By BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR.

SMALL but terrible Governor Espino has given his marching orders to the provincial policemen of Sr. Supt. Isagani Nerez on the criminal matters of cattle rustling and drugs, telling them in his usual ‘lookin’ smart’ fashion, that if they can’t imagine how they’ll do things, they can come to him and he’ll gladly teach them.

No doubt, the two police concerns – cattle thieveries and drug pushing –strike at the very heart of present-day social ills and peace and order problems. Espino himself could not have said it more aptly – the stealing of a farmer’s cow or carabao, his very own means of economic survival, is almost like killing the farmer and his family themselves.

And drugs – well, with just about every youth these days getting into the using and pushing of the stuff you can understand why cops should really do something about it before every goddamn house or streetcorner becomes a talipapa for the ‘bato’ and all the Fair Hope of the Fatherland become nothing but walking zombies.

But, did we miss out on two other likewise pressing peace and order concerns from the tough-talking boca of Da Guvnor?
Yep, whatever would the Spines do to illegal gambling especially jueteng and high-profile –okay, “election–related” – killings? Did the newswriters in the private media and the Provincial Information Office simply missed hearing it from the Boss during his recent dialogue with the Cops of Nerez?

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There’s just too much silence (although visual and common knowledge shows it exists on a resurgent scale in neighborhoods throughout the province including the cities) on the jueteng front. Either the operators and the “benefactors and protectors” have learned their lessons about being ultra discreet on their business since the last “burnout period” (hello,Archbishop OVC, Sandra Cam, etc.) — or the pesky media has been burping the past several months all the way to the bagman’s haunts in Pangasinan and La Union that nothing, not a word of denunciation or outrage, escapes from the kitchen.

My guess is, it’s the latter.

While we may not encourage the supposed plan of a bunch of the provincial press boys, notably Ruben Rivera and his group to take the matter of jueteng’s proliferation in Pangasinan all the way to President Arroyo, dropping broad hints of PNP and selected media “collusion” here and there, we also do not discourage them. Who knows, miracles may still be wrought in this day and age and something would come out of it?

When vanguards of ethics and decency become caught – willfully –in the web of jueteng’s corruptive influence, (gender, religious affiliation or membership in an upright group notwithstanding), it is time for self-flagellation and exorcism.

Either that, or taking the high moral ground, the uncomfortable individual can opt out and as in that popular essay on
Loyalty, “when you’re on the outside, damn to your heart’s content.”

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You can’t blame most mediamen if they think, the “indecent haste” that attended the election of “that” Pangasinan PNP Press Corps the past months was the perfect cover for the distribution of the jueteng largesse. No matter the professing of innocence by those concerned that their intention at organizing was “noble and above-board”, no one in media can and would swallow that.

The coincidences are just too much.

I did express apprehensions about it, loud and clear, and there were assurances everywhere that “it was not about the “J”. Somehow I knew they were taking me for a ride and I tried to keep my blinders on. I tried, but only up to a certain point.
I’m getting off.