|
Friday, September 20, 2002
SIENES: Duterte slay plot: Fact or agitprop?
By Cris G Sienes
Duterte, therefore, should not let his guards down. The syndicate's minions may be simply biding their time, waiting for one careless moment on Duterte's part to carry out the assassination plot.
MANILA-BASED drug and kidnapping syndicate, angered by Mayor Rodrigo Duterte's no-nonsense crusade against kidnapers, drugs and other criminal elements, has put up a P1 billion bounty for Duterte's head. Fact or mere agitprop?
There could be truth to the reported bounty to carry out the assassination plot against Duterte. He's been breathing hard down the necks of kidnapers and drug pushers hereabouts. His hard line stance against kidnapers, drug pushers and other criminal elements
has made it very difficult for crime syndicates to expand their operations to Davao City and adjoining purlieus.
More importantly, Duterte is the President's consultant on peace and order. He is called to Manila often for his suggestions and recommendations on how to deal with criminal elements.
Doubtless this has angered the Manila-based syndicate, so it has decided to remove Duterte by offering a fantastic P1 billion bounty for his head.
Duterte, therefore, should not let his guards down. The syndicate's minions may be simply biding their time, waiting for one careless moment on Duterte's part to carry out the assassination plot.
On the other hand, the alleged slay plot on Duterte could be a mere agitprop to scare the wits out the hard-fighting mayor who, to the syndicate, is a meddling probinsiyano. The syndicate can't allow a mere probinsiyano to meddle in its affairs.
Okay, so Duterte may be a promdi, but he's no ordinary promdi. He's a lawyer, a former prosecutor, a former congressman, a balikbayan mayor. He's also as tough as they come, and he doesn't scare easily. Threats to his life he considers inseparable adjuncts of his crusade against crime and he takes them in stride.
Duterte, in fact, merely laughed off the latest reported threat to his life. He even kidded the syndicate to hand him one-half of the P1 billion bounty and he would hang himself. He would give the
money to his children, he said. The syndicate could also save half of the bounty.
Remember the FPJ movie about a hard-hitting promdi policeman who went to Manila and made life a hell for a Manila crime syndicate? Duterte may not be FPJ, but in real life he's twice tougher than any Manileño should not underestimate him.
* * * * *
There seems to be a tug-of-war going on between Traffic Management Center (TMC) Chief Celedonia Tibayan and the City Council. This is as far as the new traffic loading and unloading scheme which is
being implemented by the TMC is concerned.
Tibayan says the new loading and unloading scheme has the imprimatur or Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, so he continues to implement it to solve the city's traffic problem.
The city council, on the other hand, says that the temporary permit for the new loading and unloading scheme expired last August 15, so its continuing implementation is illegal.
While the TMC has already submitted another request for the permanent approval of the new loading and unloading scheme, the city council has not yet acted on it.
The bottomline here is that the city needs a new traffic scheme to solve its bumper-to-bumper traffic. The new loading and unloading scheme appears to be working well so far. So the TMC and the city council should not get their acts together so that a permanent solution to the city's traffic problem can be agreed upon. It should not take the city council a very long time to approve or disapprove the new request of the TMC for the permanent approval of the new loading and unloading scheme.
Point to Ponder: "I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God." -Abraham Lincoln |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
