Duterte's blacklist

FIFTY eight out of 159 persons in President Rody Duterte’s blacklist of drug coddlers have surrendered to police, mostly to deny the tag as drug coddlers.

One surrenderee from Cebu admitted he is indeed a big drug lord in Central Visayas before PNP Chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, but that he had long wanted to change his ways.

He should thank President Rody. Without him, his plan to change his life wouldn’t have been realized sooner.

*** President Rody’s blacklist includes mayors, former mayors, vice mayors, policemen and judges. Perhaps many among them already expected to land in the list.

But some did not expect to be in that list, among them, former Cebu City mayor Mike Rama.

Well, he also didn’t expect to lose to Mayor Tomas Osmeña in the May 9 elections.

*** Rama said, “I’m very much saddened about what the President uttered. In my own view, it’s very much untrue. I am not a drug addict. The more I can’t be a pusher, worse a drug protector.”

The problem is nobody asked President Rody who made the list. Was the list verified and validated?

If it were Santa Claus, he’d be checking it twice to find out who’s naughty or nice.

*** The President’s list of drug coddlers included a judge who died eight years ago and a “congressman” who never became a congressman.

Lawyers love to quote the Latin phrase, “Falsus in uno, falsus in om

nibus,” which means "false in one thing, false in everything."

But President Rody, he’d remind you, is not a court. If you’re in the list and you don’t turn yourselves in, he’d order the police and the military to hunt you down.

*** But where did the list really come from? PNP Chief Bato said the list was collated in a workshop conducted by the intelligence community.

Now you know it’s just collated from a workshop where anyone can raise his hand and write a name on the board.

There are mistakes, Bato said, but these were only small mistakes. Wait for the next workshop.