Protecting the health of Magaleños
It can be recalled that the Philippine Durg Enforcement Agency (PDEA) has discovered an underground shabu laboratory inside the compound of a hog farm in Balitucan, Magalang town.
Evidently, the pigs got nothing to do with the manufacture of illegal drugs except as fronts to cover-up the said activity. Further, the stench from the piggery serves as cloak for the smell of the chemicals during the manufacture of illegal drugs.
As I have previously written in this column, the hog farm is nestled in the middle of vast farmlands which make it hard to discover. Who would ever suspect that a piggery has a shabu laboratory under it? This makes the place strategic and difficult to be suspected to be doing some criminal activities.
In addition, the said hog farm is merely several meters away from the Central Luzon Drug Rehabilitation Center and the Philippine National Police Regional Training School, making it a “safe place” for drug manufacturers against discovery and apprehensi on.
The operators of the said illegal drugs laboratory ran out of luck however when some informants managed to apply for a search warrant which led to the raid of the PDEA to the said hog farm and the subsequent discovery of the said illegal drugs manufacturing laboratory.
After the raid, arrest and eventual closure of the piggery farm, the municipal government of Magalang was faced with a predicament on how to go about with the pigs. The farm was abandoned and no one would take care of the animals left after the raid.
Unfortunately, the pigs on the farm which numbers to more than 4,000 heads, came to the point of dying and decaying because no one is tending them.
Acting on the judgement call and after consulting government agencies and authorities on what to do with the pigs, Magalang Mayor Maria Lourdes Paras Lacson ordered for the auction of the pigs that are slowly diminishing in number because of the absence of any caretaker who would take care of the said farm animals.
The auction resulted into the sale of the pigs in the amount of P7 million and the proceeds were deposited into the trust fund account of the municipality.
Mayor Paras simply did the right thing. She cannot sacrifice of course the health of Magaleños, the people she took an oath to serve because of the number of pigs that are on the brink of dying. In fact, several heads already succumbed and are rotting.
Sadly however, Mayor Lacson is now facing a graft complaint filed by the PDEA before the Office of the Ombudsman for the doing the right thing in order to protect the health of the citizenry.
Further, what Mayor Lacson did when she subjected to an auction the pigs of the said farm was the most practical and most logical since the municipal government need not spent a single peso on how to deal with the pigs with their deteriorating condition and eventually saving Magaleños from the possible spread of disease that may be brought about by the decay of dead pigs.
On top of these, the municipal government of Magalang has earned some revenues that sooner or later shall be converted into programs and projects that will benefit the people of Magalang. The proceeds are intact anyway as they were accounted on a trust fund account.
Why risk the health of the people and the municipal government’s funds for the disposal of the dead pigs when there is a far better, practical way of disposing them? *** For any comments, ideas, suggestions or opinions, text or call The Advocate at 0921-3636360 or send email at dencious@gmail.com