Article by Remedios Marmoleno on Daily Zamboanga Times Dated March 14, 2014 Security for all in our city Remedios F. Marmoleño The gathering Wednesday night was called to present to those present, representatives of different civil society groups in the city, the rationale for the newly organized ENOUGH IS ENOUGH Movement. The name suggests that Zamboanga City residents have had enough of the killings and other criminal incidents in the city of the last several months if not the last few years. There is no intent on the part of the movement organizers to lay blame on any group; they just want to let it be known that they are “up to here” as far as the law and order situation in the city is concerned. And they want that the situation be addressed quickly and effectively. The trigger … no Freudian slip for the use of this word should be presumed ---for the action to be undertaken was the killing of Judge Estacio. It was just the last straw, for it represented a direct attack on a person of authority and a person who represented the law. In the gathering Wednesday night (March 12) civil society reps articulated their thoughts on ideas related to security of persons and of possessions : What they would like to enjoy in the city but not be held back because of security concerns, like going to the beach with their children, going out to dine and dance without having to act like Cinderella and the midnight curfew, driving up to the gates of their homes without having to look at faces in the area, dropping their children off in school and not have thoughts of kidnapping, and similar fears and anxieties. There were also comments about what might be the driving forces behind the increasing criminality in the city. Some contributory factors mentioned were the high unemployment rate in ZC and the seemingly perennial brownout situation. The disturbing thing about this is the vicious cycle dilemma : because of the high unemployment rate there is unwanted criminality, which deters investors from coming to our city to invest in enterprise that would provide employment, which leads to low employment rate, which…. Another interesting observation was that there is weak respect ( read that fear) for the law in our city. As in other meetings I have sat in, the Duterte model for instilling respect for law came up. And as in the past my own reaction was this: Two wrongs do not make a right; we cannot disregard human rights in our pursuit of those who disregard the rights of people. In the discussion of the Davao model for law enforcement the more telling information was that of how much that city spends on the security it provides its residents. Davao is a bigger city than our own but it was mentioned that Davao has been working on building its security resources over several years. Over the several years of the last administration … 9 years?... had our city worked on putting together an effective plan that includes the acquisition of hardware and putting in place systems and processes? If we had perhaps ZC would not be very far from where Davao is now on this particular matter. Our security providers and our peace makers are doing their best but we need to work in synergy with them. More on this in the next column.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 09:52:10 +0000