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Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Editorials: Why PBMA Eight caper infuriates the public
The case of eight members of the cult Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA), arrested last Friday with a cache of high-powered weapons and Swat uniforms, infuriates many people.
To be sure, many are glad the group was not able to pull the killing spree police suspect they had planned: gun down such prominent personalities as Mayor Tomas Osmeña, dySS broadcaster and Sun.Star columnist Bobby Nalzaro, RTC Judge Geraldine Faith Econg, and members of the Bacolod family.
The cultists were caught at a traffic checkpoint and are now detained in jail, telling a story shot through with inconsistencies and yet won’t prove by itself the crimes they are suspected of having planned.
That’s why Cebuanos must be angry. There the PBMAs were, armed with lethal weapons, equipped with disguises and silencers and clearly ready to kill and yet, upon their arrest, could not be charged with any more than illegal possession or trafficking of firearms.
Not even for lying through their teeth that they are not PBMA members. They are not PBMAs, they and their alma mater chorused. Not for illegal use of uniform: they had not put on the Swat uniforms yet.
Fancy their meeting by chance when they were picked up by the same van from as far in the south as Argao and in Cebu City before the vehicle proceeded to Lapu-Lapu. Fancy their being together even for a PBMA alumni reunion.
Lawyers tell us a crime needs an overt act to make the crime planner liable. The PBMAs can wish their enemies dead, even take steps to accomplish that, but if they stop or are stopped on the way to doing it, no liability beyond what they had already done.
No less an outrage, which is why many Cebuanos are furious.
Ruben, give Cebu peace
Too many disturbances, too many attempts to disrupt law and order, laid, justly or not, at the door of Ruben Ecleo Jr. and his cult.
Accusations in court, raised in public forums, or just publicly talked about: from parricide to flight and arrest that cost many lives, to tampering of justice and the jail system (smearing reputations of fiscals, judges and jailers), to massacre of a family, murder of a lawyer, and now this PMBA Eight caper.
When can Cebu get peace from Ecleo and company?
It’s too much. Vast resources of justice, enormous amount of public passion spent on a single man and a single group.
(December 8, 2004 issue)
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