CABANATUAN CITY – A Nueva Ecija legislator pressed for an action to place the province under “police control” to contain the resurgence of violence.
Rep. Eduardo Nonato Joson (1st dist., Nueva Ecija), who heads the Bagong Lakas ng Nueva Ecija, said that while civil liberties should be observed and civilian supremacy prevails, the police should get control over the province “even as it looks like marshal law.”
“Kahit parang marshal law,” Joson, also a former governor of Nueva Ecija and former member of the Marcos-era Batasang Pambansa, told the media in a conference here over the weekend.
Joson said under the police control, more checkpoints can be set up on roads, incentives extended for campaign against loose firearms, and warring politicians can be set for conference as often as necessary.
Police control, he said, will contain not only violence brought by infightings of politicians but also those killings emerging from ideological causes and extra-judicial killings.
He noted that some former and incumbent village heads were killed in the province recently. He also cited the killing of former board Member Uding Lopez in San Isidro town, in Nueva Ecija’s fourth district.
‘These should be stopped, we should not be like Abra,” Joson said in the vernacular. “Nueva Ecija should have been through with this situation,” he added.
Recently, residents of Licab, Nueva Ecija held a rally to condemn the assassination of Barangay Chairman David Villaroman of Barangay San Juan. Licab is within the first district which he represents.
Joson said he already sent a letter to Philippine National Police (PNP) director Gen. Avelino Razon Jr., with a copy furnished to the office of the President.
The PNP, he said, pledged to take necessary action.
But Gov. Aureio Umali refused to give comment until, he said, he could read the petition of Joson.
But Joson underscored the need to place an apolitical police officer to head the provincial police office (NEPPO) to have the purpose achieved.
