|
Friday, August 05, 2005
Editorial: Vigilante killings: Who isn’t to blame?
It is amazing how persons duty-bound to enforce the law or trained in the justice system sit back and do nothing or do little about the unsolved murders in Cebu City.
How do you explain that a mayor sworn to uphold the law or a police officer or a lawyer schooled in precepts of due process and public trial tolerate or even cheer vigilante killings?
How do you explain that champions of human life and human rights haven’t gone beyond routinely opposing the breakdown of law and order?
Has an NGO, say Barug, stood up and intensely and continuously prodded police to act? Have other activists gone to the streets and put the murder exponents to shame?
How much have the Catholic Church and other religious groups used homilies and sermons to influence civilian leaders and law enforcers to stop the slaughter (77 victims since December)?
The Catholic Church and other religions condemn the murder of any person. Human life has such supreme value that the Church wages war against abortion and birth control as well as the death penalty.
If the Church doesn’t want to see a convicted criminal die by lethal injection--although the convict has been given benefits of trial, appeal, and review by the courts and the President--how can it be not equally forceful and unrelenting in stopping the murder of petty criminals who were asleep or otherwise helpless when they were killed?
Well-meaning folk seem to have been mesmerized by the myth that crime will stop crime. That robbers, the real pros, continue to operate in Cebu City despite the “salvaging” of suspects must shatter that myth.
What happens to the justice machinery and the precept that penalty must be proportionate to the crime? What kind of law and order is there if we entrust the decision to kill people to faceless and unaccountable group of murderers?
Each one’s passion for his personal interest, which seems to rage more strongly in the business sector, overwhelms welfare of community and country and erodes values and institutions.
The police aren’t complaining. They are gloating. The killings have provided excuse for ineptness and more extra-legal powers they can abuse. Can we not improve police skill to solve crimes instead of promoting vigilantism?
If the unsolved murders will go on, and they are likely to go on, there is no one to blame but our leaders and, yes, ourselves who allow this monstrous culture of death in our midst.
(August 5, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
