#operation romeo moral policing

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Neeraj Pandey on producing Operation Romeo based on moral policing: 'If it resonates strongly, why not talk about it?'

Neeraj Pandey on producing Operation Romeo based on moral policing: ‘If it resonates strongly, why not talk about it?’

Filmmaker Neeraj Pandey says his latest production Operation Romeo might start a discussion because “all of us have faced something like this in our lives, in different degrees.” Operation Romeo has the theme of moral policing at the core of it. Starring Sharad Kelkar and Bhumika Chawla, it is the remake of 2019 Malayalam movie Ishq. “The producers of the original film approached us. In their…

[harpianews]

Operation Romeo: Neeraj Pandey backs film on moral policing, says 'Audience will be able to relate to all the characters'

Operation Romeo: Neeraj Pandey backs film on moral policing, says ‘Audience will be able to relate to all the characters’

A man and a woman in a car are about to kiss when there is violent banging on the door. It is sub-inspector Jadhav, who feels that the couple is a threat to the moral fabric of society. The scene from the upcoming film Operation Romeo reflects experiences that many couples have had across the country. The trailer of Operation Romeo was launched on Friday at DY Patil B-School Campus by the entire…

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Operation Romeo

Operation Romeo

Operation Romeo: The film features the fears and stresses that youthful couples all over the nation experience because of the danger presented by moral policing. Director Shashant Shah Writers Ratheesh Ravi(original story)Arshad Syed(screenplay) Stars Sidhant GuptaVedika PintoSharad Kelkar Read the full article

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Newly-sworn PAC officers and members renew commitment as PNP’s partners

#PHinfo: Newly-sworn PAC officers and members renew commitment as PNP’s partners

NAGA CITY, March 15 (PIA) -- Philippine National Police (PNP) Camarines Sur Police Provincial Office (CSCSPPO) Acting Provincial Director PCOL Bernardo M. Perez led the simple-oath taking ceremony of the re-elected officers and members of the Provincial Advisory Council (PAC) held Mar. 11, Thursday, at the CSCCPO Multi-Purpose Bldg., Concepcion Grande, here.

Dr. Dean Augusting C. Camu, President of the Council of Deans for Criminology Education Region V and Rev. Fr. Lorenzo Juan B. Jarcia III, Prompt Succor Parish Priest were re-elected as Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively. 

All the other 7-year termer PAC members: Philippine Information Agency (PIA)-Camarines Sur Provincial Head Ana-Liza S. Macatangay; Prosecutor III, Office of the Provincial Prosecutor of Camarines Sur Atty. Ramiro Alfredo R. Cabral; Citizen’s Information Assistance Regional Director Dr. Clemente B. Ramos; Bicol Regional Evangelistic Assoc. for Development (BREAD) Inc., Chairman Pastor Joey M. Piano, Lighthouse Christian Community Lead Pastor and Youth Representative Pastor Rodel Lopez  and Office of the Asst. Regional Director, NAPOLCOM Regional Office V OIC Atty. Edman Pares were also re-elected and will serve for CY 2021 to 2023.

Photo from L-R Citizen’s Information Assistance Regional Director Dr. Clemente B. Ramos (far left); Lighthouse Christian Community Youth Representative Pastor Rodel Lopez (2nd to the left); Bicol Regional Evangelistic Assoc. for Development (BREAD) Inc., Chairman Pastor Joey M. Piano (3rd from left); Philippine Information Agency (PIA)-Camarines Sur Provincial Head Ana-Liza S. Macatangay (3rd from right); Glenn A. Mancera, OIC, Operations Division LTO Region V (2nd from right) and Ricardo Magtuto, Camarines Sur Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc (far right).  (Photo: JRMadrid, PIA5/Camarines Sur) 

Additional new members representing their respective agencies include Engr. Romeo D. Doloiras, District Engineer representing the Camarines Sur 3rd District Engineering Office; Ricardo Magtuto, Camarines Sur Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc.; Glenn A. Mancera, OIC, Operations Division LTO Region V; Ma Dolores D. Salud, Director II, Civil Service Commission CSFO and Luigi Villafuerte, Provincial Administrator, Provincial Government of Camarines Sur.

