Teban’s trouble

The arrest of two suspects who robbed Provincial Board (PB) member Julian Daan, better known by his radio and TV stage name “Teban Escudero” nearly 24 hours after the burglary occurred at his home in a Talisay City subdivision pointed to one small, yet telling detail about the Talisay City police.

In trying to contact the police, Daan’s wife Yolly was informed later that the police’s phone line had been disconnected owing to unpaid bills since last March 14 or a day before payday.

The incident would have been laughable, straight out of the radio/TV comedy drama scripts that Daan himself would have written were it not for the fact that the crime was quite real and Daan had nightmares about the incident.

So after being informed about the crime a few hours after it happened, the Talisay City police went to work and while the arrest of the suspects was a near no-brainer—there is that abandoned house right behind Daan’s house—the effort it took to arrest the suspects elicited enough of a commendation from the Daan couple themselves.

But while Daan may now probably sleep well at night knowing that his tormentors, amateur robbers at that, are behind bars, Talisay City residents aren’t so relaxed.

After having to deal with a troublemaker in the person of Joavan Fernandez, the controversial adopted son of Mayor Socrates Fernandez, now they have to deal with a local police who lost their phone line, albeit temporarily.

We could only hope that the mayor heard about this report and ordered the release of funds for the payment of their police precinct’s phone bills. If Mayor Fernandez had any doubts about the obligations to and authority of local government units (LGUs) over their police precincts, he should look at former Consolacion mayor Alvin Gungob, who decided to cut off the power and phone lines of the municipal police after it continued to keep a police chief that he didn’t like.

Consolacion residents responded to Gungob’s brazen display of hubris in power by voting him out of office last year. Fernandez had been in power for some time despite the abuses of his adopted son but when Talisay City residents cannot hope to expect immediate police assistance due to a disconnected phone line, then something is terribly wrong.

And Mayor Fernandez need not hide himself behind a crash helmet in order to resolve this problem. He only needs to pick up the phone—hopefully his line isn’t disconnected—and tell his people to immediately pay the Talisay City police precinct’s phone bill.

Or maybe a grateful Daan can sponsor another resolution asking the Talisay City government to pay for their precinct’s phone bills, or he may pay the bills himself. That’s just one small but useful gesture for a police force that does its job within its limits.