Let’s not lose momentum in the war vs drugs!
Exactly 30 years ago, I flew to Manila to meet with Sir Max Soliven and he handed me my very first press card, which was signed by him as publisher and Mr. Antonio Roces as editor of the Philippine STAR. In taking me as STAR correspondent in Cebu, which is a Manila-based newspaper, it was quite a new and unique experience where it took me sometime to be accepted by the very close knit Cebu media because technically I was considered an “outsider.” But a year later, the late Freeman publisher Juanito “Nito” Jabat asked me to write columns for The Freeman and it was there that I joined the ranks of the Cebu media… and 30 years later, we are still in the trenches so to speak. Aside from writing columns, we also write Lifestyle articles for The Freeman and 16 years ago, SkyCable asked me to do a talk show for them and 800 plus shows later, we are still very much around.
Then five years ago, I was asked to manage MyTV, a cable-based local TV that is shown in Metro Cebu and on the Parasat Cable in Northern Mindanao. Unfortunately, I have to slow down a bit, as I’m due for a kidney transplant as soon as I can find a matching donor. So I can only celebrate this milestone when my health gets back to normalcy. In the meantime, I thank my faithful and loyal readers for being with me in this 30-year journey as a journalist. It is a great honor to serve you with the most important element in a journalist’s toolbox… with the truth! May God bless you all!
***
There are 24 Senators and it just gets my gall that the news reports on the on-going Senate investigation on the alleged extra-judicial killings are focused only as if this is a personal squabble between Senator Leila De Lima and Pres. Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte. First of all, with no less than Pres. Duterte accusing Sen. De Lima of immorality with her driver and his possible links in the illegal drug trade, it means that she has lost her moral ascendancy even to be in the Senate hearing.
The least we expect from her is to resign from the Senate committee or even resign as a Senator especially now that Pres. Duterte has clearly pointed out that the Bilibid drug matrix has Sen. De Lima playing a major role. The Senate hearings also showed that Sen. De Lima was using a witness whose father was killed last June 20, 2016. Come now… wasn’t she still the Secretary of Justice when this crime was committed? If this Senate hearing was to investigate the killings under the Duterte administration, Sen. De Lima apparently brought along a wrong witness to pin down Duterte!
Meanwhile, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson declared that the Senate should not get in the way of Pres. Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs. Sen. Lacson believes that either the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) or the Department of Justice (DoJ) should be tasked to investigate the cases of extra-judicial killings… not the Senate. For many times I have been at odds with Sen. Lacson…but this is one statement that he made that I fully concur. After all, Sen. Lacson was once on top of the Philippine National Police and he knows the intricacies and challenges of the job of our policemen.
Therefore we must never lose the momentum that has happened in the war against illegal drugs. For one, the crime rate has gone down… but unfortunately, the Human Rights advocates, especially those rapporteurs from the United Nations (UN) have not followed strict protocol and are merely using the news in gathering their reports against the Duterte administration. They should show to the nation that the UN is also transparent! *** In response to our article about the return of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), I got a long
letter from the Duterte Youth defending the strong ROTC stand of Pres. Duterte in bringing back the ROTC as a compulsory subject in school. In their official statement, the Duterte Youth
declares, “We strongly support this patriotic call of President Rodrigo Duterte for the restoration of the ROTC. He is the first Philippine President and Commander-In-Chief, after President Ferdinand Marcos, who has shown personal attention to the need for a stronger military training of the Filipursuit pino youth. Our Asian neighbors have strengthened their required military training programs for the youth and now you can see how all of them, especially Singapore and South Korea, have enhanced discipline, nationalism and cooperation among their youth and because of this they were able to strengthen their defense forces and mobilize their citizens for economic development and other nation-building efforts.”
It’s great to know that we have a youth group that is committed to nation building. But being a student of history…I can only wish that they would change their name and refrain from using Duterte Youth because he just sounds too much like the Hitler Youth. I have always believed that we should pledge our allegiance to our country and never to a political party or worse to a political personality and I’m sure that Pres. Duterte himself will certainly agree with me on this issue because for him, love of country is more important than loyalty to his name!