Shape up or ship out

Herbie Gomez .

TWO crimes committed in urban Cagayan de Oro last week are really a cause for alarm.

The first was the ambush of Supt. Michael John Deloso, deputy chief of Camp Alagar’s Regional Police Strategic Management Unit and former spokesman and subsequently deputy director for traffic of the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office, while he was driving his van at the corner of A. Luna St. and the road leading to the capitol on Tuesday.

The second was the attempt on the life of 45-year-old Jonathan Borja, a councilor of Barangay 3 and a businessman who brings in fruits from Bukidnon to the city, at 6th and 18th streets, Nazareth, on Friday. Like Deloso, Borja was also driving his car when he was attacked.

The similarities in the gun attacks that took place just three days apart are striking: the shootings were staged by two men riding motorcycles and these were carried out in full public view in the morning — yes, in broad daylight.

There is something about motorcycles that government must carefully examine. Clearly and understandably, motorcycles are the favorite means of transportation of assassins. But I doubt if stopping all motorcycles for inspection at government checkpoints is practical as what we have been seeing. Surely, there has to be a better way to do it, and officials, I’m sure, could figure it out if they only sit down and brainstorm.

With an environment like this where a  policeman holding the position equivalent to lieutenant colonel in the military and a businessman who, at first glance, appears to be ordinary and a decent one, can be attacked by gunmen in broad daylight just like that, who would feel safe?

Had the victims been impoverished and unlettered men with tattered clothes, dirty feet and fingernails, the police, still clueless, would have quickly suggested that the shootings, carried out by “riding in tandem” shooters, were drugelated, and the gullible in our midst would have swallowed the narrative hook, line and sinker and then wait for the next victim.

It’s beginning to look like the city’s police force under Senior Supt. Nelson Aganon is helpless or does not know what to do. Perhaps, it’s time for Aganon to take a break so that a new police director who knows what to do can take over. The bottomline is that citizens in Cagayan de Oro don’t feel safe. And when people don’t feel safe anymore, it means that the police failed.

The police should stop telling citizens that they cannot solve crimes alone and that if the public does not cooperate, attacks such as what we saw last week will become cold cases. If that is the case, then what is the National Police for? First, citizens don’t get paid to solve cases but police officers do. Second, citizens have not been trained on police and investigative work and so, they are expected to be clueless. But if the police are also clueless and are always facing a blank wall, then we are all in trouble.

(By the way, what has happened to the Rotoras murder case?)

Crimes such as last week’s do not speak well of the city’s peace and order climate and so, these would always be seen as a blow to city hall’s efforts (or the lack of it) to keep the city peaceful and orderly. Of course, citizens of Cagayan de Oro have the right to demand solutions and not excuses from the Moreno administration.

Neither does it speak well of Camp Alagar headed by Chief Supt. Timoteo Pacleb and his immediate superior, Director General Oscar Abayalde. In fact, it does not speak well of the Duterte administration. At the end of the day, the buck stops with Malacañang where the man, who promised to make the nation peaceful and orderly in 2016, holds office.

It’s either they all shape up or ship out. Pastilan.