Why can’t P-Noy be like his father?

Escalating crime and a low solution rate have made Quezon City the country’s crime capital.

It is a commentary on the inefficiency of the Philippine National Police, in general, and the Quezon City Police District, in particular.

The latest crimes that enraged the citizenry were the killings of event organizer Sheryl Sarmiento, who was apparently mistaken for someone else, and yoga practitioner Teresa Teaño.

The deaths of Sarmiento and Teaño were most notable, not only because they were women but also because they were committed at daytime in full view of many people.

Their assailants knew they could commit their crimes unimpeded because of the absence of uniformed cops on the streets.

* * *

Our cops chase criminals after crimes have taken place. This is wrong.

The primary duty of the police is to prevent crime from happening; crime solution is only secondary.

To prevent crime, uniformed cops should patrol the streets instead of staying at the police stations waiting for crime victims to file complaints.

* * *

Who is that irresponsible and uncaring TV reporter who mentioned the name, as well as the address, of an eyewitness to the killing of a woman in Kamuning, Quezon City?

Teresa Teaño was gunned down and then run over by armed men who stole her newly bought car in front of several people.

One of the eyewitnesses, a man, is now in hiding for fear of his life.

His identity and complete address were reported on national TV network news.

The TV channel and reporter should be made answerable if the eyewitness is harmed.

* * *

President Noy’s popularity rating has gone down further in the latest survey by the Social Weather Stations.

It will continue to dip if his family doesn’t give up Hacienda Luisita.

The President’s maternal relatives, the Cojuangcos, refuse to parcel out the vast farmland to its thousands of “kasama” or farmhands despite the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL).

CARL, passed under the administration of President Cory, P-Noy’s mother, provides for the distribution of vast tracts of agricultural lands to tenant-farmers.

Hacienda Luisita is P-Noy’s Achilles heel.

* * *

Some Catholic bishops are urging the President to convince his maternal relatives to parcel out Hacienda Luisita.

But as things are now, the chances of the Cojuangcos giving up Luisita is like Queen Elizabeth renouncing her throne.

The Cojuangcos are the exact opposite of the Aquinos, P-Noy’s relatives on his father’s side.

Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani likes to tell the following anecdote about the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr.:

When Ninoy was studying at San Beda College in Manila in the 1950s, his mother, Doña Aurora, visited him from Tarlac.

Ninoy, who even then already had a social conscience, asked Doña Aurora to distribute their landholdings to their tenant-farmers.

Aurora Aquino told her son it was impossible.

To which, Ninoy replied: “How can you go to church every Sunday and not practice charity?”

But Doña Aurora was adamant.

Several weeks after that exchange, the mother called her son.

She said that she had decided to distribute the farm to their tenant-farmers as Ninoy had requested.

Since then, the Aquinos have not owned a big farm.

Why can’t P-Noy be like his father?