The council will advise and assist the CSPPO in identifying key priorities and strategic issues in accordance with the PNP ITG-PGS (P.A.T.R.O.L Plan 2030) and provide valuable suggestions, guidance and insights in consonance with the CSPPO’s policies, plans and programs, involving the political, socioeconomic, cultural and moral development needs of the organization.

PCOL Perez thanked the PAC officers and members for their commitment to assist the PNP especially in matters that concerns the success of their programs against criminality, including an increased community involvement thru their expertise and guidance.

“The CSPPO is thankful for having you all and for all the valuable suggestions and commitment that I personally heard from you. I am confident that with you as strategic partners, we will achieve our goal in maintaining peace and order and keeping our community safe,” Perez added.

After the short oath-taking ceremony, the council sat down to discuss pressing issues at hand and vowed to actively participate in all the endeavors of the CSPPO. (PIA5/Camarines Sur)

***

References:

* Philippine Information Agency. "Newly-sworn PAC officers and members renew commitment as PNP’s partners." Philippine Information Agency. https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1069630 (accessed March 15, 2021 at 06:38PM UTC+08).

* Philippine Infornation Agency. "Newly-sworn PAC officers and members renew commitment as PNP’s partners." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1069630 (archived).

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-love-song-of-dril-and-the-boys/

The Love Song Of Dril And The Boys

I have not read dril’s book. I cannot read dril’s book. 

Dril Official “Mr. Ten Years” Anniversary Collection compiles 1,500 of the pseudonymous Twitter user’s greatest tweets, and it is simply too funny for me to read for more than a page or two at a time without laughing so hard, I feel physically ill. Ask my family if you don’t believe me. Ask the patrons of the West Babylon Public Library, who have been shooting me dirty looks since I began writing this essay. Every time I crack the book open, I’m seconds away from hitting something like this … 

“hello 911 I need a moat dug around my house immediately” “sir this line is for emergencies only” “Thuis is an emergency moat”

— wint (@dril) May 18, 2014

 … or this …

koko the talking ape.. has been living high on the hog, wasting our tax dollars on high capacity diapers. No more. i will suplex that beast,

— wint (@dril) September 7, 2014

… or this … 

where do girls live

— wint (@dril) October 20, 2010

… and that’s it. Show’s over. “Goodnight Irene,” as Gorilla Monsoon would say. (“I will suplex that beast.”)

Dril’s blend of fist-on-the-table bluster, abject confusion and burned-toast syntax — the style of humor he pioneered, which became the lingua franca of Funny/Weird Twitter in toto — has my number. Like Monty Python’s run-on sketches, non sequiturs and Terry Gilliam animation; like the endless awkward pauses, omnipresent electrical humming and recycled animation of “Space Ghost Coast to Coast”; like Tim and Eric’s garish colors, glitchy video and non-actor stars, dril’s tweets are a new way to be funny, with a rhythm and vocabulary all their own. I love it.

But dril? Dril loves the boys. 

A recurring collective character in dril’s oeuvre, the boys occupy a unique place in his taxonomy, which, thanks to the book’s arrangement of tweets by topic, is easier than ever to get the hang of. For example, girls are mysterious sources of intermingled awe and terror, like the monoliths in “2001.”

ah, So u persecute Jared Fogle just because he has different beliefs? Do Tell. (girls get mad at me) Sorry. Im sorry. Im trying to remove it

— wint (@dril) November 1, 2015

Brands are icons of integrity, as admirable as they are untouchable.

just deleted 23,000 tweets at the request of Sbarro. feeling Purified

— wint (@dril) July 5, 2015

The trolls are contemptible pests, an implacable obstacle.

will no longer be livestreaming foreskin restoration process; the trolls who attempted to summon [インプ] (Imps) into the chatroom are to blame

— wint (@dril) February 3, 2012

And then there’s rival Twitter user @DigimonOtis, a class by himself: He is nemesis, the anti-dril.

