RECENTLY, Mabalacat City Vice-Mayor Christian Halili has enjoined their local police to orient barangay officials on piggeries that may be hiding a shabu laboratory or is actually used as an illegal drugs manufacturing facility.
Barangay officials are frontline service providers among local government units. They are usually the ones who know and should know almost everything that is happening in their small kingdoms which include the quarrels of couples, the loans of some, the weaknesses or vices of barangay folks, among others.
Likewise, officials can easily know the establishments, commercial or industrial, in their respective barangays they serve. This would start when these commercial or industrial entities secure barangay clearances or permits before the same would operate or start their activities.
Further, barangay officials have their barangay watchmen who sometimes conduct patrols in communities especially during night time. They can somehow have a peek on what is happening and what is going on in establishments particularly those involved in manufacturing or other similar industries.
In other words, barangay officials can be very effective in the gathering of report of activities and other information on their own barangays and can also be helpful in the monitoring of crimes and other illegal activities.
Like in the past, barangay watchmen, known usually as barangay tanods, are also considered as effective force multipliers on crime prevention and the suppression of illegal activities through the gathering and reporting of information and intelligence reports.
Many of our barangay watchmen, despite their being under-appreciated, are in fact better augmentation force to law enforcers as their area of responsibilities are simply confined in their respective barangays and that they may know most people who are coming in and going out of their barangays.
Barangay watchmen or tanods are somehow familiar with many faces including transient residents because the former are often on the streets either on patrol or simply on standby.
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After several deaths of people alleged to be involved in illegal drugs activities, President Rodrigo Duterte seems to be going below the belt with his tirades against international organization of states and against other countriesí leaders including US President Barack Obama.
The national administration as it seems, is winning the war against criminality, particularly on illegal drugs. However, we are losing our diplomatic relationship with other countries and states organization.
President Duterte is bragging that we cannot be always subservient to other states. If only we are considering patriotism, this is a good statement. On the other hand, he seems to be having a hard time in accepting the fact that we are a third world country and that we need other countries or states for support in whatever form.
A little respect for them is what is called for now.
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