Provincial solon calls for rebuilding of troubled North Cotabato school

KIDAPAWAN CITY --- A provincial lawmaker is drafting a resolution urging inter-agency support in restoring order in a state college whose president the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency is now searching for.North Cotatabo provincial board member Socrates Piñol said Wednesday he was to sponsor a resolution during their session Tuesday urging Malacañang to intervene on the problem, but balked when President Rodrigo Duterte named a caretaker for the Cotabato Foundation College of Science and Technology the day before. That resolution that I planned to author then was overtaken by President Duterte’s move so there was no need for it anymore. I’m drafting another resolution now still related to the CFCST issue, but with a different tenor, board member Piñol said Wednesday.The president of CFCST, Samsom Molao, has been missing since January 29, the day PDEA agents found some P500,000 worth of shabu in his official campus residence.The anti-narcotics operation, led by the Manila-based Levi Ortiz, director of PDEA’s Special Enforcement Service, also resulted in the seizure of 13 undocumented firearms, now in the custody of the North Cotabato provincial prosecutor.Duterte on Monday wrote approved and affixed his signature to the February 1 recommendation by the board member’s older sibling, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, recommending Clint Hassan as caretaker for the CFCST in Arakan, North Cotabato.Hassan, an ethnic Maguindanaon, is a senior communication specialist in the central office of the Department of Agriculture. He has also worked as dean in the now troubled CFCST years before he got employed at DA.Secretary Piñol released copies of the recommendation letter with Duterte's signature to central Mindanao media on Thursday night.The first-termer board member Piñol said he will indicate in his resolution, subject to approval by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan next week, the need for line agencies of the national government and sectors in North Cotabato to help the CFCST recover from its seemingly moribund situation now. I will also invite non-government organizations to help rebuild this school into a bulwark of learning and a center of peace education, the kind that will help unite our Muslim, Christian and Lumad constituents, he said.The PDEA has charged the now missing Molaowith operation of a drug den, in violation of Section 6, Article 2 of the Republic Act 9165, also known as the Philippine Dangerous Drugs Act.The agency also sued him for illegal possession of the 13 firearms, including M16, M-14 and AK-47 rifles that were found in his residential compound inside the CFCST campus.