(reading my latest death threat ) “from the desk of DigimonOtis…” this is bullshit. digimonotis has never owned a desk

— wint (@dril) November 6, 2014

But the boys are on dril’s level. The boys welcome dril with open arms. They share his hopes and fears, his loves and hates. He’s one of the boys.

Just met w/ Boys Lunch Club. Seems to me, That we are very pissed off that teen girls would rather kiss, “Soldier Boy,” than Actual Soldiers

— wint (@dril) May 16, 2016

pleased to report my custom beer tap that makes a dramatic diarrhea noise while filling the glass is a hit with the boys at the fondue club

— wint (@dril) October 16, 2014

best 90s memory is gathering around the old oak tree with the boys and passing around trading cards featuring all of our dads #DamnGood90s

— wint (@dril) April 30, 2013

Crucial to the boys’ appeal is their exclusivity. Like any clique, they’ve invested their aesthetic preferences with moral weight, and those who violate them do so at their peril.

darknet 2002: pics of dead guys in bath tubs, warez darknet 2017: discussions amongst the boys as to which of our acquaintances aren t funny

— wint (@dril) August 11, 2017

me & the booys are riffing on 78 hours of stolen walgreens security cam footage. this guy on here just bought a toilet brush. bitch!! bitch!

— wint (@dril) December 8, 2014

me and the boys have decided that the least gay way of wiping your ass is to dump a quarter bottle of Palmolive Spring Sensations back there

— wint (@dril) September 17, 2016

Dril may be a member in good standing, but membership brings responsibilities as well as privileges.

the boys held an intervention about me “Going hollywood” because i;ve been buying plastic toothpicks now

— wint (@dril) June 1, 2018

THE BOYS: were watching the mr bean episode where you can see his ass. get over here ME: cant. wifes making me watch mr beans holiday (2007)

— wint (@dril) June 14, 2017

If the boys function as dril’s superego, instilling and policing values, they are also his id — an embodiment of his most voracious physical drives.

pussy log 12.29.11: justin unscrewed the knob from the door to the ladies’ room and now the club boys all take turns cradling it

— wint (@dril) December 30, 2011

“Ah!! Lunchtime, Boys!” i snort several lines of Hamburger Helper, tilt my head back and shake with unbearable agony as my head turns purple

— wint (@dril) May 15, 2013

The comedy and tragedy of dril is that he is a man without ego, the mediating force that balances the needs of id and superego. He is perpetually out of balance, careening from excess to shame. He requires the intervention of the boys, the example they set, just to function.

This is why the saga of dril and the boys is a love story — conditional and occasionally unrequited though that love may be. It is poignant because it is impossible to imagine dril living without them any more than Juliet could live without Romeo.

When the lovers are in harmony — when the needs of id, ego and superego are aligned at last — the result is a thing of beauty.

going ape shit at the gym. rotating in full 360 degrees with the boys, flawlessly synchronized

— wint (@dril) November 28, 2017

The boys can be peers, contributing to the good posts for which dril is best known at a level beyond dril’s own imagining.

cant wiat to see what devilish thanksgiving scenarios me and the boys of twitter can conjure up. “The turkey was taken by spiders? ? Whua??”

— wint (@dril) November 24, 2014

Together they can be silent guardians, watchful protectors, dark knights, defending boys both within and outside the circle from the depredations of rival groups.

me & the boys will be holding hands., forming a Covenant Ring, to protest girls who only want to fuck the main pirate from the pirate movies

— wint (@dril) June 4, 2017

the epic shit of 2017; is the boys getting TheSegaPimp fired from his job at The Red Cross for not wishing me a “Happy Halloween”

— wint (@dril) January 2, 2018

the boys are enjoying their fave jukebox when ths sarge steps in SARGE: TURN OFF THE DAMN JUKE BOX! ITS WAR ME: Fuck u sarge. The armys crap

— wint (@dril) July 7, 2015

Not every tweet about the boys made it into the book. This is fitting, as when they’re operating at full force, nothing can contain them. 

thje opening riff of “Life In The Fast Lane” repeats over and over forever while me and the boys shoot at a septic tank with airsoft rifles

— wint (@dril) August 1, 2014

me N’ the boys eating messy sandiwches, sneaking around with big binoculars looking for girls & letting every one know who runs this TJ maxx

— wint (@dril) July 21, 2016

So we come to the crux of the matter. Dril and the boys are the great love story of our time because their insecurities, their mania, are our time’s prime motivators.

