Kudos to the PNP on the capture of Alex Hugo

For tonight’s presentation on Straight from the Sky, we bring you a serious talk about saving the environment. Last April 22 the whole world celebrated Earth Day where we got a lot of documentaries on Discovery Channel and National Geographic about Global Warming. HBO even featured Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” to mark the occasion. I have no doubt that a lot of people who have seen those film or documentaries about Global Warming are convinced of the seriousness of this problem which affects not only us in the Philippines, but the rest of the world as well.

I’m sure that everyone who is convinced about this problem have asked themselves the question, “What can I do on my own in order to help fight Global Warming?” While there are no hard and fast answers to this problem, we know that if we do not do anything, things will get worse. Perhaps the bigger challenge we all face is, since the Philippines is not really the biggest polluting nation, we might be tempted not to act unless the big ones make their move. So the problem is, what if they won’t make a move?

This is exactly why for this show tonight, we bring you our guests from different persuasions that can help you do something on your own without waiting for anyone to make the first move. We have Director Alan Aranquez OIC of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB), Archt. Socorro Atega, Executive Director of Cebu’s Uniting for Sustainable Water (CUSW) and Mrs. Guadalupe Latonio of the Citizen’s League for Ecological Awareness and Responsibility (CLEAR) to teach us what we can do to help our environment. Watch this show on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00PM.

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 Congratulations are in order to CENTCOM Chief Lt. Gen. Victor Ibrado who has been appointed to replace Lt. Gen. Alexander Yano as Chief of the Philippine Army when he takes over the post of Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. when the latter retires on May 9. I remember telling Gen. Ibrado that when a general is assigned in CENTCOM it is the staging area for a top post in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). I also told the same thing to our good friend, Police Chief Superintendent Ronald D. Roderos Regional Director of the Police Regional Office in Region 7 in Central Visayas. Congratulations, Gen. Ibrado.

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Last Thursday the local newspapers came out with a story about the capture of Mr. Alex Hugo, who allegedly yielded assorted firearms in his house in Gutlang, Argao, Cebu. I’m sure that most Cebuanos have already forgotten Mr. Hugo, who used to be the head of the Nagkahiusang Drayber sa Sugbo (NADSU). I used to chair the Cebu City Traffic Operations and Management (CITOM). I will never forget this fellow because of the economic sabotage he and his group committed when they held two jeepney strikes in Cebu City because they did not want to pay their traffic fines. Of course thanks to the Kaoshiung buses, the strikes always fizzled out.

But here was a man who was already convicted (I think it was because of a forestry case) but did not serve his sentence as he was under parole. Yet he took over the leadership of NADSU which eventually split because many jeepney drivers and operators refused to be under a leftist leader. I also remember Mr. Hugo earned thousands of pesos per day when he controlled the jeepney operations in the SM complex.

Perhaps Mr. Hugo was most unforgettable when he appeared before the Cebu City Council to insult CITOM for not giving in to their demands. Mr. Hugo was lording it over with so much money in his pockets from their SM operation. But it was then that I learned that he had already jumped his parole. I personally checked this with the parole board and true enough my information was right. Hence, the judge who paroled him once more issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Hugo and the fellow simply vanished!

Kudos to the Philippine National Police (PNP) under Police Chief Superintendent Ronald D. Roderos for capturing Alex Hugo. Now whether this fellow has replaced Jigger Geverola as Secretary of the former Front Committee 5 of the Central Visayas Regional Party of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is something that the police has to prove. Of course Mr. Hugo denies any involvement with the CPP.

But for the comfort of the PNP or the military, they don’t even have to file anything to have Mr. Hugo back behind bars as he now has to serve his previous sentence, not to mention that he has also jumped his parole which should result in a longer jail sentence. This was confirmed by Gen. Roderos himself who gave me a copy of the report of PSSupt. Jesus Gaquing.