Bzzzzz: Luigi bikini girls video says propa war is on

MANDAUE City Mayor Luigi Quisumbing's chief of staff, Atty. Mae Elaine Bathan, said the video clip showing the mayor on a yacht with a number of girls in bikini was "obviously" used to distract the public from more pressing problems in the city, particularly on crime, that have been caused or instigated allegedly by a prominent person in Mandaue.

Did she mean the mayor is going after criminals and their leader is hitting back with a smear campaign?

The Luigi camp may still be speculating and not wanting to disclose more than it has to at this stage of the political season.

But how about such basic investigation steps as (a) knowing who took the shots and who set up the Instagram and Facebook posts and (b) identifying the enemy who gave the order?

Or do they already know?

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Not damaging to Luigi but...

The clip merely showed the mayor enjoying the sight of so many barely clad young women. And Quisumbing was not in any stage of undress or sex activity.

Yet it showed his vulnerability to manipulation and the degree to which his opponent could go.

It's like telling Mayor Luigi, "Here's what you will be facing this time. Compared to the 2016 'propa' war in 2016 waged by Lollypop Ouano, that was kid-stuff."

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Duterte 'clueless' on Dumpit

When President Duterte talked with news reporters at Bellevue Resort in Panglao, Bohol Thursday, June 28, he didn't have the facts yet on the background of SPO1 Adonis Dumpit. Dumpit was killed in Tagbilaran City a day earlier (Wednesday, June 27).

He said, "Let me ask you. (Was he a) drug pusher? Was he suspected of being a narco (cop)? Involved siya sa narcotics? Taga Davao siya?..."

Unless he was being rhetorical, Duterte must not have been briefed on the NBI-police operation staged the previous day.

He sounded as clueless as many Cebuanos who had heard "bad things" about Dumpit, such as being a "vigilante cop," but not about being involved in illegal drugs.

Once he was told (stories from Bohol didn't say who answered him), he had the stock answer: no sympathy for anyone who's into drugs. "Good that he was finished off here, he would've been finished off in Davao."

Dumpit was born in Davao City, the eighth of 10 children. His mother, 84, still lives there. Duterte didn't know that he and Dumpit had the same hometown. But Dumpit had stayed in Cebu for so long that many thought he was a Cebuano. And when he was killed, he had been reassigned back to Bohol only about two weeks earlier. He was on his way to report to the provincial police headquarters when the alleged firefight with law enforcers took place.

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Scaring off Dumpit friends

Friends of Dumpit who are themselves police members have stayed away from his wake after a PNP official announced that those who'd visit would be photographed and questioned.

Investigators could've inquired into links with Dumpit by quietly recording the visits of fellow cops. Monitoring by CCTV or plain notes-keeping would've accomplished the purpose.

Apparently though, the intent was to show that his fellow cops did not sympathize with Dumpit and to warn others that ostracism is part of the price for profiting from illegal drugs.

Dumpit's kin had been stripped of financial benefits because the cop allegedly went rogue. PNP officials already announced it even though the crime had still to be proved.

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