Dril and the boys wallow in the same miasma from which all our era’s reactionary movements have emerged — the MAGAs and Pepes, MRAs and incels, GamerGaters and ComicsGaters, Sad Puppies and Proud Boys and all the other doofuses with unwittingly infantilizing sobriquets.

With “the boys,” the humorist behind dril has tapped into the overall vibe in this country that there exists, somewhere out there ― perhaps in a TJ Maxx ― a lost masculine ideal. No one agrees on what it is, least of all dril, whose psyche is as piecemeal as his punctuation. It could be yelling at NFL protesters to stand for the national anthem or screaming at Disney for committing white genocide in the “Star Wars” films. It could be having sex all the time or having no sex at all. It could be respecting the majesty of the law or flouting it or both, depending on whom the law is meant to penalize. It’s the nightmare superego-id hybrid, 10 pounds of Blue Lives Matter shit in a five-pound “Live free or die” bag.

When men fail to live up to the puritanical amorality of the boys, they’re less than men, which is to say — as women have a lifetime to learn — they’re less than human. Such men earn sexualized insults like “betas” and “cucks.” They’re reduced to contemptuous acronyms like “SJWs” and “NPCs.” They make the soy face. They listen to dad rock. This blend of macho aggression and childlike vulnerability cannot be resolved in the real world, where it results in a racist, revanchist, minority party controlling all branches of government and installing sexual predators in every available position of power yet still acting like the David to the Goliath of Me Too, female gamers and the theoretical casting of Idris Elba as James Bond.

me and the boys watching james bond morph into a black guy before our very eyes , and braying at the movie screen like distressed cattle

— wint (@dril) September 4, 2018

Dril and the boys reside in this all-American astral plane where the Large Son–Libtard civil war rages, where misandry is real and must be guarded against with magic spells. We recognize our own reality in their incoherent but nevertheless militant search for reasons to hoot and holler. As such, their romance presents us with an opportunity to convert the problematic into the pleasurable, just as surely as antihero dramas or even halfway decent kink.

In the world of dril and the boys, all the pride and greed and wrath and lust and envy and sloth and gluttony of the movements that have fouled the entire adult lives of multiple generations of Americans can be boiled down to a gaggle of morons screaming about toilets. It’s a beautiful fantasy, and like all fantasies, it’s as romantic as it is remote.

Sean T. Collins has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Esquire and Vulture. He and his partner, the cartoonist Julia Gfrörer, are the co-editors of the art and comics anthology Mirror Mirror II. They live with their children on Long Island in New York.

Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dril-and-the-boys-twitter_us_5bb66529e4b028e1fe3bfd71

[worthwhilenews]

