By DANNY O. SAGUN

IF you lose a valuable right in a police station, what would you think of the people there?

A radio reporter lost his cash and a cellphone at the San Fabian police station in a matter of minutes. He apparently forgot that he had just left the pouch where he placed the valuables in a table there and when he reached for it, it was gone. Or he may have just placed it there, confident since it was a police station and police officers are no thieves.

It could be that somebody else, not a policeman, got interested in the items as people come and go in such busy place.

But for an incident like that to happen in an area where we think we are supposed to feel secure does not speak well for the police whose present leadership is trying to portray an image of a changed police force.

If I recall right, that radio station sacked a lady reporter a few years ago for taking away the cell phone of a person she interviewed when the latter left for a few moments. That could have served a lesson for her former colleagues - you don’t have to give your full trust to anybody, even someone you consider a friend.

We are partly to blame for our own carelessness. In the office, for example, we just leave our things, bags, etc. thinking nobody would take them away since everybody there are our officemates or the people who come and go are the same ones we see everyday.

Being busy all the time, we tend to just leave our things in a place. And when we become conscious about such valuables, well, they are gone. Regrets written all over our face.

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We saw for ourself the iron bars being used at the rehabilitation of a building at the Binmaley Central School, the roof of which was blown away by typhoon Cosme. The bars only measured 9 millimeters. That got the ire of Mayor Sammy Rosario, who reports said, ordered work to stop because of the undersized bars being used.

All 9 mm bars, we noted, were being used to make a beam to support the roofing. From our own experience with carpenters, 10 mm bars are usually ordered for posts or beams for small constructions or 12 mm for bigger ones. Using only 9 mm for that kind of school building only invites danger. We understand the mayor’s ire over what’s happening in his turf.

But for the sake of pupils, we urge all concerned to facilitate the rehab of that building and all other schoolbuildings damaged by Cosme all over the province. Probe if we must

, yes, but please do not delay the project.