Are we winning the Drug War?

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Skeptics on President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on illegal drugs compared Thailand’s war on narcotics where almost 3,000 died in the First Drug War in February to April 2003 and countless died in the Second Drug War in 2005.

AUTHOR TOOK THIS PHOTO. Slain suspected dangerous
 drug seller former Pangasinan's policeman Vicente Moulic who tried
to shoot- it-out with the police poseur buyer in Dagupan City last 
year. 

Despite the thousands of persons  killed in Thailand and those 6000 individuals who died in legitimate police operation and those on Death Under Investigation (D.U.I)  in the Philippines war on dangerous drugs, these skeptics say Duterte’s war on narcotics is destined to fail.

But as a radio commentator and journalist who visit regularly city and town mayors and chiefs of police in the 48 cities and towns’ Pangasinan, I could say that the dangerous drugs war launched by the Duterte Administration are picking up and resulted to significant drop not only of drug pushing and using but of index crimes like theft, robbery, and other petty crimes.

In Alaminos City, Police Chief Superintendent Benjamin Ariola cited recently that only two of the 39 villages in this Western Pangasinan city are still not illegal drug free. Dagupan City’s Chief of Police Superintendent Neil Miro declared in January 12 the city as 90.2 percent after narcotics prevalent Barangay Pantal and Pogo Chico of the 31 villages’ city were publicly announced as drug free.

Corruptions at the Register of Deeds, Assessors

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Rose Buenaflor, niece of Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Buenaflor Rosell-Ubial (like Agriculture Secretary Manny Pinol, both of them are my town mate in M’lang, Cotabato) told me Ubial and her Iloilo based farmer husband Edwin lived in a modest condominium in Pasay.

I staggered upon seeing the photos of Rose and the Ubials inside the condominium, the DOH Secretary lives a modest life while directors of government hospitals in the Philippines splurged with their unexplained wealth like palatial mansions and fleet of expensive cars thanks but no thanks to the up to 30 percent S.O.P or cut they fleeced from contractors and suppliers.

S.O.P or standard operating procedure, a euphemism, concocted by the malefactors in the government and their conspirators in the private sectors are usually done when a contractor or supplier, say of medicine, transact with a government office.

 “Those at the DOH are more corrupt, “I told Harold Barcelona on our daily radio program.

“They are not only Tulisan (Brigand), they are “Three-lisan” (from a play of words Two-lisan to Three-lisan),” Harold declared.

***

Aside from the Bureau of Customs, Land Transportation Office, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue that President Rodrigo Duterte called earlier as most corrupt agencies, he should pounce too at the Register of Deeds and those in the municipal and provincial assessors office.
If these officials choose to shoot it out with the police, the cops know already what to do like the way they did to narc pushers.

A corrupt assessor official could make a sleight of hand tricks for a huge fee to declassify the land the vendor sells to the vendee from commercial to either residential or agricultural.

Formidable defense systems of Japan, Ph in case China attacks

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

In case war breaks in the South China Sea between the aggressor and island grabbing Mainland China versus Japan and the Philippines, the Chinese would be facing formidable defensive weaponry from the Japanese particularly.

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's Soryu-class diesel-electric submarine.
Photo Credit: Pakistan Defense

As what U.S Marine Colonel Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson) shouted to Navy Lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee,(Tom Cruise) at the flick’s A Few Good Men: 

“You can’t handle the truth!”

Can the Sinos handle the naked military truth I’m going to enumerate below? Brace yourself if you cheered for the Chinese.

In my daily radio program at Sonshine Radio, I told recently Denmark Suede, a pilot from Australia, about Japan’s insurmountable defenses in case a shooting war erupts between her and the Chinks somewhere in the disputed Senkaku Islets.

“Japan’s defense is the best model how to deter China not to jut her air force and naval juggernauts somewhere near the disputed Senkaku Islands and some parts of the Japanese sea otherwise she would be humiliated” I stressed.

Citing the news article “Five Japanese Weapons of War China Should Fear”, I and Denmark summarized by quoting the salient parts of the article written by Kyle Mizokami.

