What we remember is Bugoy’s smiling face

“Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts.” 

Paramahansa Yogananda

By Alex P. Vidal

ILOILO lost one of its most brilliant and truly outstanding leaders with the demise of Vicente “Bugoy” Molejona last February 22.

The pride of Miag-ao, Iloilo had been struggling against small cell lung carcinoma with solitary brain metastasis for almost three years before his death.

In November 2013, I was privileged to be invited by Molejona to do the official confirmation in public through an article that he was stricken by a cancer “in order to end the guessing game.”

Molejona reached me through the social media and other means of communication available.

He wanted also to see his kumpare journalist, Limuel Celebria, and former student, Rhod Tecson of RMN Iloilo.

I arrived in his residence in Miag-ao, some 43 kilometers away from Iloilo City, in the dead of night.

His wife, Ma. Dulce, and eldest son, Jose Angelo, a Miag-ao municipal councilor, guided me to Molejona’s room where the retired Population Commission (Popcom) regional director embraced me amid tears.

The other details of my visit will be narrated in a separate article.

I am always proud to tell friends and relatives that I placed Molejona on top of my list of public servants who really deserved my admiration.

It’s impossible not to admire Molejona. 

He was a smiling face personified. He could afford to flash a smile even when he was not feeling well. 

He smiled a lot that even his detractors were ashamed to hate him.

People who worked with him and under him can spend hours talking about the greatness of the man.

In all his life as a public servant starting as a provincial board member in 1988, he was never implicated in graft and corruption. Then presidential candidate and now Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago was so impressed with his credentials and immaculate record that she picked him as the official vice gubernatorial bet of the People's Reform Party (PRP) in 1992.

I became enamored with Molejona, who also sat one time as OIC governor, when I covered the Iloilo capitol beat from 1989 to 1992.

He was honest, down-to-earth, and hard-working. He was very unassuming and approachable, a friend of the highest-ranking executives and the lowest-ranking utility personnel.

As administrator of the Iloilo Sports Complex and one of the sports executives, Molejona appointed me as editor-in-chief of Palaro Journal, official newsletter of the 1991 Palarong Pambansa hosted by Iloilo province.

According to Molejona, the late former Vice Governor Ramon Duremdes “was the true unsung hero of Iloilo sports.”

He wanted me write a separate story about Duremdes, one of the well-loved Iloilo leaders in this generation.

We can never forget Molejona. All we can remember always is his smiling face.

-o0o-

IN our society, the most powerful have become those who are carrying the tag of “lords” – the drug lords and the gambling lords.

If the “lord” is into drug trafficking and illegal gambling to boot, it’s not remote that he will also become a warlord.

Warlords have the guns, goons and gold.

They have the resources and capability of sowing terror and killing people.

Especially those who pose as obstacles in their illegal activities. Journalists and cops included.

But there is another way to “silence” the law enforcers and the media watchdogs.

Bribe them.

Once there is money involved, it’s easy to divide and rule—and conquer.

When a journalist attacks a fellow journalist that exposes the evil of illegal drugs and illegal gambling, it’s a telltale sign that someone has become a scoundrel and transformed into a mercenary.

It’s not only grossly unethical to hit a fellow media practitioner for doing his job, it’s also alarming and scandalous, to say the least.

When a policeman murders a fellow policeman who investigates and apprehends illegal gambling operators and drug traffickers, it’s a red flag that a uniformed officer has been transformed into a hooligan by the power of money and gold.

It’s a disaster for the campaign against lawlessness and evil.

SPATE

The recent spate of killings involving crusading cops in Negros will bolster our hypothesis.

The most recent murder Senior Police Officer 2 Edcel Villanueva of the Calatrava police station was traced to his job as anti-drugs crusader.

Villanueva was shot around 7:50 p.m. on February 23 on Gustilo Street, Barangay 5, San Carlos City while on his way home.

The murder came a week after Senior Police Officer 4 Roger Cañete of Silay City police station, an anti-illegal drugs investigator, was gunned down on his way home to EB Magalona.

Last January 27, Police Officer 2 Jan Gallenero Jr. of the La Carlota police office was peppered with bullets.

In those murders, the suspected assailants were fellow policemen and their civilian cohorts, except in the case of Villanueva whose perpetrators were not yet identified as of press time.

No less than Negros Rep. Jeffrey Ferrer and Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. have expressed alarm over the successive killings of crusading cops.

It seems that some law enforcers have become not only lawbreakers, but also henchmen and mercenaries of drug lords and gambling lords.