This is not an anti-GMA, anti-SONA statement.

The statistics come right from Camp Crame. The Central Visayas is the most dangerous region in the country (crime rate) and with the lowest crime rate solved of only 66 percent. The Region is made up of Cebu, Negros Oriental, Bohol and Siquijor inhabited by 10 million people.

While it is true that Cebu has become a hoodlum's paradise, equally distressed are the provinces of Negros Oriental and Bohol. Last week the Negros Oriental media pooled an editorial virtually calling their elected officials "offensive" names from city mayor to governor and congressmen for failing to address the growing gruesome crime rate there.

In Bohol province, it is a fact that there are a spate of highway robberies and murders that have remained unsolved. Gang-related violence in the city is rearing its ugly head, likewise. Now that the street dancing and all that TBTK jazz are over, let's stop playing cute and just go down to business.

What is the point of being a tourist hub (as the region is proclaimed to be with Bohol as the next standard bearer) if our streets and highways are no longer safe? What quality of life is assured of us if crimes are not only committed in wanton abandon but worse, they cannot be solved likewise by the proper authorities? Wake up gentlemen to this cruel and sad reality.

Let's be no-kidding frank that "Brand Bohol" and "Most Preferred Tourist Destination" can crash before take-off. We are just in the pre-departure area and our blind spots, our unflattering slips are already showing. Economic progress and tourism boom cannot exist without peace and order. They are a horse and carriage - you can't have one without the other.

Police language classifies index crimes as those against persons (murder, homicide, parricide, physical injury and rape) and those against property as (robbery and theft) where Region 7 is No. 1. Non-index crimes are illegal gambling and drugs and loose firearms possession.

Provincial PNP Director Arturo Evangelista called a Command Conference of the PNP chiefs of the 47 Bohol towns to identify the "police characters" in their locality. We say that's a bit too late - we presume the PNP should have that list already. What the public demands is that "wish list" of unsolved murders and robberies have a weekly status of the progress of the investigation. What the public demand is that these crimes must not occur again with such annoying regularity - otherwise we know who is sleeping on their jobs. The existence of "vigilantes" in Cebu, the "Equalizers" in Negros and the faceless killers of activists in rural Bohol is no excuse to keep these crimes unsolved.

The mail-fisted anti-drug campaign of city mayor Dan Lim has driven the evil ones to towns like Dauis, Carmen, and Tubigon among others. The fact that we can name municipalities here is already an indictment against the local public officials and police in these towns. What can you report to your people, gentlemen?

The illegal gambling, which President GMA has been pissed about and partly caused the downfall of a president (Estrada) is known to proliferate as "swetres" all over the province. Everyone and his guardian angel know they exist - has there been an arrest lately of their financiers or operators? One does not have to finish Harvard School to know that this monkey business cannot exist in a vacuum - or let's be specific - without at least the knowledge of government officials and the police. We all live in small towns, we all know who is protecting whom. How come our jails and courts are empty?

No, there is no need to pool an editorial among Bohol media to wake up our good public officials - provincial and municipal that no one wants to live in a dangerous environ. If in exchange for progress, we cannot sleep nor walk our streets like free men - we'd rather go back to "rural" Bohol of then and live longer and spend more time with our kids.

LGUs, we know, allot 3% of their budget in an "intelligence fund" supposedly to identify and weed out the bad elements in society. If index and non-index crimes obtain in shameless regularity in their community, one of two things is possible. One is that the "intelligence" fund is wasted stupidly. The other, is that what was used to buy blinders and ear plugs so that authorities, like some monkeys, do not see nor hear of any crime raging - even perhaps under their own residences, if we may exaggerate a bit our point.

We do not lack of point men in this regard. Boholano Director Bernie Calibo heads the Napolcom that usually investigates complaints against erring or non-performing policemen. The equivalent of a super-LGU has our Governor Erico and Vice-Governor Julius as heads of this nationwide organization.

We enjoin these gentlemen, with all our hearts, let's keep Bohol the way we remember it as kids - safe, free and law-abiding. We don't want our kids to inherit anything less, so-called progress notwithstanding.

TBTK, Investment Fora and international airport are fine - but maybe, first things first, gentlemen.