Osmeña’s new tack vs crime: Cash rewards

CEBU CITY – Mayor Tomas Osmeña is dangling up to P100,000 in reward money to anybody who can provide information about terrorists and criminals operating in Cebu City.

Osmeña may have apparently discovered lately that he can wage a successful war with money.

In another arena, the mayor has offered up to P10 million in pork barrel to each of his partymates in the city council with whom he has recently been quarreling.

While it is not clear if the ploy will eventually work, especially since some of his councilors have, in turn, offered to share the pork with the opposition, early indications suggest that it might.

Osmeña and his partymates recently had a fence-mending get-together and it appears to have quieted down the party intramurals.

Now Osmeña is using another tack with money, trying to wage war against terrorism and crime with it.

To set the ball rolling, he said he is giving out an unspecified cash reward to personnel of the Verbena pension house on Gil Garcia street who alerted the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) about the presence of two of three men suspected of having robbed a cellphone shop.

The NBI coordinated with the police and the two suspects, Aries Glenn Madarang and Jherson Estimo, were arrested. An estimated P500,000 in cash, cellphones and accessories were lost in the heist.

‘Big fanfare’

Osmeña promised to make a "big fanfare" out of the rewards, which will be taken from the city’s intelligence funds.

The move comes close on the heels of a series of robberies that hit Cebu and the terrorist bomb attack at the Davao City airport, which left 21 people dead and more than a hundred others injured.

Osmeña reminded Cebuanos to be wary of strangers, especially male boarders or house renters who have no regular lifestyle, do not socialize or mingle in public, have no family ties here and have poor housekeeping habits, among other suspicious characteristics.

He also warned the public about high-risk areas such as churches, public markets, malls and other commercial establishments and government buildings, including the City Hall itself.

"The safety of the city cannot be enhanced significantly by the police alone. I think that we would have to ask all the parishioners to form their own security communities. That’s where I’d like to see some improvements," he said. – Freeman News Service