THE DAVAO City Police Office (DCPO) reported yesterday its accomplishment vis-à-vis the focused directives that the command has issued after the assumption of Acting Police City Director Col. Hansel Marantan. The focused directives are containment or prevention of the following: Proliferation of illegal drugs in the city, illegal gambling, monitoring and arrest of wanted persons, and recovery or confiscation of loose firearms.
Of the four, according to the DCPO accomplishment report, successes in illegal drug busting and apprehension of those engaged in the drug trade were the highest. Imagine, in a city long touted around as “drug-free” the police confiscated some 879,332 grams of shabu with a street value of P5.979 million! Added to the shabu haul were some 66.917 grams of marijuana worth about P8 thousand.
Above all, in the police operations that led to the huge illegal drug bust, not a single individual either from the police or the suspects was killed. DCPO should be proud here.
The city police also arrested several persons engaged in illegal gambling as well as apprehended a total of 41 wanted persons in the city. Sixteen operations were done by the police that led to the confiscation of 7 firearms even as seven were also arrested for possessing the loose guns.
How should Davaoenos relate these accomplishment reports to the claimed upsurge in criminality in Davao City?
Are the police doing some kind of “window dressing just to lessen the impact of the claimed hike in kidnapping and other index crimes?
We can only hope that the official report on crime prevalence reflects the actual figure presented by the police in the official report.
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Remember then renegade soldier Col. Alexander Noble? He was the guy acknowledged as the leader of soldiers desiring to manifest their abhorrence to the way the country was run during the time when attempted coup d’etats were staged by idealistic members of the Armed Forces. His group was based in Cagayan de Oro City where he had established his family residence.
Colonel Noble later became a Security consultant for a huge government-owned corporation. From then we haven’t heard of him. Lately, though, we were informed by our friend and Colonel Noble’s too, Atenean Doroteo A. Gonzales, Jr., AmdG, of Calinan. (Ateneans are familiar with what the AmdG initials stand for) that Colonel Noble died last December 5, 2024, at his residence in Cagayan de Oro. His ashes were brought to the Libingan ng mga Bayani where it was buried last January 30 at 11 in the morning.
May he now rest in peace in heaven where there is nothing to complain about.
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In less than two months from now, we will be witnessing almost every vacant space in the city, including those belonging to private persons, posted with all kinds of politician’s campaign materials. Even those that are expressly prohibited by law because of some attendant dangers like electric poles, will not be spared. Why the audacity of the candidates through their campaign leaders? It is largely because the Commission on Election (COMELEC) cannot really prevent the posting despite efforts to do so.
It is everyone’s knowledge that the election body does not have the manpower to saturate all nooks and crannies in any given area of the city. The possible remedy to this COMELEC’s incapacity is for the agency to tap the barangay officials, and deputize them to do the job that is supposedly for the COMELEC so the barangay officials will acquire authority to execute the mandate for the electoral body.
Unfortunately, the very same village officials who could possibly be tapped by the poll agency are the ones working as local leaders of candidates and they are the ones hiring some people in their community to post or install their favored candidates’ campaign posters – and it is all for the money.
Now who cares to dismantle huge campaign billboards or take out campaign posters and related campaign materials of candidates especially so when the same are those of their chosen bets?
