By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
I don’t know how much of his decision-making is anchored on faith, but it sure looks like fugitive preacher Apollo Quiboloy must consider a peaceful surrender by about now.
The world around him is getting smaller, with warrants issued against him by the courts and Congress, cases filed against him being moved to Metro Manila to dislodge him from his bailiwick, and last weekend, the Philippine National Police revoking his firearms license and registration.
Each of his trusted and closest associates has been arrested and released on bail — all marked and most likely under surveillance by the authorities. Shouldn’t it be time for you, Pastor Quiboloy, to lay down your arms and face the law?
Defiance only deepens his legal woes. Past instances remind us that even his prayers won’t save him when the hunt gets bloody. Quiboloy should take heed before it’s too late.
Drugs and violence
Since many of us despise the excesses of Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, the surge in drug-related crimes of recent is just as disgusting.
In the past two weeks, police reported the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old girl studying in her room in Talisay, Cebu. Probers believe a link to illegal drug operations when armed men barged into the house and senselessly shot the girl in the neck. Earlier, the life of a 13-year-old student was snuffed out while walking to school in Batangas, felled by a single shot to the head.
In Cebu, Rey Mark Rabasano, a target-listed drug personality, and his partner, a private school teacher, were apprehended peddling substantial amounts of “shabu.” Their arrest is but a glimpse into a vast network of destruction fueled by drugs.
This grip of the illegal drug trade on the nation should be a chilling wake-up call to this administration. It must be chopped down and burned like a poisonous tree — definitely not the way his predecessor did it, but decisively and effectively.
If not, more of these senseless atrocities related to drugs would not only drive the nation into sickness but justify or even reel in leaders of tyranny and violence back into power.
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