Overacting city police chief

"There is no overacting, only untrue acting."
--STELLAN SKASGARD

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- Wonder why until now news in the Philippines is still being dominated by alleged EJKs (extra-judicial killings) amid the brutal campaign initiated by the Duterte administration against the narcotics?
Even if there will be killings everyday, shabu dealers nationwide won't totally close shop.
By hook or by crook they have to "push" their illegal substance even if via guerilla tactic. They can't throw away to the dustbin or flush in the toilets kilos of shabu already in their possessions.
If they can't remit the money, their suppliers will kill them. They are actually caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
They have no choice but to engage law enforcers in a cat-and- mouse-type game and risk their lives, otherwise, they will lose their main livelihood. Otherwise, they will be killed by their own partners in crime gangland style.

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One thing more, many street-level shabu dealers are unemployed and selling illegal drugs is their only way out of poverty.
They are aware that many of them have already been executed like animals ever since Pres. Duterte declared an all-out war against illegal drugs; but they are unfazed.
They fear poverty more and their ruthless suppliers than bullets from the raiding police teams.
In shabu business, everybody is involved down in the barangay level--housewives, husbands, their children (used as whistle-blowers for police raids if not couriers), and some village officials.
The lives of many drug addicts have already been destroyed long before they were mowed down by bullets--via EJK or otherwise.
The problem on illegal drugs can't be halted even if dead bodies will continue to stockpile in the dumpsites and public plazas when we wake up in the next day.


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MANY Ilonggos believed that Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) Director Remus Zacharias Canieso "over reacted" when he "summoned" to the ICPO the manager and service crew of a hardware inside a big mall in Iloilo City on April 7 after he was accidentally hit by a pushcart while inside the hardware earlier.
Inside the ICPO, Canieso, who was supposed to be transferred to Aklan if the Iloilo City Council did not ask PNP Chief Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa to retain him in his present post, reportedly lectured the manager and service crew to be cautious if they are inside the hardware as they might hurt not only adults like him but children, as well.
Canieso, who did not suffer any major injury, could have talked to the manager and the service crew right there inside the hardware after the incident.
Or smile and forget about the minor episode, which occured every now and then in other shopping centers and crowded places. Canieso would have earned praises, especially if the hardware management found out who he is.
If it happened to an ordinary civilian laborer, the incident would have been shrugged off and forgotten.
But because he is a city police chief, Canieso had to use his power and authority to inconvenience the hardware employees into "reporting" to his office like they were his subordinates.
He was sending a curt message.