If yesterday’s raids in Ozamiz City that resulted in the deaths of Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog and his wife Susan Parojinog along with the arrest of Vice Mayor Nova Parojinog-Echaves at their respective homes didn’t make both former Medellin mayor Ricky Ramirez and Greco Sanchez nervous, then probably nothing will.
Sanchez, troubled son of the late vice governor Gregorio Sanchez Jr., is the latest high-profile suspect arrested by the police in yet another anti-drug operation that signified the Duterte administration’s relentless war against illegal drugs.
The arrests of both Sanchez and Ramirez a few days earlier, while big in Cebu, were again overshadowed by the deaths of the Parojinog couple and the arrest of Echaves, whose alleged boyfriend Herbert Colango was identified along with the Parojinogs in President Rodrigo Duterte’s list of drug personalities last year.
The Ozamiz City raids were led — surprise, surprise — by Chief Insp. Jovie Espenido, the Ozamiz City police chief who got transferred from Albuera town in Leyte after being instrumental in the arrest of the late Albuera mayor and suspected drug lord Rolando Espinosa Sr.
To be fair, though, Sanchez had been arrested and charged primarily for illegal possession of firearms after neighbors complained about his indiscriminate firing activities at his home in Barangay San Juan, Tuburan town, located 90 kilometers north of Cebu City.
And Ramirez was also arrested on illegal possession of firearms charges, but both men were found to be in possession of drug paraphernalia and were thus held suspect for drug use.
While Ramirez had vigorously denied being a current drug user, his refusal to submit to a drug test only bolsters suspicions. Sanchez, on the other hand, unfortunately has a history of drug use.
Both men may take comfort in the fact that there hasn’t been any drug suspect killed behind bars in the history of Cebu’s detention facilities — at least none that we know of — and owing to their high-profile status, they will mostly be untouched and accorded their rights to due process.
In Ramirez’s case, he’s all too willing to go to court to disprove the allegations against him. But the former mayor and now Medellin councilor may have lost the trust and faith of his constituents with his public arrest and the resulting tag of “drug user/suspect” in his record.
Yesterday’s Ozamiz City anti-drug raids also proved that the PNP, at least during this administration’s tenure, can move independently from the local officials who have a say in their appointment.
As far as the war on illegal drugs is concerned, the PNP only follows President Duterte’s lead and marching orders, and local officials involved in illegal drugs should stop or quit.
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