By WILLIE L. CATAPAT
Chief Supt. Marcelino Franco, Northern Police District Office (NPDO) director, batted yesterday for the imposition of penalties to owners whose properties were used as base for illegal activities.
"I know that this is beyond the scope of police work, so I am calling on legislators to study this loophole enabling some criminal elements to engage in illegal activities and go unpunished," he said.
Franco made the assertion after he noticed that the law is too lax on businessmen who leased their properties to suspected operators of shabu laboratories.
"More often, owners of the warehouses raided in northern Metro Manila escaped further injury by just stating that they just leased their properties to the suspects," Franco said.
He said that lawmakers must at least formulate laws to make the property owners answerable to the authorities in case their properties were used in illegal activities.
Franco, however, made it clear that he is not advocating for the persecution and harassment of legitimate and law-abiding entrepreneurs but rather want to set measures to curb criminality in the country.
The police general said that by enacting such law, property owners will be doubly careful in leasing their properties to persons of suspicious character and origin.
