At the rate people are criticizing the poor performance of the Bacolod police office one is inclined to believe that Mayor Evelio Leonardia made a fatal error in selecting Sr. Supt. Celestino Guara as the Bacolod police director.
A columnist in a local daily was bold enough to say that Guara is the choice of Leonardia because Guara is an acquiescent police officer and that is a plus factor because Guara looks the other way when a gambling group the columnist links to those close the mayor is involved. The almost daily arrest of bet collectors for the illegal numbers game is nothing but a zarzuela, a ham show intended as a cover-up of the bigger operation. They are arrested but the financiers go scot free. If this were true then Guara’s acquiescence compensates for his incapability to bring peace in Bacolod. The series of hold-ups and kidnappings are indications not so much of the economic conditions but of police incapability to bring fear into the hearts of criminals and make them think several times from committing the crime here in Bacolod. If they know the police will get them criminals would rather bring their activities elsewhere than risk getting axed here. Councilor Elcid Familiaran has to ask the NBI has to intervene in the campaign to put an end to illegal gambling. This is a purely police matter but the fact that the NBI has to be called in tells a lot about the competence of the police and gives credence to the suspicion that had been going the rounds of gloved hands for the mayor’s favorite. Familiaran I think knows more than he is willing to say but his action speaks of his lack of either competence or will of Guara to enforce the law. The only way for this suspicion to go away is for the police to do its work but will Leonardia let go of Guara? Mayor Leonardia may not have complete control of the police under our laws but he has the first responsibility over the campaign against criminality that is why he is given the right to choose the police chief who can do the job. If the police chief is not up to the job, Mayor Leonardia has the duty to look for his replacement because no matter how the mayor washes his hands, the stench of criminality, whether solved or not will be his and not Guara’s. The police are often designated to insure peace and order but as of this moment Bacolod has little peace but plenty of disorder. The recent spate of hold-ups, robberies in houses and apartments, the thieveries and the car smashing are not as yet epidemic, though deplorable and to some extent we rationalize them as part of a growing city and the rising number of the unemployed. These are not tolerable but we can understand the utter lack of police manpower and resources. What is deplorable is the disorder in the inner city. I need not point out how disorderly the traffic in Bacolod is, how dirty many of the barangays and the streets are and why enterprising citizens have taken over the sidewalks and the streets. These are not the result of police incapability or lack of resources but the product of failure of leadership and determination to enforce the law. I have time and again cited many sidewalks that have been converted into stalls, eateries, fish-drying area, repair shops, maintenance garages, drinking areas, and even dwellings. This does not include the conversion of sidewalks into garbage dumps laces for afternoon and evening mahjong and card games. It is usual to see the streets used as extension for the drinking holes and in the process they clog traffic. The case in point is the drinking hole at corner of San Sebastian and Araneta. Policemen and city employees patronize that drinking and eating place as if it is normal for a business to takeover a third of the street and since that is a busy one the traffic naturally snarls. Add the use of the other side for parking of motorcycle of an appliance store which does not have its own parking space as required by the building code and we have an example of a city in disorder. Of course, the city’s kings of the road are clear examples of a disordered city. They stop to take or disembark passengers, right at the middle of the street. We cannot blame the passengers because they alight or get in wherever the jeep stops. Take a look at the sidewalks. Pedestrians are forced to take the streets because the sidewalk had been taken over. When they take the street, they contribute to the slowing down of traffic. We can cite numerous illustrations of disorder. The sad part is that city officials are either incompetent to deal with these problems or they simply don’t care or worse, they are afraid of the violators of the ordinance.* Visayan D
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