WHEN WILL some people ever learn?
This question comes to mind after hearing of reports of bomb jokes made by certain individuals, one of them recently landed in jail when he caused a commotion at Roxas Ave. in Davao City where night market goers were aplenty.
Yesterday, the students at the Sta. Ana Central Elementary School had their parents scrambling to the campus, demanding that their sons and daughters be sent home. The reason is that a text message about the existence of a bomb inside the school compound was circulating, causing a serious alarm.
The police and elements of the Task Force-Davao had to come in and pacify the worried parents, teachers and students. The bomb squad had to be summoned to search the rooms of the school buildings as well as the nooks and crannies of the school compound.
The bomb disposal unit found no explosives, not even a single firecracker. Despite the efforts of the police and the military to pacify the worried parents, they were able to bring their children home, except those who were still finishing their graded examinations.
But despite the assurance of the law enforcement authorities that there was no bomb found, the school principal had to suspend classes in the afternoon.
We do not believe that the perpetrators of bomb jokes do not know that such an act is punishable by law. But if they don’t, then the government, through the police or the military, might be lacking in the dissemination of the existence of the law and what it could bring to those who violate it either by ignorance or just the desire to challenge the government. Maybe it is already long overdue. But we believe there has to be concerted efforts to educate the people on the law and what are the consequences of its violation.
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Last Wednesday afternoon until the night of that same day, our place and other nearby areas served by the Riverside Water System experienced a long water service interruption. But that water service outage was not scheduled as announced by the Davao City Water District (DCWD). The planned stoppage was on the day before yesterday. But it did not happen.
We were happy for the continuation of the service on that day. But we have to store some cubic meters of water to ensure that we have something to use in the event that the outage pushes through.
The announced interruption did not happen. So our household had to make use of the stored water the day following for fear that the water might be contaminated with disease-causing bacteria.
So towards noon last Wednesday, the stored water in the house was already consumed. An hour later, the faucets in the house suddenly went puffhttt with only air coming out from the pipe. And we had exhausted whatever we had in the drums and gallons. Suddenly we had a dry household despite the heavy rains that submerged the road in front of our residence.
With such unrealized schedules of water service outages catching residents of affected areas unprepared, we cannot help but think that the unit handling information dissemination and those doing repair and maintenance work are not communicating among themselves.
Maybe this is one weak area in the DCWD operation that the management of the water agency in the city must endeavor to strengthen if it has to enhance its credibility with the consuming public.
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About two weeks ago the head of the Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) probing the rape and slaying of a lady architect announced that it was already in the thick of locating the tricycle unit used in the commission of the heinous crime.
Unfortunately, the public has yet to hear of reports on the development of the search for the tricycle. The SITG, too, has so far also failed to identify the unit owner.
People in Calinan, especially the victim’s immediate relatives, are hoping that the police will exert more effort in their investigative work. Otherwise, the rape-slay case against the victims will just add up to the figures on the many unsolved crimes in the city.