Fighting in southern Philippine city may end imminently – military Members of the Philippine Marine Battalion Landing Team (MBLT) and Marine Special Operation Group (MARSOG) stands at attention in front of their belongings during their send-off ceremony ending their combat duty against pro-Islamic State militant groups inside a military headquarters in Marawi city, southern Philippines October 21, 2017, a few days after President Rodrigo Duterte announced the liberation of Marawi city. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco October 21, 2017 By Neil Jerome Morales MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – The Philippines is preparing to declare the end of fighting in a southern city seized for five months by pro-Islamic State rebels, a top military commander said on Saturday, as troops continued a phased withdrawal from the devastated lakeside city.     Only 20 insurgents remained in a small area in Marawi City, including five “significant” figures, and three battalions of troops were closing in on their positions, said Lieutenant-General Carlito Galvez.     “Most probably tomorrow, we can do it,” Galvez told reporters when asked when the military can declare fighting is over. “We can declare it is totally complete.”     Galvez said troops are zeroing in on three sons of Isnilon Hapilon, the slain “emir” of Islamic State in Southeast Asia, and two Malaysians, including Amin Baco, who has been central to facilitating the movement of foreign fighters in the region. “We cannot say our mission is totally accomplished or completed if the five persons are still there,” he said, adding the remaining militants are “struggling to survive” and to protect their shrinking position.     Another general told Reuters they were also looking for a prominent Indonesian militant. The military is concerned Hapilon’s sons and these foreign fighters could succeed core leaders of the alliance killed this week.     Hapilon and Omarkhayam Maute were killed by commandoes on Monday. Malaysian Mahmud Ahmad, who experts say may have funded the Marawi siege, was also dead, according to a freed hostage, but his body has yet to be found. The defense ministry said on Saturday that forensic tests by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation had confirmed that the man killed was Hapilon. The United States has provided technical support to treaty ally the Philippines, including surveillance drones. The deaths of the leaders could slow down any effort by Islamic State to establish a presence in Mindanao, a vast island with a history of rebellion and home to the predominantly Roman Catholic nation’s Muslim minority. The organization and combat capability of the rebels has stunned the military. Some experts see the siege as a prelude to a more ambitious bid by Islamic State loyalists to exploit Mindanao’s poverty and use its jungles and mountains as a base to train, recruit and launch attacks in the region. Galvez, head of the Western Mindanao Command, inspected troops in Marawi and sent off a battalion of marines central to military operations . It was the second unit to leave the conflict area.     The military declined to divulge the number of troops remaining in Marawi. Elite commandoes were leading the assault, with army infantry battalions and police commandoes securing safe areas.     The military said eleven hostages were “processed” on Saturday to determine whether they were really captives or militant members and sympathizers trying to slip away.     Galvez said rehabilitation, including retrieval of the dead, would start after the end of hostilities is declared. The Philippines estimates the rebuilding of areas battered by months of government air strikes could cost at least 50 billion Philippine pesos ($971 million). (Writing by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Martin Petty and Kim Coghill)

[tortuga-aak]

Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte orders another halt to police crackdown on drug trade

Thomson Reuters

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered police to halt activities in his deadly war on drugs and leave all operations to the drug enforcement agency, amid unprecedented scrutiny of police conduct.

Duterte's office on Wednesday made public a memorandum telling police, the military and other state bodies to leave to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) "as sole agency" the conduct of all campaigns and operations.

It was unclear why Duterte had ordered the change in the role of the police, who have been responsible for the vast majority of arrests and killings in the 15-month-old campaign.

Neither the presidential spokesman nor the communications secretary immediately responded to Reuters' requests for comment.

The order could blunt the intensity of the crackdown, since the drug enforcement agency has only a fraction of the manpower of the 190,000-strong police. But it was not the first time the mercurial leader has decreed that the agency lead the drugs war.

Thomson Reuters

Duterte suspended police anti-drugs operations in late January, to cleanse a force he called "corrupt to the core," but lifted that ban five weeks later, saying drugs were flooding back to the streets and the gains of the war were being lost.

The memorandum, signed on Tuesday, ordered the police force at all times to "maintain police visibility, as a deterrent to illegal activities," while restricting operations to the drug agency.

Its aim was "to bring order to the operation or campaign against illegal drugs, thus pinpointing precise accountability," the document said.

More than 3,900 Filipinos have been killed in what the police called self-defense after armed suspects resisted arrest. Critics dispute that and say executions are taking place, with zero accountability, allegations the police reject.

Police and drug enforcement agency spokesman said the two agencies would follow the president's decision, but did not elaborate.

Reuters/Romeo Ranoco

Duterte's move follows the August killing of a teenager by police that sparked rare public outrage after a security camera showed the victim in custody, contrary to a police report that he was a drug dealer who tried to shoot them.

It also follows a protest against Duterte last month by thousands of people in Manila, and a series of opinion polls highlighting doubts among many Filipinos about official police accounts, and whether those killed were all drug dealers.

