|
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Editorials: Quisumbing’s idea
Cebu Provincial Board Member Luis Gabriel Quisumbing has released a trial balloon.
The idea: to preserve the raided shabu laboratory in Umapad, Mandaue City as a tourist destination, the same way that Alcatraz Prison, on an island in San Francisco harbor, became one.
There are some similarities: Both are associated with crime, although the lab site was the scene of the crime and Alcatraz was where they put “super-criminals.” Both are symbols of sort: the lab site for inept, possibly corrupt police and local officialdom; Alcatraz, for escape-proof, inhuman and cruel jails.
We seriously doubt about the Umapad lab’s tourism potential though.
What will it have to offer? It can’t have real ready-to-use shabu, chemicals, maybe not even equipment. Under the law, they have to be destroyed. Besides, shabu is toxic, requiring trained personnel and special protective clothing for those who come near it. Using replicas won’t be authentic and thus not as attractive to tourists.
The Umapad lab site is no Alcatraz, not even close. The prison on America’s Devil Island was widely known as unique for the harshness on inmates, with maximum security, minimum privileges, rule of silence, daily lockup of 14 hours a day, special handcuffs, straitjackets, solitary confinements, and impossibility of escape. Its notoriety came with a zero or near-zero escape record and a high suicide rate for inmates who couldn’t stand sub-human conditions.
The Umapad lab — in a warehouse with props of fake shabu, chemicals, and equipment — will be a letdown. Even if they throw in bit actors playing PDEA and Swat cops, it will bore sightseers to death.
Quisumbing’s idea though betrays a biting sense of humor.
Preserving the Umapad lab site is keeping the memory of the scandal alive, one that haunts and taunts the police and the local officials of Mandaue.
The lab site is testament to failure of police intelligence and breakdown of standards of local governance. And Quisumbing wants it to stand forever.
Naughty, naughty.
Foot in the mouth
Wasn’t Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña rash and unfair in raging over a company’s complaint against the local Air Transport Office (ATO) for not issuing a permit for its jet to land in Mactan?
ATO says the firm’s agent didn’t submit required papers, that’s why it denied the request.
There seems to be a big foot stuck somewhere — and it’s not in ATO’s mouth.
(October 6, 2004 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
