KIRK Bryan Repollo is no match to Debold Sinas: Repollo is barangay captain of Inayawan, Cebu City. Sinas is the region’s police chief. The captain commands a few tanods in his barangay; the general commands the police forces of the provinces and cities of Central Visayas. To the wags at City Hall, Repollo is, ah, cabbage; Sinas is prime beef, “the bold,” the leader of the war on illegal drugs in this part of the country.
But then, this is not about who is bigger in physical size or larger in the power of his organization. The dispute between the two public officials revolves on a police station the PNP was to build on a lot in Inayawan. Repollo didn’t want it built on the site picked by police, saying it would be a traffic obstruction and hazard. Sinas was offended when Repollo had the fence taken down and the construction stopped.
It’s about drugs
Ostensibly, the subject of disagreement was the location of the police station. As the heat soared, the public saw what fueled it: friction on the campaign against illegal drugs. Repollo’s Inayawan was where P122.4 million worth of shabu was recently seized. The police thought the barangay officials were lax in their job of monitoring crime operations in the area. Repollo believed the blame was misplaced.
Repollo said Sinas maligned him by suggesting he opposed the site of the police station because of politics. The barangay captain is allied with Mayor Tomas Osmeña who had been sniping at the police until President Duterte effectively silenced him with a public shaming.
The order for a “background check” incensed the barangay official as it obliquely labeled him as a possible crime suspect or person of interest. Sinas couldn’t understand Repollo’s stance as he saw no traffic hazard; the lot was donated; the barangay council approved it; and he expressed his objection only when the construction was about to begin.
In tears
But the quarrel over the police station could only be peripheral, not the core. “I can’t help crying because I’m furious because they are blaming us for their incompetence.” Police should have been able to detect the drugs at the port of entry, Repollo said. Sinas, on the other hand, thought the barangay captain was blaming the police for its “failure to monitor drug personalities” in Inayawan.
Repollo was fuming on the reported Sinas order for a background check: “Bring it on. We have nothing to hide. I’m not afraid...because I’m a person of dignity. I’m morally upright and we earn a living through honest means.”
Taking it to Duterte
The barangay official didn’t have to challenge Sinas publicly. Background check is not necessarily a smear job. It is standard police action; why, they background-check anyone who catches their interest.
Just as the police general didn’t have to wave it against the barangay captain with the threat of reporting the destruction of the fence to the President. Would Duterte deign to give his time to the case of a barangay captain who dared talk back to a police general? Sinas could very well take care of it himself.