Sunday, October 22, 2006 Malilong: Going out on a limb By Frank Malilong The Other Side
WHEN he first announced that he had information on the identities of the vigilante killers in the city and their mastermind, I warned Alex Tolentino that he was going out on a limb. The flak that he has gotten and continues to get validated my apprehensions.
I wondered then why the Cebu City Integrated Bar of the Philippines president had to publicly announce that he had the “goods” on the killers instead of just quietly and without fanfare submitting whatever evidence he had to the National Bureau of Investigation since he obviously distrusted the police.
Ricardo Cardinal Vidal expressed exactly the same sentiment when I told him about what Alex did. Is he not endangering himself, the cardinal asked. I mumbled that maybe Alex did not mean his statement to be published but failed to tell the reporters that his information was “off the record”.
I also told Eastern Visayas IBP Governor Manuel Legaspi about my misgivings but Maning assured me that indeed, Alex had very credible witnesses who could shed light on the murders.
It is now obvious that Alex does not have the proverbial “smoking gun” on the murders. The IBP board said so themselves: what they have are “reliable but raw information.”
Alex and the Cebu City IBP board of officers deserve praise for taking a stand against the series of unsolved killings. It matters not that most of the victims had previous criminal records. A summary execution does violence to the rule of law, regardless of who the victim is and what his circumstances are.
They cannot however blame the growing public impatience over their failure to do something with their information. More than enough period has passed since Alex made his headline-grabbing disclosure and the people, whose appetite he wittingly or unwittingly whetted up, expected something more concrete and any less dramatic.
I sympathize with Alex. He does not deserve to be called pro-criminal simply because he dared to stand up against extra-judicial killings. I have been robbed a total of four or five times in Cebu City and because of the failure of the police to solve the crimes, I initially supported the idea of vigilante killings. I have since had a change of heart because I realized that my own personal losses were nothing compared to the value of human life. Does that make me a coddler of criminals?
I can imagine the pain that Alex and his family are going through because of the undeserved criticisms. He must realize, however, that much of that pain is self-inflicted and that only he can do something about it.
I read yesterday that his board has already given Alex “authority” to submit his information to the NBI. The ball is now on his court.
