Duterte should also focus on crime and corruption

PRESIDENT Digong is asking the Filipino people to give him more time to eliminate the drug problem as the government campaign enters its third month.

The President said he would solve the narcotics problem in six months upon assuming office on June 30.

But the drug problem is so enormous, it can’t be solved in three to six months.

So far, 3,500 people have been killed by police and police-sanctioned vigilante groups.

Methinks the drug problem can be solved the fastest way by getting rid of the drug lords inside the New Bilibid Prison as well as policemen, local officials and judges who coddle drug pushers and dealers.

Kill the pushers, save the users, a favorite saying goes.

Of course, users who become pushers should also be eliminated.

*  *  *

Mano Digong has been so focused on the drug problem he seems to have forgotten to deal with other forms of criminality, as well as corruption.

Kidnapping, robbery, car theft, gun-for-hire killing, home breakins and abuses committed by policemen should also be given attention.

Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, chief of the Philippine National Police, has been too busy going after drug lords and pushers, which may be why abuses committed by cops against civilians seem to be on the rise.

Several nights ago, a friend called me up in the middle of the night to report that his son and nephews were being held at a checkpoint in Bacoor town, Cavite province, for no reason.

“Nakursunadahan lang sila ng mga pulis (They were being held by the cops on a whim),” my friend said later.

The young men, who were on their way to Makati on board a sport utility vehicle, were released hours later after my friend went to where they were being held.

“My son and nephews are still traumatized by the experience,” he said. It’s a good thing the cops manning the checkpoint didn’t plant drugs in their car.

Complaints about the “planting” of drugs on innocent citizens have reached my “Isumbong mo kay Tulfo” office.

* * *

Mano Digong’s plan to rid all government agencies of corrupt personnel is not working at the Bureau of Customs (BOC).

The BOC juts out like a sore thumb in the President’s policy of honesty and prompt service in government because of Nicanor Faeldon’s mismanagement of the bureau.

* * *

Whoever recommended Faeldon to the President was not thinking of the consequences.

Faeldon’s benefactor probably thought that since he’s a former military officer, he would run the graft-ridden agency with an iron hand; he or she thought wrong.

Faeldon is like a grade two pupil managing SM Mega mall.

* * *

“I’m lucky to be alive,” says Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad after he was released by the Abu Sayyaf nearly a year after he was kidnapped.

Sekkingstad was lucky his family or government paid his ransom.

His two companions, who were kidnapped with him at a resort on Samal Island in Davao del Norte, were beheaded because their governments or families could not afford or refused to pay ransom.

The claim by the military that the bandits were forced to release Sekkingstad because of the relentless campaign against them is pure fiction.

* * *

I’d like to greet my friend, Alex Wongchuking, president of Mighty Corp., on the cigarette firm’s 71st anniversary today (Tuesday).

Alex’s father, Wong Chu King, founded Mighty Corp. on Sept. 20, 1945.

The company’s factory, which sits on a nine-hectare property in Malolos town, Bulacan province, has modern machines for making cigarettes and cigarillos or small cigars.

Mighty has captured 20 percent of the local cigarette market and the lead in the cigarillos market.