THE police are nitpicking in the drive against loiterers or Oplan Tambay so they are able to haul the “tambays” (“estambay” in Cebuano) to the police station or the jails. That is what Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) Chief Joel Doria is actually telling the public. Because there is no law or even an ordinance against loitering, the police are using violations of other laws and ordinances against the “estambays.”
That means local authorities now need to educate the people, especially on ordinances that, because these haven’t been implemented for a long time now, only few know these even exist. I think the Cebu City Government has a curfew ordinance for minors, but I don’t know its specifics. I don’t also know if similar ordinances exist in the other local government units (LGU) in Cebu.
I am sure no LGU in Cebu has a measure that mandates the arrest of people who are half-naked (obviously from the waist up), unlike in Quezon City. That ordinance got abused in the police’s implementation of Oplan Tambay there. One of the casualties in the operation, the one who was allegedly mauled by two convicts in the jail where he was brought, was nabbed for being shirtless.
Operations like this, or should I say its variations, have been done in the past, especially during the martial law years and under the dictatorship of former president Ferdinand Marcos. I know because I grew up under that regime in the ‘70s. In fact, the implementation of the curfew ordinance and those “saturation drives” conducted in our place were among my nightmares.
Our house stands along the road at the back of the old TB Pavillon and we children would often see those patrols by the police and barangay tanods in our sitio during day time and especially at night. The “saturation drives,” or that one wherein the police would “sweep” our village of suspicious (because their looks fit into how we portray the physical appearance of criminals on TV and in films) personalities. These people were often brought to the Fuente police station for questioning.
I say operations like this are prone to abuse and could easily turn violent. Those conducting the operation like the police at that time tended to overly assert themselves and some were even show-offs. They didn’t tolerate resistance and had no qualms physically harming those they felt were too aggressive in their resistance to “accept” the “invitation” for them to go to the police station.
During the martial law years, a sense of helplessness blanketed the people. When one got mauled in the operation (in fairness, nobody got “salvaged” in our place during those times, one could not get outside help. There were no cell phones to record the abuse and the creation of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) was still years away. You either cry or grit your teeth in anger silently.
That’s why I worry about the implementation by the Duterte administration of Oplan Tambay, especially because its targets are mostly the communities of informal settlers. I doubt, for example, if the police would operate in areas frequented by the rich like the vicinity of the Fuente Osmeña circle and Gen. Maxilom Ave. where establishments that cater to the moneyed are.