HYPE OR HOPE IN MABALACAT?

It came almost like the early rains that ended this summer's sweltering heat.

We mean the pronouncement over the weekend that Mayor Marino "Boking"
Morales made about the illegal drugs problem in his municipality. He said
he has intensified efforts against it, whatever that meant in concrete or
rhetorical terms.

In a priming town as Mabalacat, one raring and no less deserving to be
anointed as city, that is a ray of hope, however faint, in the almost lost
battle against the proliferation of illegal drugs. Even then, we wonder why
it has taken Mayor Morales that long to get back to his senses and move
more aggressively against this scourge.

Almost everybody knows the sale of illegal drugs is rampant in Dau. Ask any
one in Dau or anybody at the Mabalacat town hall. Or just anywhere in the
municipality. The last time we heard, that's where Mayor Morales still
lives --in Dau. The merchants of those illegal substances, mainly shabu,
flaunt their merchandise almost literally under the Mayor's nose. You don't
have to walk very far from where the Mayor resides to buy shabu. All it
takes is some legwork. Or ear work.

Maybe the good mayor should start taking brisk walking around the block as
part of his intensified effort. It is also good for his health. It could
also work wonders on his, well, bulging pouch. The elegant barong doesn't
seem to elegantly fit him anymore, so Max Sangil dared to say in a less
flattering way over the radio probably at the same time the Mayor was
musing over his political future.

It could be an epiphany of some sorts. Or something else, maybe even
political gimmickry. For whatever reason, Mayor Morales at least is tacitly
admitting that illegal drugs are his town's scourge and that he must now do
something about it. For far too long those evil merchants have had their
ways. It's time Morales showed some teeth.

Henceforth, what we - and the people of Mabalacat, principally those from
Dau, - expect from the mayor is some honest-to-goodness updates on what has
his intensified drive has really accomplished in real terms and real time.

Ambitions, political, of all, can warp a person's sense of reality and
time. Mayor Morales is not immune to such disease, particularly now that
his political career hangs in the balance. He has to have something to
jumpstart his campaign (for vice governor?) for 2004. His so-called renewed
war against illegal drugs is a gusty move and a nitty-gritty approach to
protecting public welfare.

Assuming he means well, it could not only earn him political dividends
going into the next elections. Beyond politics, ridding Dau and the rest of
Mabalacat of pushers, users and their ilk would be the best thing that he
could ever do for his community.

There lies the import of his recent pronouncement.