So five of the alleged 19 firearms of now fugitive Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy are already surrendered to the police authorities after the religious leader’s licenses to own and possess were revoked by the government.
According to news reports on the surrender done by Executive Pastor Marlon Acobo, authorized representative of Pastor Quiboloy at the Jose Maria College, the firearms consist of 1 Colt Rifle, 2 Berettas, and 2 Metrillo pistols. The remaining guns were alleged to have already been sold. To support the claim Pastor Acobo reportedly presented documents related to the sale.
We do not know if the officials serving the revocation documents are all greenhorns or naïve. Did they just take the legitimacy of the sales documents presented “hook, line and sinker?” Were they not supposed to question the identities of the buyers so they could look into whether they have already applied for a license, or whether or not they are qualified to own firearms?
Meanwhile, the firearms owner who could easily be identified wherever he goes because of his regular television appearances when doing his daily tele-evangelism, has continued to successfully evade the many teams of trackers searching for his whereabouts.
If claims made by the law enforcers that the sect leader is still in the Philippines probably because his air assets are still at their hangars, then the likelihood is that some well-heeled personalities are shielding him or perhaps exercising their influence so that the members of the tracker teams will look the other way every time they have the opportunity to find where the Pastor is holed up.
It is also possible that the wanted Pastor is now making use of certain powers given him by his “Father” allowing him to be invisible when arresting officers get near him. We wonder if any human sleuth would ever beat that kind of “bunker.”
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Finally some brave taxi drivers have decided to bring to the attention of one of Davao City’s councilors the issue of the fairness of virtually denying them the freedom to gas up their units wherever it is convenient for them.
Yes, this issue is about large taxi operator-companies having their own gas pumps inside the compound of their garage and making it a policy for their drivers to load gas only in its pump inside. Personally we are aware of this silent complaint of taxi drivers as they claim the price per liter inside their garage is higher compared to outside gas stations. In fact we learned that for taxi units operated on a straight 24 hour basis, by the time the unit is returned to the garage the outgoing driver will replenish the gas tank to its full capacity so the reliever will just have to take over and replenish himself when his time to return the unit for the other driver to take over. And as always the gassing up shall be done in the garage gas pump.
Well the operator’s freedom to craft policies for their business cannot be questioned. That is part of the so-called constitutionally guaranteed freedom of enterprise. But what can be questioned by the City Council or by any one is whether or not the retailing of gas inside the garage of bigtime taxi operators has a business permit from the city government independent of that of the taxi business. If it does not have a local government business permit then that should be one area for the Council to look into in crafting an ordinance that will have province over that particular gas retailing business inside operator’s garage.
Or the City Council through its Committee om Transportation and Related Concerns may call the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to shed light whether or not the franchise issued to operators includes provisions allowing it to operate its own gas business inside their garage to cater to the requirements of their units.
We therefore congratulate Second District Councilor Angelo Mahipus for bringing out to the local lawmaking body this long-practiced policy by profit-greedy operators that many taxi drivers feel unfair to them.
And if the youthful councilor sees any aspect of this “ride-on” business of taxi operators that is disadvantageous to the city especially its capacity to augment its income, then we suggest that the councilor from the second district should start thinking of an ordinance that will govern operation of gas stations inside taxi garage.
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