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It appears that the sitution has become a contest of wills between thelawless and the law enforcers, with the former seemingly more fearless.This writer was not spared when, upon returning from church one Sundayevening, my purse was snatched from behind at the intersection of Burgos and Miss Philippines streets. The snatcher was about 15\17 yearsof age, wearing a red T-shirt with collar and a baseball cap. He ran toward P. Canlapan Street.
The suddenness and unexpectedness of the situation deterred me fromshouting to raise somebody's attention. Not difficult to understand. For15 years I lived and worked in Metro-Manila. Before that I spent severalyears in Chicago, notorious for its criminals. But nothing like this everhappened to me.
I trusted that the City was a safe place to live in and I was provenwrong. Too bad, I had to find out the hard way.
Where are the barangay tanods and the manned barangay outposts?The peace and order of any given barangay is vested upon the officialsof each barangay. How can the local PNP still be expected to provide adequatepatrol coverage of the Poblacion's 25 barangays with 1 dilapidated policecar, 1 broken-down police side car, and 1 owner-type unpainted jeep? Withjust a little over 100 PNP members patrolling this big an area, with some 220,000 citizens not to mention the migrant students and workers in the City, how can there be an semblance of maximum police visibility?
The criminal elements in the City know that not only are there not enoughlaw enforcers, but they also have very poor logistics and hardly any decentmeans of communication. (huwag na nating pag-usapan dito ang "high tech"dahil kahit iyong mgas "basics" ay wala.) Wala nang PNP, wala pa rin namga barangay "tanod." And at the time of writing pati opisyalesng City Hall ay wala rin at nasa Germany. Pag mamamalasin ka nga naman.(1004984)
