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Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Maxey: One exasperated mayor, and a joker of an ex-president
By Ram Maxey
Bar None
"When index crimes exceed non-index crimes, it can only mean one thing: the police command concerned has failed to maintain peace and order in its jurisdiction."
ONE can only sympathize with Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña's exasperation over the rising criminality in his city. When a young lady from Cagayan de Oro City, who had just arrived in Cebu to witness the annual Sinulog festival, was raped by a drug addict inside the room of an inn where she was billeted, the visibly outraged Tom told his policemen to "go ahead, pull the trigger" should they see criminals in the act of breaking the law.
Of course, that sort of a happenstance -- a cop actually witnessing the commission of a heinous crime -- is a rarity. But Tom's immediate reaction to the rape, occurring as it did on the eve of the Cebuanos' beloved Sinulog, is understandable. Cebu is a famous tourist destination and such incidents as a visitor to the city getting raped gives the town a black eye.
To its credit, the Cebu provincial command is not hiding the truth of the crime situation in the four component cities that make up Metro Cebu as well as in the rest of the province. The crime volume had gone up from 2,093 in 2003 to 2,282 in 2004. More crimes were unsolved in 2004 than in 2003.
In one of the four component cities, Lapu-Lapu, which has a population of a quarter of a million, there is only one policeman for every 2,326 inhabitants when the ideal ratio is one per 500 for first-class citites which Lapu-Lapu is. Is there any wonder then that criminality is on the upsurge?
What is worse is that index crimes in the province rose to 1,283 in 2004 compared to only 1,213 in 2003. Index crimes are those perpetrated against persons and property, like murder, homicide, armed robbery, rape, etc. When index crimes exceed non-index crimes, it can only mean one thing: the police command concerned has failed to maintain peace and order in its jurisdiction.
The Cebuanos have a problem. No wonder Mayor Tom Osmeña had in a moment of extreme anger ordered his policemen to "go ahead, pull the trigger!" One can't be more extreme than that.
The Joker Is Wild
When former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada warned the Philippine Daily Inquirer people that they may be next for being allegedly biased in their reporting, he was referring to the recent torching of an ABS-CBN van by still unknown persons.
Erap however, fearing a backlash in media over his uncalled for remark, quickly reversed engine, saying that he meant that only as a "joke, joke, joke". In fact, when Erap won as president, the "joke, joke, joke" was on the Filipino people. And we're not laughing. For Davao bisaya stories.Click here.
(January 19, 2005 issue)
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