Fight moves to oust crime-buster President Duterte 8

BY THE MANILA TIMES ON JANUARY 5, 2017 

EDITORIAL

    

ALL good Filipinos must reject and fight moves to remove President Rody Duterte.

He has been a good president so far. The economy in the first six months of his presidency has continued to perform remarkably well, and looks like it will continue to soar. His people have also done the right thing in trying to address mass poverty—allocating more funds than ever before to this grave problem.

Only those who are not thinking right will want to see him out of Malacañang.

There are reasons to worry about his dictatorial tendency—and so, we must resist his moves to obtain martial law powers from Congress. After all, he can rule effectively, and with an iron fist if he wants to, without being given the legal might of a tyrant.

We, the people—the senators, the congressmen, the media, the civil society and Church organizations, segments of the police and military, government personnel, labor and students unions—together with associations of businessmen and employers can sway him into moderating his impulsive wishes. Like dissolving ties and agreements with the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.

Phenomenal achievements

We must not undo all the good things the President has done in his first half-year in office. Our reporter has called these accomplishments “phenomenal” in her yearender article.

We must inspire him and prod him to continue the great example of his six months of graft-free governance.

We must not allow the awful things that will surely happen if our President suddenly disappeared from the scene. Liberal Party kingpins and politicians, ushered in by President Leni Robredo, would then rule.

The Liberals will wipe out the victory so far of the Philippine National Police and other law-enforcement agencies in the war against drug lords and criminal gangs that the President launched on day one of his presidency.

The effort to halt the dominance of casinos and illegal gambling in our neighborhoods will evaporate if President Robredo’s Liberal Party operators—supported by former president Noynoy Aquino—regain power. Perhaps the two government officials and fraternity brods of President DU30 whom he fired for being protectors of gambling lords (and whom he saw in a video receiving a P50 million payola) would be reinstated.

And the drug industry billionaires will rejoice together with the Filipinos who work for them as operators of the illegal gambling business in every community in our country. So will the narcotics trade bosses, operators, dealers and pushers rejoice—and the crooked policemen who are their partners.

Before 2016 ended, the Philippine National Police reported that total crime was down by 12.4 percent in the period of July to November compared with the same period in 2015. Index crimes dropped by almost one-third. Nearly all types of crimes against persons—except killings– and crimes against property fell by double-digits.

Crimes against property plunged 42.5 percent. Rapes also significantly declined (-11.6 percent) as did physical injury cases (-25.7 percent). But with more than 6,000 drug-related deaths, murders surged by about 50 percent. Homicides went down but only by 1.6 percent.

These data show that before his six-year term is over, President Duterte shall have stopped criminality in our country.

Thank God (even if DU30 loathes saying so).

http://www.manilatimes.net/fight-moves-oust-crime-buster-president-duterte/305248/