Drug Pushers Leave as COP Kills Some of Them

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

I’ll not be surprised if a son of a prominent family in a city would be found dead with a bullet hole on his head or stabbed wounds from a knife in different parts of his body.

The Chief of Police (COP) of one of the cities in my province, my source told me, is after the scalp of this big time illegal drug pusher whose illegal trade extended to the neighbouring town.

“Tina timingan lang namin. Wala pang pagkakata-on para maitumba namin siya”.

In my socialization with several police brass who resort to extra judicial killings ("salvage" in the vernacular) of habitual delinquents, if possible they avoid gunning down the victim, they told me. Instead they want the malefactor stab so the killing would not be part of the number of victims slain in a shooting incident. Shooting has a discriminatory effect to a COP’s tour of duty.

As the media feasted on the dead body or bodies sprawled on the ground, the usual police explanation: “Sila po ay namatay dahil sila po ay nag ka onsehan sa bentahan ng illegal na druga!”.

To the uninitiated who has yet to know the ugly reality how the police dealt with the menace brought by the complicated and powerful tentacles of the drug syndicates, you just learned now from this column how they are being eliminated.

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The recent bill filed in Congress by Representative Mercedes Alvarez of Negros Occidental on the equality of the criminal liabilities of a husband and a wife on sexual infidelity was laudable.

The lady solon however has a shallow understanding why a woman who committed adultery has to be penalized by more years in prison than an errant husband who committed concubinage.

She said under Article 333 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC), adultery may only be committed by a married woman and by the man who shall have sexual intercourse with her.

She cited under Article 334 of the same Code, concubinage may be committed by a husband only under certain conditions, which are difficult to prove.

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Let's dissect why Congresswoman Alvarez did not see the logic why a sexually deviant wife should spend more years in jail than her husband.

Adultery is punished by prision correctional in its medium and maximum periods (4 years 2 months and 1 day to 6 years) according to Section 333 in the Code while Concubinage is penalized by prision correctional in its minimum and medium periods (2 years, 4 months and one day to 4 years and one day) in Section 334 of the RPC.

The logic why the discrepancy between the jail terms of a woman to a man had been unequivocally explained by the late Senator Arturo Tolentino – a constitutionalist and author of law books.

Tolentino said a married woman who committed sexual deviance could bring serious repercussion to the household as his child from her paramour would be growing up and be seen every day by the poor cuckold husband. Worse, the child would be using the surname of the cheated husband.

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Another COP in a Northern Luzon Province told me that the number of illegal drug pushers of shabu and marijuana swell in one of the villages of his town.

“Pinagpapatay ng COP ang mga pushers doon sa kabilang siyudad, kaya dito sila tumakbo”.

He explained that illegal drugs proliferate during the time of his predecessor who was a weakling.

“Lagi silang mga police sinasabon ni mayor kada flag ceremony, dahil palala ang drug selling,” he told me.

 (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).