Monday, October 06, 2008 Mongaya: When will the angel fall? By Anol Mongaya
JOAVAN is at it again, confident in the thought that his guardian angel, his Catholic defending foster father and mayor of Talisay City, won’t abandon him. Shortly after two witnesses in an illegal detention and robbery issued affidavits of desistance, he attacked a son of a barangay councilor in a fit of jealousy.
It seems Joavan has grown more brazen in his capers. More now wish of the guardian angel’s fall from grace sooner than 2010 so nobody would come to intercede for Joavan anymore.
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Many unfamiliar with the customs way immediately condemned those they imagined to have been behind the alleged smuggling of contraband inside a container van held by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7.
At least one NBI agent himself told me he at first thought the contents of the van were illegal vehicles or smuggled rice. After all, it was an operation of the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) from Manila who wanted to embarrass their local counterpart.
But it was all the concoction of a faction of PASG Manila that wanted somebody else to head the PASG unit in Cebu. So they devised this scheme to have the NBI 7 apprehend a container van that supposedly slipped under the very noses of PASG Cebu operatives.
Unfortunately, the plan unraveled in a rather embarrassing fashion for the schemers:
• PASG Cebu Chief Ariel Palcuto received reports that armed men masquerading as PASG were after a van at the North Reclamation Area.
Together with the Mandaue Swat and OIC police Chief Mersan Premne, they accosted the NBI 7 team who made the apprehension.
• Palcuto pointed out the irregularity of an operation with a mission order carried out principally by the assisting unit. Nobody from the mother unit, PASG Manila, was present during the actual apprehension.
• The NBI 7 team had to deal with NBI Manila’s Reynaldo Esmeralda who felt slighted by the failure to inform him beforehand of the operation and the fact that a lower unit followed an order issued by another agency and a rival within the NBI.
• The container van that was at the center of the controversy turned out to contain only tiles. Records at the Bureau of Customs showed that the importer had paid in full the taxes due for the shipment.
When the container van was opened, the principal PASG officials from Manila shied away from the local media. They do not want to admit that the container van did not have anything irregular. Palpak ang ilang intel.
The near mis-encounter between NBI 7 and PASG Cebu was not even over a bone. The PASG officials from Manila ordered an operation on a legitimate shipment.
Asked about what he could say about the role of NBI 7? One PASG Cebu official merely shrugged and said, “Pinatalon sila ni (PASG’s Edmond) Arugay.”
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In our trip home from a sumptuous fiesta lunch at the home of Sun.Star Cebu columnist Godofredo Roperos in Balamban Saturday afternoon, I accidentally met members of the Provincial Women’s Commission (PWC).
The commission recently passed a resolution condemning alleged pornography in local tabloids naming Superbalita as one of the erring papers.
Being friends from the NGO community, I told them that I intend to personally defend Superbalita even before members of the Provincial Board when the body takes up their request for legislation censuring the Cebuano daily over such allegations.
We don’t really have differences on being against pornography. I maintained that Superbalita is against the publication of erotic literary pieces and nudity in our photos. Our regular readers would readily know the differences of what we publish compared with other tabloids. After all, we want the parents who buy our paper not to be ashamed bringing it to the house for their family members to likewise read.
But why include Superbalita in their anti-porn resolution?
During the brief chat, I gathered that the problem basically boils down on differing opinions on what constitute pornography. For our morality guardians for example, kissing scenes in Cebuano literature is already questionable.
Still, I believe we need to thresh out an agreement on what is porn what we are going to do about it lest the Provincial Government will tread on the dangerous path of censorship and curbing of the growth of Cebuano literature.
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