Catanduanes gov linked to drug trade

Human rights activists have all the reason to be scared of the threat of President Digong to kill all of them for hindering his war on drugs.

That is, if he meant it.

By now, the citizenry should be able to tell which statement of the President should be taken seriously and which should be considered tongue-in-cheek.

That “threat”—please take note of the quotation marks—was meant to drive home the point that the drug problem is so serious the President feels like killing people who get in the way.

Even at the height of the cleansing of notorious criminals in Davao City, Mano Digong was never known to have laid a hand on peaceful, law-abiding citizens.

When he was Davao City mayor, he was never known to have threatened local journalists who were very critical of him.

The problem with the President is that he is poker-faced when he makes jokes, which leads the uninitiated to take him seriously.

He is also fond of practical jokes.

I remember him taking me and my American friend, Matt Grecsec, whom he met for the first time, to a restaurant serving goat meat years ago.

He offered Matt papaitan, a soup of goat’s innards, and looked at the American straight in the eyes.

To American nostrils, papaitan stinks, and Digong knew that.

Matt looked at me as if to ask if he would accept the offer.

But Mayor Digong also looked at me, his eyes communicating that I should say yes.

I told Matt that local custom dictates that refusing an offer of food is an insult to the person making the offer.

Matt rushed to the restroom after sipping the soup.

While the American was in the toilet, the mayor looked at me, his eyes smiling.

The gravity and extent of the drug problem hit home when high officials in Catanduanes province are being implicated in the drug trade.

Gov. Joseph Cua and Mayor Samuel Laynes of the capital town Virac are suspected of owning a warehouse in Virac where meth or “shabu” was  being manufactured. The police raided the warehouse early this week.

Until recently Cua, Laynes and NBI Senior Agent Eric Isidoro reportedly ran a syndicate which distributed shabu in the entire Bicol region and adjoining provinces.

Kerwin Espinosa, a confessed drug lord in Eastern Visayas, is a midget compared to Cua, Laynes and Isidoro.

Espinosa was just a distributor of shabu while Cua, Laynes and Isidoro were manufacturers.

It seems the President chose the wrong guy to head the Philippine National Police (PNP).

Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa not only acts like a clown in public, which is very unbecoming of a police chief, he also does not take responsibility for his decisions.

Bato pointed to Secretary Christopher “Bong” Go of the Presidential Management Staff as the one who asked him to reinstate Supt. Marvin Marcos as chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Eastern Visayas.

Marcos is being implicated in the shooting death of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, who was in jail.

Asked by reporters why he reinstated Marcos whom he relieved of the CIDG post earlier, Bato pointed to Bong Go as the one who made the reinstatement request.

Go denies making the request and says he didn’t know Marcos.

Granting Go made him reinstate Marcos, why didn’t Bato just say he made a mistake?

A good leader takes the rap for a wrong decision even if such decision was foisted upon him by his superiors.