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Thursday, January 19, 2006
Editorials: Plea of dead man’s kin
If the police cannot solve the killing of Wilfredo “Lawlaw” Cabanit, the least they can do is to respect the dead.
This, in essence, was the plea of Cabanit’s widow Brenda and his elder sister Rebecca to officials of the Cebu City Police Office who could not stop mentioning Cabanit in the same breath as the illegal drug trade in Barangay Pasil, Cebu City.
At a time when the activities of so-called vigilantes are being applauded and calls to respect of human life are easily dismissed by a big chunk of the populace, the plea of Cabanit’s kin may no longer fall on receptive ear or is even derided.
But this is a natural concern involving not only Cabanit, the 106th victim of vigilante-style killings in Cebu City, but also the other suspected criminals gunned down supposedly to stem the tide of criminality.
For no matter how bad the victims may look to the public, they have relatives and friends that view them differently and consider their actions even more objectively.
Cabanit may have been the drug pusher that the police described him and because of which vigilantes targeted him, but his relatives may also not have lied when they said that on Dec. 23 when he was shot, he was a “reformed man” and has “returned to God.”
The summary execution of suspected criminals has already taken its toll on our concept of human rights and due process; let it not destroy also our age-old values.
To Guardo: Just do it
The recent tirades of Philippine Southeast Asian Games (PhilSOC) head Jose “Peping” Cojuangco has again put Jonathan Guardo, chairman of the Cebu Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee (CebuSOC), on the defensive.
Cojuangco is the latest personality to tell Guardo and the CebuSOC to account for the millions of pesos they received from PhilSOC for Cebu’s hosting of some events of the 23rd Southeast Asian Games.
Guardo and the CebuSOC, however, should not complain; they don’t even need to answer Cojuangco’s tirades for now or again issue vehement denials that there were irregularities in the handling of the funds.
That will only be repetitive and the public may no longer listen to it.
For Guardo and the CebuSOC, the response with the most telling effect would be to show proof by completing the accounting of the money they received.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 19, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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