By Franklin P.
Gumapon
DIPOLOG CITY – Usually media practitioners
are the ones shooting the questions and taking responses from their news sources:
political leaders, government officials, religious and civic organizations,
government agencies and other personages or groups that influence public
opinion.
This time, it’s the other way around. Here is a lady media
practitioner who holds a radio program dubbed “Kapihan sa Dipolog,” which is
aired live every Sunday at 9-11:00 a.m. over RMN-dxDR.
Her program tackles the hottest issues of the day. In her
latest edition of “Kapihan sa Dipolog,”
the topic centered on the government’s fight against illegal drugs with
officials from the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Philippine Drug
Enforcement Agency (PDEA) as guests.
This lady is known as Editha Pagente-Tomong, a former
president of the Zamboanga del Norte Press Club (ZNPC). She is one of the local
media practitioners who can bring to her program personalities from various
political groups in town. Thus, following her program gives her listeners more
balanced views on certain issues raised by opposing political camps.
Taking the bull by the horn, the Philippine Information
Agency (PIA) was able to draw from Ms. Tomong her honest-to-goodness
observation on the changes that are taking place when President Rodrigo Duterte
took the reins of the presidency.
This, she said: “One
notable change engendered by the Duterte administration is that the rate of
criminalities has been drastically reduced due to his all-out war against
illegal drugs.”
She, however, appealed to the
law enforcers to spare the innocent civilians in purging the society of drug
pushers and criminals, and the alleged senseless killings must end.
