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Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Editorials: Help uphold value of life
The Police Regional Office 7 created yesterday a task force to go against the killers of businessman Wilson Yu, who incidentally is reported to be one of President Arroyo’s supporters and campaigners here in Cebu.
The move was apparently in response to calls by business groups in Cebu and even by the President herself for an immediate solution to the dastardly crime.
People should not begrudge the police, though, for being diligent when it comes to killings involving prominent personalities, after all, justice demands that law enforcers should give attention to every crime, like the one that took away Yu’s life.
Still, Yu’s killing should open the eyes of the police, business groups and the President to the painful reality that lives are now being snuffed out in Cebu just like that.
What could even be ironic is that some business leaders who are now condemning Yu’s killing were either silent to or supported the vigilante-style killings in Cebu that has already victimized almost a 100 people.
One may argue that Yu’s status in life is several times removed from the criminals or suspected criminals (with a few innocents in between) that the vigilantes killed.
But there is a connection there aside from the victims’ economic standing, and it is that the killings showed a cheapening of the value of life, something that can partly be traced to the seeming public indifference despite the growing number of unsolved murders and to the failure of law enforcers to arrest the culprits.
Indeed, when criminals or suspected criminals can be, to use a favorite Cebuano expression, killed like chickens, then why not the more decent citizens of our locality?
Give frat leaders a chance
It is not surprising that despite the harsh words they spewed earlier against Alpha Kappa Rho (Akrho) and Tau Gamma, Gov. Gwen Garcia and Cebu Provincial Police Chief Vicente Loot are now hopeful peace will reign between the rival fraternities.
This is because leaders of the two groups have given in to calls for a dialogue and have come up with steps to rein in their people and prevent future clashes.
One can easily be pessimistic of such a move, though, because Akrho and Tau Gamma leaders also attended a dialogue initiated by Cebu City officials months ago but the violence continued.
Still, leaders of the two fraternities should be given the benefit of the doubt, because other options to end the conflict, like declaring Akrho and Tau Gamma as criminal groups, are drastic and complicated.
(October 11, 2005 issue)
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