AFTER ALL
Behn Fer. Hortaleza, Jr.

WE had hoped our story and commentary last week on the unfortunate sickness that befell police officer Harries Fama, chief of the Anti Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force of the Provincial Police Office would be the last. After all, you don’t unduly belabor and detail a man’s sufferings or anguish without sounding like a sadist, and especially as the Pangasinan Star is no scandal sheet.

But after learning from someone that yet another, a third, police officer, not from Pangasinan but from neighboring Tarlac, had gravely fallen ill with symptoms very similar to Guillian-Barre Syndrome (GBS), the disease which Fama — bless his lucky stars — had apparently barely survived, something tells us there’s more than meets the eye in this medical story.

Our friend who frequents the Provincial Police Office in Lingayen said another officer who spent time in the PPO last March to help train members of Task Force Hagibis on motorcycle-rising and maneuvering was himself suspected to have fallen ill from GBS, also last month. His case, unlike Fama, and a “Lamsen” (who died in the hospital, took a more dramatic if bizarre turn — in agony, he killed himself.

Already, we are told, the PNP has had the PPO sanitized and “fumigated,” without much fanfare after the medical cases of the police officers became known to higher authorities. Could it be there was something in the air in there that made a mess of the three officers nerves and stamina? How lucky can our friend, Supt. Ric Tamayo, former public info officer and civil relations officer of the PPO, get; he was reassigned somewhere else a week ago, away from whatever virus had come to the police ranks at Lingayen PPO!

Now, we wonder if Provincial Police Director Alan LM Purisima still views his reinstatement to Pangasinan, holding office at Lingayen PPO, as a “vindication” — or as a “crucifixion.”

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We must praise the effort of the Lyceum Northwestern University in contributing its manpower and facilities towards giving a more clinical, if scientific eye on those water refilling stations that have mushroomed in Dagupan City.

We have always been giddy and suspicious about shifting to the other water stations from our original dealer, Agua Vida, after hearing some yucky tales from patrons and customers of some such stations; tales like algae-smelling water to soap-tasting water not to mention visible sediments settling at the bottom of the container. Now, with the serious research by LNU in cooperation with the city health office, our officials will have a better profile of how sanitary –or insanitary — these stations process the water they supply and sell to their customers.

This could form a database for proper legislation and regulation of the operations of these commercial water refillers, resulting in much safer drinking water for us all.

Just one request: The research results should be made public as soon as these are completed and verified. It would be a pity if in the process of making our water sanitary, the report about it igets “sanitized” along the way for one reason or the other.