Are we seeing the end of noise pollution?

I just learned that the Cebu City Police Directorate has gotten its first female official -Senior Superintendent Royina Garma -as our director of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO). I have always worked with women officials in the past, but the entry of Sr. Supt. Garma means she has her work cut out for her. For instance, we just recently heard of the assassination of Atty. Salvador Solima inside his home at Barangay Guadalupe. This is something that she must work on to find the perpetrator of this ghastly deed.

Meanwhile, I just learned that the CCPO under Sr. Supt. Garma will "unhesitatingly" enforce the community ban on the use or should I say the misuse of videoke singing late in the evening, denying so many people of sleep. Finally, at long last, we have a City Police director who has made this decision to enforce our community laws… something that we've long tried before. But the police officers that would come supposedly to stop the videoke singers were inutile to show their authority. If the police can now show their authority to our videoke singers, then thank God we shall all have a good night's rest… thanks to Sr. Supt. Garma!

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I was watching CNN news the other night when the breaking news came out that another mayor was killed in the Philippines. I thought that the news report was about the killing of Mayor Antonio Hallili of Tanauan, Batangas, who was killed by a sniper during the flag-raising ceremony at the City Hall last Monday. But that breaking news was about the killing of Mayor Ferdinand Bote of General Tinio town in Nueva Ecija who was gunned down on his vehicle late Tuesday afternoon.

These two incidents of mayors being killed by still unknown gunmen has brought into full alert the Philippine Na-tional Police (PNP) in northern Luzon. Are these two killings drug-related or politically motivated, after all, in less than a year, we shall be holding our mid-term elections. But it is now up to police investigators to dig deeper into these killings.

Finally, we learned from PNP Chief Director General Oscar Albayalde that the killer of Rev. Fr. Richmond Nilo has been solved with the arrest of the hired killers and businessman Manuel Torres who allegedly hired the assassins who murdered Fr. Nilo. This is the kind of solution that we've always sought from our PNP this is why I have only my full support to Gen. Albayalde who is a no nonsense PNP official. Let's hope that the PNP would also solve the murders of the mayors soon.

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In a couple of weeks, Pres. Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte will hold his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) and I'm sure that he would be reporting for instance the successful recovery of the Marawi City siege and the continued fight against illegal drugs. I just hope that before the SONA comes, Pres. Duterte would already choose the next chief justice of the Supreme Court because this position is vacant today.

I understand that three senior magistrates of the Supreme Court are set to vie for the post of chief justice, which for me is very good… because it means that the Duterte administration isn't getting a person who does not belong to the Judiciary. We learned that Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Diosdado Peralta and Lucas Bersamin are expected to accept their automatic nomination for the top judicial post under the rules, which provide for automatic nomination of the five most senior justices of the SC's chief justice position that is vacant.

We learned that acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio would turn down any nomination to the top magistrate post after he voted against a quo warranto petition to oust Maria Lourdes Sereno as chief justice. Carpio said, "I have to be consistent with my position. My position was that the quo warranto was not the right thing. That a sitting justice can only be impeached by the Senate, removed by the Senate." Indeed, Carpio in my book is the most senior amongst the associate justices and, if he is named chief justice, it would not be good for his image… besides in less than a year he would already be retireable. But again I'd like to point to the President that he should name the next Chief Justice by now.

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