Touchy, touchy

The Cebu Provincial Police Office’s (CPPO) recent announcement that some officials in Talisay City are protecting suspected drug personalities has ruffled some feathers.

I, for one, think the CPPO has every reason to reach this conclusion. How else would you explain the illegal drug trade that continues to flourish in the city despite the CPPO’s successive anti-drug operations there? Hmm?

But for First District Rep. Gerald Anthony Gullas, who, by the way, is running for mayor in Talisay next year, the CPPO’s statement has cast local officials in a bad light.

“My only plea is to take caution in pinning government officials in general, pending validation of their involvement in all these illegal activities. This way, we cannot put all government officials in a cloud of doubt,” he said.

Well, the congressman has every right to be concerned. After all, one of those government officials who have been put in a “cloud of doubt” is his grandfather, Eduardo Gullas, Talisay’s incumbent mayor.

Oddly enough, the octogenarian official has been awfully quiet. I would have raised some furor had I been a local government unit’s chief executive and my constituents were dropping off like flies in police encounters.

What was that? Seven people killed in the city in the last seven days? It’s short of a bloodbath. But no. Not a peep from the mayor.

Not when Arnel Hernani, Ramonito Maneja and a certain Joseph died in a shootout with police in Barangay Lawaan 3 on Friday, Nov. 23.

And not when Susano Labrador, Vincent Ceballos and Warlito Tecson died in another shootout with police in Barangay Maghaway on Saturday, Nov. 24.

And certainly not when suspected drug pusher Junie Macaraya was felled by a bullet during a buy-bust conducted by the Provincial Intelligence Branch in Barangay Jaclupan on Tuesday, Nov. 27.

You see, it’s either Mayor Gullas is not aware of their deaths, which would be highly unlikely since almost everyone’s talking about them, or he is but he has more pressing matters to attend to.

Either way, it doesn’t look good on his stewardship, although Talisay City Police Chief Marlu Conag did say that local officials had been supportive of the police’s campaign against illegal drugs so I guess that would include the mayor.

I guess.

As for Vice Mayor Alan Bucao, he wants the CPPO to name these narco-politicians so the innocents can be cleared. But its director, Senior Supt. Manuel Abrugena, said no. “We will not reveal their names yet since we are still validating the information,” he said.

Well, there you go.