A poll released on Sunday showed a sharp decline in public opinion about Duterte's performance and personality, though sentiment about him remained positive overall.

Rights lawyers on Wednesday approached the Supreme Court to try and stop the war on drugs, saying it was illegal and allowed the police to circumvent legal procedure.

(Reporting by Martin Petty, Karen Lema, and Neil Jerome Morales)

NOW WATCH: 'I have done this before, why would I not do it again?': Philippines president says he once threw a man out of a helicopter

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[visionmpbpl-blog]

New Post has been published on http://www.visionmp.com/create-fear-among-potential-harassers-in-public-places-yogi/

Create fear among potential harassers in public places: Yogi Adityanath

Lucknow: After reports of harassment of Boys and Girls by anti-Romeo squads, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday asked officials to ensure there was no “unnecessary harassment”.

The Chief Minister asked the Principal Secretary (Home) to chalk out clear guidelines for anti-Romeo squads and ensure there is no unnecessary harassment of boys and girls moving around or sitting at any place, an official release said.

According to police sources, the modus operandi of the squads will be the same as that of the infamous ‘Operation Majnu’ in 2005, in which boys at crossings and markets were pulled up, and couples in gardens were thrashed by police.

It was seen as an attempt at moral policing and widely criticised.

In Meerut, SP (city) Alok Priyadarshi denied charges of harassment.

“The only job (of the squads) is to ensure safety of women and to ensure that eve-teasing does not takes place. For this we will also take preventive steps like not permitting miscreants to loiter in public areas where women are known to frequent. I will not say it is moral policing,” he said.

The chief minister, who met an acid attack victim in hospital here this morning, asked for effective steps in cases of acid attacks.

Adityanath who has termed law and order as the top priority of his government also asked for daily report from all DMs and SPs in connection with all these points, the release said. The chief minister holds the portfolio of Home department.

[phgq]

PRO13 acquires new vehicles, manpack radios

#PHinfo: PRO13 acquires new vehicles, manpack radios

SURIGAO CITY, Surigao del Norte, Dec. 1 -- The Police Regional Office (PRO) 13 has acquired anew several mobility assets and communication equipment in order to enhance operational and administrative capabilities in the fields, as it is committed to win against criminality, insurgency and illegal drugs.

PRO-13 regional director Brigadier General Romeo Caramat, Jr. and members of the Command Group personally witnessed the blessing and turnover ceremony of the nine units Toyota Patrol Jeep 4x2 single cab and 24 sets of Codan HF Manpack radios.

BGen. Caramat said the new mobility assets were distributed to Surigao City Police Station, Alegria Municipal Police Station, General Luna Municipal Police Station, Dapa Municipal Police Station, Gigaquit Municipal Police Station, Del Carmen Municipal Police Station, San Jose Municipal Police Station, Esperanza Municipal Police Station, and Bunawan Municipal Police Station to upgrade its capabilities.

The 24 sets of Codan HF Manpack radios were distributed to the maneuvering units of Caraga region distributed to Regional Mobile Force Battalion (RMFB) 13, 1301st Maneuvering Company, 1302nd Maneuvering Company, 1303rd Maneuvering Company, 1304th Maneuvering Company for police operations.

“These additional logistical resources shall help in boosting the morale of the troops in the frontline services in order for the Caraga police to serve and protect well the people as we aim to attain a safer place to live, work and do business in the region,” said BGen. Caramat. (PRO13/PIA-Surigao del Norte)

      ***

References:

* Philippine Information Agency. "PRO13 acquires new vehicles, manpack radios." Philippine Information Agency. https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1060607 (accessed December 01, 2020 at 10:18AM UTC+08).

* Philippine Infornation Agency. "PRO13 acquires new vehicles, manpack radios." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1060607 (archived).

