EDITORIAL - Systems normal, all f....d up

Cebu Governor Hilario Davide III has just done a Noynoy. He expressed continued confidence and support for the management of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center despite the recent discovery of rampant smuggling and trading of illegal drugs in the facility. So what does continued confidence and support for those not only caught with their pants down but could actually be involved in the anomaly mean to the Cebuanos?

It means a lack of direction on where government wants its correctional facility to go. It means a lack of courage to seize a tough situation by the collar and wrestle it down to the ground. It means a lack of moral authority to determine which is the greater interest that must be served. More importantly, it means a lack of leadership to show by example what needs to be done under the circumstances.

Let us look at the facts. The discovery of drug smuggling and trading did not involve some obscure community in some rural town where life is laid back and law enforcement mostly involves breaking up domestic spats. The discovery of drug smuggling and trading did not involve some street corner on a busy market day where the hands of law enforcers are busy and full.

The discovery of drug smuggling and trading involved the provincial government's own correctional and rehabilitation facility, an institution where everything is supposed to be under close supervision and security. It involved a location that is enclosed and therefore predictable, where everyone knows everybody else and where and what they are up to at a given moment.

In other words, the things that have happened inside the CPDRC are not supposed to happen, at anytime and under any circumstances. The people who are committed there are in trouble with the law as it is. They are supposed to be corrected and rehabilitated before being released back to society minus the threat of menace that they used to be.

To let such things happen, whether wittingly or unwittingly, is not only a very serious offense and a grave violation of the sworn duties of those who are supposed to keep things secure and in order there, it is, more importantly, a big slap in the face of law enforcement and public governance as most people understand them to be.

And yet here comes the governor, the father of the province, saying those who allowed these things to happen continue to enjoy his trust, confidence and support. Not only does it show an utter incapability of taking concrete action against a very clear problem and a crying shame, it is even at its basest perusal a display of lack of originality. Why must the governor pick someone totally devoid of inspirational qualities like President Noynoy Aquino to emulate?

To be sure, an investigation is underway. And that should have been left at that and wait until the results are out. To make known one's feelings about those in the center of the storm sends nothing but the wrong signals to everybody, but most importantly, to those conducting the investigation. What are the Cebuanos to expect from such an announcement except that nobody is going to be held liable and that everything can go back to normal, which in a manner of saying, is abnormal.