JAPAN

“Soryu-class Diesel Electric Submarines: Japan’s Soryu-class submarines, where 9 are operational while 12 are being planned, are some of the most advanced non-nuclear attack submarines in the world. Four Stirling air independent propulsion systems allow the Soryu class to remain underwater far longer than most diesel electric submarines.

Alaminos, Dagupan, Mangaldan lead P'sinan's Drug War

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY -With up to 90 percent performance level, the police offices in this City, Alaminos City, and Mangaldan town lead President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on illegal drugs in the 48 cities and towns’ Pangasinan province.

Alaminos City’s Police Chief Supt. Benjamin Ariola

Superintendent Neil Miro, this City’s chief of police, declared in January 12 the city as 90.2 percent after narcotics prevalent Barangay Pantal and Pogo Chico of the 31 villages city were publicly announced as drug free.

Miro cited that Barangays 2,  3,  Calmay, and Pugaro have yet to be cleared by the Philippine National Police where around 20 drug personalities have yet to be accounted for.

Alaminos City’s Police Chief Supt. Benjamin Ariola cited that only two of the 39 villages in the Western Pangasinan city are still not illegal drug free.

“Perception ng mga tao they believe na iyong city nila iyong mga barangays nila ay cleared na. Kung may agam-agam iyong mga community na hinde cleared iyong barangay nila kailangan pa namin malaman iyong agam-agam na iyon para mabigyan ng solution,” he said.

Mangaldan's chief of police Superintendent Jeffrey Fanged cited that his town is 80 percent narcotics free because out of the 30 barangays (villages) 24 villages have already been declared as narcotics free.

Dangerous drug free means there are no user, pusher, and a drug laboratory in the two Cities and Mangaldan.

“The process for their declaration was tedious. We followed the procedures at the BADAC (Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council), MADAC (Municipal  Anti-Drug Abuse Council ),and  PADAC (Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Council)," he stressed.

Good bye, Cartoons

By Mortz Ortigoza 

 I just saw an ugly public official with big lips, protruding upper teeth, flat nose, big eye glasses, fat belly, and crumpled dress. Those downsides could be exaggerated on a cartoon to attract readers and amused them. But, hikbi, er, sigh, beginning tonight, a Sunday,  I’ll no longer draw an illustration for our weekly newspaper's Northern Watch .

My 26 cartoons in a row.

The editor-in-chief asked me and writers to add another news article to spike the number of our news for our weekly publication. Since I drew the political caricature for our editorial because the real cartoonist left, I told her I’ll no longer make illustration since it would add more man hours for my work as columnist  and  a daily radio commentator.

For a stint of six months and two weeks, I’ve been passionately drawing cartoons. Drawing, son of a gun, was my childhood past time!

I got the ire of my elementary and high school teachers then because when they became a bore with their teaching, I sketched at my notebooks and my parents reprimanded me when most of these teachers reported my actuation to them.

"Beside, notebooks are expensive you just don't draw on them," my mother angrily told me and that was in the late 1970s and early 1980s where  cheap notebooks from China ay hinde pa ata uso.

Since elementary grades the illustrations of Ranan Lurie of Newsweek’s and Norman Rockwell of the Saturday Evening Post influenced my hunger to draw. Thanks to the stacks of those magazines preserved until now by my father in our house when he was in the military service.

 Ranan Lurie's cartoon. Lurie was the illustrator of U.S magazine's Newsweek. He influenced' my zeal to draw since my elementary grades.

But  making caricature was not a breeze, even one is adroit  in sketching on a piece of white paper, illustration making entails in-depth understanding of the political situation through elaborate everyday reading of newspaper and news magazine.

Bye-bye cartooning works, I’ll be missing you! 
But modesty aside, I showed to all and sundry that I could draw and be at the leagues of professionals in the country ha ha ha, that's according to friends teh-heh and sanamagan I was not even a professional cartoonist, puwedi nagbubuhat ng cartoons na empty sa bodega namin noong may store pa kami.

Cartoons, sigh, you ain’t blame me if I stop workin’ unless somebody there wants my skill for a fee and not for free, teh-heh!.

Norman Rockwell's painting for the Saturday Evening Post. I had a painting
canvass of this art done by my friend Danny Oligario when we were working
at the Philippine Military Academy in the late 1980s.
Danny, a professional painter, taught me how to draw using charcoal.

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)