Davao City is a risky place ...????

THE Catholic Bishop of Bohol, Leonardo Medroso, trumpeted his anger on Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte for subjecting his fellow Boholano to indignities. Bishop Medroso came to the defense of, Manolito Gavas, which policemen and Duterte branded as a conman.

I do not know where the bishop is coming from with his sympathy for Gavas who swindled scores of settlers into paying him a monthly due of P250 per person on the pretext that he holds a Supreme Court document purporting that he can occupy any vacant land all over the country.

The document was spurious but he made it appear legit by sending a covering letter to the officials of his targeted towns or cities who in turn stamped the letter with acknowledgement of receipt. He then showed the acknowledgement of receipt of his would be victims and claim that the High Court had already ordered the city official to facilitate the award and transfer of the vacant land to the gullible victims.

As a result of the grand sham horde of settlers put their stake on their claims in a private property. He stepped beyond the limits of what other con artists are doing by ordering his gullible victims to defend their claim with their lives. When the mayor visited him in his detention cell, he even had the gall to tell Duterte to obey the Court Order.

Gavas (or is it Gabas?) is actually fomenting crises and inciting social unrest. Thus, in addition to swindling having hoodwinked people and then tampering with and falsification of documents. Is this the kind of person Bishop Medroso wants to protect? What of the hundreds of innocent victims who were duped? The bishop did not even bother to offer his sympathy to them and never even consider the righteous indignation of Duterte.

Remember when Jesus Christ visited the temple of His Father and found this desecrated by gamblers and hawkers? He vented His anger on them.

Duterte is far from being Christ, but you should give it to him for fighting for the poor and the ignorant. Some criminal deserve a different kind of treatment like giving them a soft diet of paper [or is it wafer?] or a ball of gum to bring them back to their senses. In the case of Gavas, he even thanks Duterte for the treatment and pledged that he will never ever go back defrauding people. Repentant, all he wants to do is to go back to Bohol and start a new life. Maybe he can ask Bishop Medroso for a job as an altar boy even as he is too old for it.

You can hate Duterte for what you think he did for Gavas but you should thank him for stopping a con artist who has the potential of fanning civil unrest. Imagine if the man succeeded in Davao who can rein him in from calling any Tom-Dick-and-Harry to occupy all the vacant lots including those owned by the Catholic Church?

Now whose rights should people with authority protect? What was sensationalized was Gavas allegedly munching the bogus court order which Duterte denied saying that what he gave the suspect was a ball of gum to freshen up his breath. If Gavas was subjected to indignities like what the political adversaries and lily-white bishops thought the vice mayor had done this time, he will not come out profusely thanking the Davao leader for knocking his head to realizing that his acts were actionable in court and distortive of what human rights ought to be.

Anyway, after having said his own mea culpa, the like of Gavas should learn from a popular dictum here: If you want to live in peace Davao City is for you, but if you have other insidious and criminal agenda this is a dangerous place to live in.

Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on July 20, 2012.

Link from SUNSTAR DAVAO