HUNGER stalks. Anger rises. Meanwhile, there is a breakdown
of law and order.
Remember when I wrote in this space about a chef at the
Mandarin who, while withdrawing money from his ATM account at a bank at Taft
Avenue and Vito Cruz, was "arrested" by two policemen, who tried to shake him
down by planting a packet of shabu in his car? And how he was brought to the
police station at UN Avenue when he demanded his rights?
Those cops are now on the carpet, and orders have been given
to transfer them to the ARMM, perhaps to help Joel Goltiao look for Lintang
Bedol. Meanwhile, the PNP NCRPO is investigating. That’s relatively good news.
At least they are investigating their own.
Since we wrote that article, we have been deluged by reports
about similar incidents. One victim, elsewhere in the city, was bilked of a
million bucks, which his distraught Chinoy parents were forced to cough up.
In another incident in the metropolis, a lady employee, also
withdrawing from an ATM machine, suddenly saw herself accosted by two burly men,
with one poking a knife at her. She gave them everything — the money she
withdrew, her cellphone, her bracelet. Before leaving with their loot, the guy
with the knife stabbed her nonetheless.
Another report sent us by text described how a lady was
robbed of her belongings right after she emerged from a pet shop.
And it seems media has either gotten tired of reporting, as
incidents of lawlessness have run amuck, or victims have stopped complaining to
the police, perceiving them to be criminal perpetrators rather than protectors.
There is a direct correlation between petty crime and
poverty. Not that poverty or want could ever justify crimes against property,
but as Erap loves to say, "hungry stomach knows no law".
Worse, when the protectors of the people against criminals
are themselves the perpetrators of crime, what happens to the ordinary people
they are sworn to protect? Helpless, that’s what.
Out of the terrifying and into the mundane, have you noticed
how so much order has broken down?
In what used to be the "royal, loyal and noble" City of
Manila, try driving into any of its side streets. Most streets leading to busy
intersections have become one-way streets. Fine, if that is what is needed to
control the flow of traffic. But be very, very careful. For while you and I
follow the traffic directions, out zoom pedicabs right in front of you, defying
one-way restrictions and pedalling their contraptions counter-flow to the
one-way traffic.
You see cops in uniform and traffic aides along with barangay
officials just watch helplessly by. Naturally. These pedicab drivers have also
"paid" their daily "tara."
Jeepneys stop in the middle of the streets to unload and even
to load. They wait for passengers in busy street corners, unmindful and uncaring
that they block the flow of traffic. Anarchy? No. Organized, syndicated
lawlessness is more like it. They pay their daily "tara" to whoever wields the
power to arrest.
Cops and traffic aides see no evil, hear no evil, and speak
evil only to the law-abiding who dare, or bother, to complain.
This is brokedown place. You just have to suffer in silence,
no matter your anger, no matter how your rights as a taxpayer are violated.
***
Now read this:
In the province of Agusan del Norte, a controversy arose
because years back, the young governor of the province issued mining permits to
a few "small" miners. Under the law, "small" miners are supposed to be the pick
and shovel types, or gold-panners doing their thing in streams and rivers.
But the "small" miners brought in backhoes and bulldozers and
soon, they had carved out the hillsides of the small town of Tubay. With them
were Chinese mining engineers who had entered into a deal with a former
congressman of a benighted city in Metro Manila, and his business partner. These
guys were in cahoots with the incumbent congressman of the second district of
the province, whose son, as the lay of our politics goes, is the young governor.
The DENR was helpless. The Bureau of Mines director sent memo
after memo to the head office, reporting gross violations of mining and
environmental laws. They all went unheeded. In time, the "small" miners had
shipped 36 shiploads of Tubay’s nickel and chromite, interspersed with laterite
which contained low-grade iron. In time also, the mining magnate and his former
congressman-partner were zooming in and out of Butuan City’s airport in a sleek
new Citation jet. And the suddenly extremely wealthy incumbent congressman of
the second district set his family’s political sights on the territory of his
political foe. Which enraged the latter, and in 2007, it was a battle between
the mining Amantes and the logging Plazas.
The incumbent mayor of Butuan City, Democrito "Boy Daku"
Plaza was challenged by the daughter of Edelmiro Amante, the dusky Angel who
eschewed re-election as congresswoman and returned the seat to her father. She
almost won. Votes in the city were being bought at a thousand pesos, the highest
in Agusan’s miserable history of vote-buying. Boy Daku Plaza was overwhelmed,
saved only by farmers in the outlying barangays whom he had helped in the recent
past. Valentina Plaza, for such a long time the governor of Agusan del Sur and
Dona Gloria’s favorite, decided to challenge the incumbent governor of Agusan
del Norte, Edelmiro’s son Erlpe, the guy who issued the lucrative "small" mining
permits. She was out-bought. For the first time in their wretched lives, people
of the province held "blue" peso bills on election day, thanks to the
munificence of Edelmiro and his mining friends.
The bishop of the two provinces, Juan de Dios Pueblos, along
with environmental NGO’s, raised a howl against the operations of Edelmiro’s
miners, but the DENR under Angelo Reyes paid no heed. In time, DENR issued a
mining permit and the company no longer had to rely on the "small" miners’ local
government-issued paper.
When Doña Gloria recently paid visit to the benighted
province with DENR’s Lito Atienza in tow, Mayor Boy Daku brought up the pesky
issue of the "small" miners turned large and now "legit." His president turned
to her secretary for an explanation. The secretary whispered the explanation.
Now guess what happened next?
Doña Gloria tells Boy Daku, as the whispers in Butuan’s small
society goes, "Mayor, why don’t you just look for a mining site, and I will
instruct Lito Atienza to give you a permit, quickly?"
The laws have been broken, the laws have been disregarded.
Instead of penalty and closure, the Boss Woman tries to "bribe" the mayor by
further destroying the environment.
Of course, Edelmiro Amante, who along with FVR and JDV and a
handful of others, established Lakas out of half-a-rib off Monching Mitra’s LDP,
has turned Kampi. But beyond that, no one in the benighted Agusan provinces
believes that becoming Kampi is all that Edelmiro did for his partners to be
able to ship almost a billion dollars worth of mineral ore to China over the
last three years.
See why there is no law? Why everything is breaking down?