[phgq]

S. Cotabato Balay Silangan clients train as electricians

#PHinfo: S. Cotabato Balay Silangan clients train as electricians

PDEA 12 Director Naravy Duquiatan challenged the 47 clients of the South Cotabato Balay Silangan Reformatory Center to take by heart the opportunity for them to change that the national government has granted. On Tuesday, March 3, PDEA and TESDA 12 kicked off the livelihood skills training for the center clients on electrical installation and maintenance NC II. 

  TUPI, South Cotabato, Mar. 4 (PIA) – Forty-seven clients of the South Cotabato Balay Silangan Reformatory Center in Tupi town will start next week their training for electrical installation and maintenance NC II courtesy of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) 12.

The clients are drug offender inmates of the South Cotabato Rehabilitation and Detention Center who have availed of plea-bargaining agreement and have secured court orders subjecting the former to the reformation program led by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency before they are finally reintegrated to their communities.

Naravy Duquitan, PDEA 12 director, said the reformation program and the skills training are rare opportunity that the administration of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has granted to drug offenders.

“Do not squander this chance that the government has granted you to change your lives,” Director Duquiatan told the center clients. “You are given a chance to be reformed through the Balay Silangan. Grab this opportunity. Be serious about this.”

Quoting  PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino she added: “The government can never give up on surrendering drug dependents and pushers. Hope or pag-asa is all they need to overcome their former selves and start over again. We will give assurance  that hope will be realized if they show the sincerity and commitment to change.”

For about three weeks, the South Cotabato Balay Silangan clients will learn electrical installation under the guidance of their trainor, Engr. Gilbert Cometa of the General Santos National School of Arts and Trade (GSNSAT).

Femie Villanueva, registrar of GSNSAT, revealed that in addition to the electrical installation training, Engr. Cometa will also teach the trainee-scholars on installation of photovoltaic or solar electricity production system.

On regular offering, an electrical installation and maintenance NC II course costs at about P17,000 but this will be given free to the Balay Silangan clients, Villanueva said.

Cometa told Philippine Information Agency that the training at the South Cotabato Balay Silangan could start on Wednesday next week.

Meanwhile, Mayor Romeo Tamayo promised the residents of Tupi among the first batch of the reformatory center’s clients that the municipal government will help them establish their livelihood or find employment once they complete the programs.

Femie Villanueva, registrar of the General Santos National School of Arts and Trade announced that the electrical installation skills training for the South Cotabato Balay Silangan will inc;lude photovoltaic solar electrical production system installation.  The electrical installation and maintenance NC II training costs about P17,000 per person but will be provided free for the reformatory center residents. 

  Balay Silangan Reformation Program is a 3-month intervention that, according to a PDEA briefer “offers temporary refuge with the objective of reforming drug offenders into self-sufficient and law-abiding members of society.”

The interventions provided by the program include “continuing education and health awareness, and psychological/spiritual/physical activities such as counseling, moral recovery, values formation, personal and life skills, among others.”  Clients are also provided livelihood and training skills.

For the operation of the facility, PDEA works in collaboration with the LGUs, TESDA, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Education, Department of Justice, Philippine National Police, Department of Labor and Employment and others. 

The Balay Silangan Reformatory Center in Tupi is the first provincial government-owned reformatory center in the country.

Citing report from retired South Cotabato CIDG chief and center head Jonathan Jovero, Duquiatan said at least 80 persons are already lined up for the second batch of clients.

At present, Duquiatan said, SOCCSKSARGEN Region has five Balay Silangan reformatory centers. The other centers are located in Malungon in Sarangani, Makilala in Cotabato Province,  Columbio in Sultan Kudarat, and Glan in Sarangani.

Of the five reformatory centers, three – the centers in Malungon, Makilala, and Tupi – are operational. However, the operation of the facility in Makilala is temporarily suspended because of the series of earthquakes that hit Cotabato Province in 2019, she added. (DED-PIA XII)

***

References:

* Philippine Information Agency. "S. Cotabato Balay Silangan clients train as electricians ." Philippine Information Agency. https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1035652 (accessed March 05, 2020 at 09:25AM UTC+08).

* Philippine Infornation Agency. "S. Cotabato Balay Silangan clients train as electricians ." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1035652 (archived).