owner is possibly having his or her face covered with goosebumps thinking that if he/she has any inkling that his/her vehicle was used in committing a crime, he/she cannot escape responsibility. The owner can even be suspected as the perpetrator, accessory to the crime, or covering up or obstructing justice.
And who could have thought that the first district congressman would carry the cudgels for the victim’s family’s quest for immediate justice? Congressman Duterte’s act, we are sure, will assuage the fear of the family of Vlanche Bragas that the architect’s rape-slay will just end up as another addition to the figure of the surging rape and slay cases in the city.
We also have no doubt that Congressman Pulong’s reward offer will hasten and make the investigation job of the Special Investigation Task Group (SITG-Bragas) easier and the identification and arrest of the suspect/s and accessories faster.
By the way, we learned from Bragas’ neighbor that the mother of the victim had a very bad experience with the Calinan Police Station when she went to the headquarters to report her daughter’s disappearance and asked for assistance in locating the victim.
We do not want to make any judgment on her supposed experience because we did not witness when what she complained about happened. But we suggest that it would be best if the mother tells her experience to the Davao City Police Director because he surely knows what to do.
****************************
In only a few hours after Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio made public her quitting the Lakas-NUCD Political Party, intriguers’ tongues started wagging. And all that transpired after the report was published in the papers, commented on in the broadcast media, and posted on various social media platforms.
The most common perception coming from the opposition sectors is that Sara’s resignation from Lakas, her vehicle to the Vice Presidency, is already part of the positioning for the 2028 national elections. Others say that there is already a fast-developing rift between the President and his second in command. There are also those who suspect the VP’s sincerity in resigning from the Lakas. That is, she is not distancing from the seeming squabble between Speaker Martin Romualdez and his erstwhile No. 1 Deputy Speaker Gloria Arroyo.
Rather, these supposed observer-sectors are saying the VP is manifesting her support to the erstwhile deputy speaker because the latter was also her ally when Sara’s group did away with former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, whose ouster paved the way for Arroyo’s rise as the House Speaker. Clearly, the political manipulators ensured their insinuation that VP Sara’s siding with Arroyo would have a strong basis. Last Sunday, a picture of the Vice President with Arroyo and businessman Manny Pangilinan was posted on Facebook and possibly on other social media platforms that we failed to monitor.
Also, on the same day, it was prominently published in the papers and again posted on social media that VP Sara was a no-show in Fort Gregorio del Pilar for the graduation ceremonies of this year’s batch of graduates from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA). The VP was supposed to award the sabre to the Class salutatorian.
Now it is clear that the political manipulators are busy stoking the fire to destroy the administration’s unity. What is next to come? We will see.
