Farinas orders cheating city vendors prosecuted

By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- “File cases against them!”

By this directive, acting mayor Daniel Farinas last Monday called on the city market personnel to go beyond allowing erring vendors to pay the find and confiscating their defective weighing scales to put more teeth to the drive against short-changing buyers at the city market.

The acting mayor wants cases filed so those found guilty, aside from being fined, would be also be meted imprisonment of not less than six months, as per the city’s tax ordinance.

Farinas said mere confiscation and destruction of unsealed or tampered measuring gadgets would not deter unscrupulous vendors go scot-free after paying the fine. Chances are they’d go back to cheating market buyers again, he said.

“In the same token, we call on the Philippine Drug Enforcement Administration (PDEA) and other law-enforcement agencies to go beyond uprooting and destroying marijuana plantations by also arresting and charging the growers,” Farinas juxtaposed in his message at the weekly flag ceremony in front of the city hall.

Farinas, chair of the City Anti-Drug Abuse Council, stressed the campaigns against dangerous drugs and dishonest and scheming vendors would have no teeth unless the culprits are apprehended, prosecuted and punished.

City market superintendent said elements of the public order and safety division of the mayor’s office and the city treasurer’s office confiscated the 360 defective weighing scales last August and had it hauled  to the city hall frontage last Monday morning.

As in past confiscations, the scales were destroyed  through flattening with the use of a road roller, the same means employed on  pirated DVD and VCD films and CDs  confiscated during raids in video shops and along walkways in the city.