Ledesma: All about guns

FIRST the watershed code, then Leika Lopez and now the issue of gun deployment. In the first two issues, father and daughter do not seem to agree. On the third and most recent clash of ideas, father and daughter are one in saying that policemen deployed in the tourist belt, like the restaurants row on F. Torres street, have to be armed while the son disagrees.

What I am referring to here are the differences of opinions in the political family of Duterte. Mayor Inday Sara Duterte, when she was vice mayor, was emphatic in saying that she is not going to trifle with the watershed code of the city, which means that whoever is entertaining the idea of tapping the Tamugan river for any project will have to pass through the needles hole.

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Passing through that proverbial impassable hole will need to amend the code and only the Sangguniang Panlungsod can do that. When she was vice mayor, no attempt to amend the code was made despite the explicit overtures of then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte that they have to amend the code to allow the development of Tamugan River as source of water for the growing population of Davao City and then to tap it for cheap hydropower to address expected shortage of power as the city's economy expands.

I am in accord with the incumbent vice mayor, the father, to allow the utilization of Tamugan as water source and for hydro-power plant. As of now, the huge volume of water from that river just cascade down to the Davao Gulf. Part of that water could have ran the turbines and then as potable water. But unfortunately, for some unexplainable grounds, the Davao City Water District claimed that Hedcor, which plans to put up a hydropower plant, will deplete the supply of water and will in fact contaminate it. That claim, of course, is plain idiocy as not a drop of water will be lost from Tamugan since the water that will turn the turbines will just flow back to the river bed.

On the other hand, I believe that Mayor Inday, being a stickler of the law, stood path on her stand on leaving Tamugan alone precisely because the water code states so. If the present council will be able to present a rational stand, which also guarantees that Tamugan river as a resource will not be over-exploited that could lead to its demise and pollution, then I do not see why there could not be a happy compromise somewhere. Mayor Inday has a lot of sense and sensibilities than what one normally thinks of women executive.

On the gun issue at tourist destinations in the city, I am with Councilor Paolo "Polong" Duterte who said that law enforcers in the tourism belt must not be armed. I have gone to many tourist destinations myself, including those in volatile cities in Israel where Palestinians and the Jews are seemingly always after each other's neck, but in places where tourists go, you don't see gun toting policemen except in border crossing check points. Maybe, we can deploy plainclothesmen and establish a decent tourist information assistant center where well-equipped and well-trained policemen, not the Swat variety that bungled the job in Luneta, can be assigned. Prowl cars (not the open sided police vehicles) will be assuring presence. You don't see gun toting policemen in Singapore, HK and even in constantly chaotic Bangkok or in Phuket.

In Paris, near the Notre Dame Cathedral, there is an innocuous police station manned by well-dressed, trim and extremely courteous cops. In Rome, as well as in London, you see ceremonial brightly clad guards. But they too are part of the tourist sites. We may put in policemen on the beat, strictly equipped with baton and side arms only, should be constantly in motion and not slouching in one corner boring one another in gossip and eventually to sleep. If I get the drift of Mayor Inday right, the cops must not be like they are in a combat zone.

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By the way, our airport authorities have become extremely inutile. Where in the world can you see a very narrow arrival lane being used as parking place when there is so wide a parking lot that can be availed of? The vehicles that are parked along this route obviously belonged to the well-heeled Davao elite and government bigwigs who cannot walk the very short distance from the arrival area to the parking lot. Talking of looseness in discipline and abuse, this site at the Davao International Airport is the most despicable.