While P-Noy works, Binay starts campaign early

A 32-year-old ex-convict, Albert Galang de la Cruz, has been arrested by the police on suspicion of robbing and raping women dentists.

The arrest came after three long months of surveillance.

“It’s him, ” said two of around 10 of De la Cruz’s alleged victims when they saw him in a police line-up at the headquarters of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) at Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City.

The NCRPO, under Director Alan Purisima, should be congratulated for a job well done.

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“The long arm of the law has finally caught up with the criminal” is a cliché, but it aptly describes the case of De la Cruz.

After three long months of painstaking work—of course, under public pressure—the police caught the robber-rapist.

When I was a police reporter covering the Manila Police District (then called the Western Police District), a cop—if memory serves, then Cpl. Bernard Halili, who’s now working with Manila Mayor Fred Lim—told me that no case would ever go unsolved if only police work hard.

De la Cruz’s arrest proved that no matter where a criminal hides, the law will catch up with him.

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If De la Cruz had operated in Davao City, local vigilantes would have played a racing game with the police in catching him.

The DDS, or Davao Death Squad—some residents ascribe a different meaning to DDS—would probably have beaten the police in the race.

And De la Cruz, who had served a sentence earlier at the National Penitentiary for robbery, would have been dead a long time ago.

And residents wouldn’t have given a hoot if he was executed without the benefit of a court trial.

Most people—in Davao City and elsewhere—are sick and tired of that worn-out phrase, “due process of law.”

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An unimpeachable source told me that former Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronnie Puno is in China to meet up with President Noy, who is leaving for a state visit to that country on Tuesday.

Puno, according to my source, arrived in China days ahead of the state visit.

He and his fellow members of Kampi are organizing a new political party supposedly to coalesce with P-Noy’s Liberal Party.

Like someone else said, in politics, there are no permanent enemies, only permanent interests.

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While the President is working so hard, or not so hard—whichever side you are on—his vice president, Jojo Binay is campaigning very early.

Binay’s rah-rah boys have been sending a barrage of text messages to cell phone owners.

Here are just two examples of the many:

“Binay earmarks PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) for senior citizens.

“Vice President Jejomar Binay has earmarked his pork barrel allocation for 2011 to build or rehabilitate 300 centers for senior citizens nationwide.”

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Whoever replaces Customs Commissioner Lito Alvarez should reshuffle the customs bureau from top to bottom.

Nobody should be spared in the revamp.

Officials of sections and offices that handled the 1,900 containers that disappeared without a trace should be replaced.

Otherwise, corruption will remain in the second-highest revenue-collection agency.