TWO MORE barangays in the Davao Region have been declared by law enforcement authorities, more specifically the Philippine Drug Enforcement Authority or PDEA XI, as having earned the so-called “drug-free” status. These are Barangays Mudiang in Davao City’s second district, and Zone 1 in Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur.
The two villages are among the 15 others that are still verified. Other than the two declared as on “drug-free” status, 159 barangays all over the region were validated as already in the “drug-free” category.
It has been a long time since we started reading and hearing pronouncements from the law enforcement authorities that this and that barangay in the Southern Mindanao Region is already free from the clutches of the addictive drugs.
We took it to mean that street-level drug pushers have abandoned the said barangays, possibly because of the voluntary decision of the residents that they already have so much negative image because of the existence of the drug trade in their area.
The residents, too, might have realized that the ideal society they are painstakingly building is seriously eroded at its foundation because of the prevalence of illegal drugs in their barangays.
But how come patronizing the prohibited merchandise appeared not to have been prevented despite the very strong – and even deadly – campaign against the addictive substance proliferation in the whole of the region?
Could it be that the demolition of the illegal drugs trade structure met a barrier so strong to confront? Where then has the campaign against illegal drugs in the region, specifically with Davao City as the primary focus, met its most difficult challenges?
We can only hope that no one influential personality, or groups wielding power in certain, if not all, areas in Southern Mindanao, are interfering in the efforts of the lawmen to hasten the quashing of the prohibited drugs business in this part of the country.
After all, is it not a given that when supplies of illegal drugs are not readily available, customers or those who are hooked on them will have no other option but to slowly do away with the vice?
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Now the tele-novela of sorts, that is, the investigation into the prevalence of the multi-billion-peso corruption on the government’s flood control projects, is already on its second level. From establishing who those involved were and the degree of their participation in the massive and open heist of taxpayers’ money, it is already time for finger-pointing.
The person who is portrayed as one of two who got the biggest chunk from the corruption money, former House Committee on Appropriations chair Zaldy Co, although speaking from his safest location abroad, strongly denied his appended status. Instead, Co claimed that he is only the “fall guy” in the corruption issue.
However, the former Ako Bicol Partylist Congressman’s assertion is wanting in credibility. Why, because Co just conveniently said he is merely the “fall guy.” But he did not mention any name that made him so. Our take on Co’s pointing a finger at an unidentified real mastermind in the budgetary insertions where the funds are to be sourced is that he could not risk naming the person behind the anomalous flood control projects.
It surely is very difficult for him. After all, if he allowed himself to be the “fall guy,” then the person making him such could only be someone who is above him in the Congressional hierarchy.
So the possibility that the one who made him the “fall guy” in the biggest open heist of people’s taxes could either be the Speaker of the House up to the time of his resignation, or the President who makes the final approval of the appropriations bill for it to become a law.
Unfortunately for Co, he does not have the raw courage to expose those who made him the “fall guy.” So he will have to suffer the consequences of his cowardice and serve the sentence that might be given if the court finds him guilty.
And we could only imagine the degree of humiliation that he and his family will reckon with during ang after the trial.
With the former Congressman’s money, however, we are certain that he will fight it out even up to the highest court just to prove his innocence, or perhaps reduce the gravity of the cases that might come out because of the multi-billion–peso anomalies.
