Thanks God we’re not a narco state

Our special guest today was my guest earlier this year when the law on Tax Re-form, Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) wasn’t even implemented yet. He is no other than Mr. Raymond “Mon” Abrea who is now more known as “The Tax Whiz.” While he maybe known as the Ten Outstanding Young Men Of the Philippines, he has also an alumnus of the 2015 Fall Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEAL) and has been seen hugging the television screens of Metro Manila explaining the TRAIN law to our people.

He is back tonight to explain the need to finished the second part of the TRAIN Law because it brings out an amnesty for those who failed to pay their taxes on time. So once more we talk about the great effects of the train law and the reason why Pres. Duterte was amenable to suspend the up and coming ex-cise tax on fuel due to high world prices of crude.

So once again we bring you Mon Abrea to talk about Train and why Train 2 should be approved as soon as possible tonight on SkyCable’s channel 53 at 8:00PM with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9:00PM Monday and at 7:00AM and 9:00PM on Wednesday and Friday.

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Over the weekend, thanks to the recent rains I decided to stay home and watch Netflick. The latest that I saw was the Narcos TV Series, which is the life and times of the world’s greatest drug lord, Pablo Escobar of Colom-bia. Seriously looking at that film, reminding me of what the Philippines would have become a narco state if we didn’t have a President Rodrigo Roa Duterte who literally waged war against illegal drug lords.

I seriously watched Narcos and realized that the Philippines was slowly becoming a narco state with shabu either coming from China or manufac-tured here in the country. This is due to the fact that the president in the last six years didn’t give any importance to the issue of illegal drugs. This reminds me of what my The Freeman colleague Atty. Paul Oaminal once dared me to write that any illegal drugs issue that then Pres. Benigno Aquino III wrote in his six State of the Nation Addresses (SONA) that I or my readers would uncover, he would give us P7,000 bucks. True enough, Pres. PNoy didn’t mention the issue of illegal drugs in his SONA of any significant importance.

Worse of all, our police director during PNoy’s time, Police Director Marcelo Garbo was an important name on the list that Pres. Duterte was holding. This was no different from what was happening in Colombia during the reign of Pablo Escobar. The major difference between Colombia and the Philippines was they had a Pablo Escobar, while here at home; we have the Parojinogs, Kerwin Espinosa, Peter Lim et al. But the greatest similarity lies upon the dead bodies many killed by drug lords in the government’s war against their illegal trade.

Much of the TV footage shown in Narcos were press releases by US presidents making speeches against illegal drugs. America helped the gov-ernment of Colombia in that war against drugs. So this brings us to ask, why do foreign governments chastise Pres. Duterte’s fight against illegal drugs? With the midterm elections taking place in May 2019, I dare say that all po-tential candidates must have a personal plan on how they intend to help in this war against illegal drugs, whether it is to put more rehabilitation centers to help drug addicts or fight the war itself.

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I’m glad that The Freeman came up with an editorial entitle “Im-pending Disaster” about the cracks that was reported to be seen in the Bushi-san Dam. Let me reprints that portion that said, “Despite recommendation by authorities, many residents in Cebu City’s Barangay Buhisan refused to vacate an area littered with tension cracks reportedly caused by a powerful earthquake several years ago. A resident even said there’s nothing to worry about since there is no quarry activity in the area, hoping the situation will not worsen similar to the massive landslide in the City of Naga that killed dozens of people.”

At the end of that editorial it says with emphasis, “We do not want an-other Naga City incident to occur. That is why authorities should immediately start taking the necessary steps to clear the area in Buhisan of residents, even if such requires forced evacuation.”

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