Street wakes should be banned
Mayor Edgardo Labella has decided to suspend the daily clamping and towing in many of the streets of Cebu City. While it’s true that the law should never be suspended for any reason, let me point out that many vehicles and their owners from Bohol, Dumaguete or even Bacolod City are here in Cebu City to attend the Sinulog Festival. Many of these motorists do not know what areas within Cebu City are towing or clamping zones and, yes, if they are clamped or towed, these motorists do not even know how to collect their vehicles.
I call this a very honest gesture to our visitors in the hope that they would have a pleasant visit to Cebu for the 40th year of Sinulog. However, we must take note that motorists who come from Cebu City should not abuse this privilege because if they do, they might just have problems when the Sinulog is over and they end up parking in a towing or clamping area.
Before I forget this -- just across the Barangay Kamputhaw headquarters, a tent was erected to house the wake of a dead person. I’m referring to Escario St., which is one of the most traffic congested areas in Cebu City. I really don’t know why the barangay captain of Kamputhaw allowed this to happen. And worse, officials of the Cebu City Traffic Office (CCTO) failed to notice this. While the dead is already buried, the tent is still on the side of the road, and I dare the CCTO to remove it immediately. I have always believed that this practice should be stopped by the city government, and this should include other areas where traffic is already a huge issue.
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We read in Philippine Star that lawyer Jude Sabio said that he is set to withdraw before the International Criminal Court (ICC) the communication against President Duterte, whom he accused of committing crimes against humanity as a result of his war on drugs campaign. Atty. Sabio said that he is set to send an e-mail to Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, of the ICC Office of the Prosecutor, wherein he would express his interest to withdraw the 77-page communication titled “The Situation of Mass Murder in the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte: The Mass Murderer.”
Atty. Sabio added that he would also ask the ICC to set aside the legal matter with regard to the allegations of the war on drugs in the Philippines, saying that these were merely “part of the political propaganda” of Sen. Leila de Lima, former senator Antonio Trillanes IV, and some members the Liberal Party (LP), who are critics of Duterte. Wow! Finally the ICC will be told that all those information that they got were nothing but the political maneuvers of the opposition, which the ICC shouldn’t have anything to do with. In his 28-page affidavit, Sabio mentioned that he reportedly did not receive the financial support in representing Edgar Matobato, a self-confessed assassin whose deposition was part of the ICC case.
In his letter to the ICC, Atty. Sabio said: “Madame Prosecutor, in light of all these and under the circumstances obtaining, I am left with no choice but to formally withdraw from your office the communication that I filed way back on 24 April 2017. I fervently request that it be expunged or erased from the record, and that it should not be used in any way in the ongoing preliminary examination. I also fervently request that the legal matter pending with your office in relation to the war on drugs in the Philippines should be set aside and thrashed (sic) for being just a part of the political propaganda of Senator Trillanes, Senator De Lima and their LP-led opposition which I do not wish to be part.”
To give full support to this piece by Atty. Sabio, Atty. Larry Gadon accompanied him when he had his affidavit notarized in Quezon City.
All I can say is that the ICC episode is now history because it has become part and parcel of the ugly Philippine style of politics. It is unfortunate that the ICC listened only to one side of the story. I hope now that the truth has come out, they would issue formal apologies to the President.
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