CAGAYAN de Oro City Mayor Rolando Uy last Thursday has reiterated his appeal to the village chiefs from the city’s 80 barangays to monitor some possible gang-related activities in their respective areas, especially in the advent of Undas.
While the predominantly Catholic Filipinos considered the days ahead as sacred, the mayor warned that the week’s solemnity might be taken advantage of by the lawless elements including the troubled youth who usually seek fun in the extreme.
Uy has expressed his intention to dismantle the gang-like groups of juvenile youth in the locality following the death of 14-year-old Nathaniel Ebalang who was ganged up by a rival group, then stabbed by 18-year-old Raul Lumamba Jr in a busy city district last Sunday afternoon.
To fend off criticisms about the police and the city government’s laxity in addressing the rising criminality, Uy also warned the parents to be responsible enough in accounting for their family members “or I’ll be the one to impose discipline on them.”
Uy said he is willing to have a dialogue with those misguided youngsters and their parents as what he did when he was still the village chair of Carmen, easily one of the biggest barangays in the city prone to the occurrence of crime incidents.
“I’m going to personally talk to them (parents) and convince them to promptly act on this matter so they might not be regretting,” Uy said.
City Councilor James Judith had earlier assailed the ineffectiveness of an old ordinance crafted in 1995 against loitering and drinking in public places.
This, after a brawl at the Taguanao Bridge in Barangay Indahag, has triggered a member of a prominent clan in the city to plow his car into the opposing group, thus killing instantly the 26-year-old John Paul Levita.
The suspect Stephen Neri, 27, who is still at large, also injured three others identified as Rufus Levita, 22; Jhane Valerie Canonero, 18, and Prince B. Lopez, 19.
Judith’s concern even grows bigger after another untoward incident shook the City of Golden Friendship on Sunday afternoon in the crowded Corrales avenue between the Ayala Mall and the state-run Northern Mindanao Medical Center.
“I already have my words said on this. And it was right there all along,” a disappointed Judith said.
Judith seeks to amend the anti-loitering ordinance that would only penalize the offender to a measly P500 to P1,000 or one to 30 days of imprisonment.
He wants to raise the penalty to 10,000 or a month to 6-month-long stay in jail to serve as a strong deterrence to the public.
City Vice Mayor Jocelyn ‘Bebot’ Rodriguez said that Nazareth has been recorded as the most active barangay so far in implementing the anti-loitering ordinance.
“The barangay tanod of Nazareth would regularly check and monitor its public places to ensure that everything is in place,” Rodriguez said, adding “the tables, and the bottles of alcoholic drinks would really crash all over if I would catch any done in public places.”
Even then, Judith concludes that the city government and the police’s efforts to deter the juvenile youth from going places at night and creating some trouble will still fail in the absence of stiffer penalties.
“Without amending the old ordinance that is very soft, these habitual crime offenders would only laugh at us,” Judith said.