Sunday, October 22, 2006 Cabaero: Looking beyond Tolentino By Nini B. Cabaero Beyond 30
What the people of Cebu can do to help solve the series of murders here is to whip up an outcry after every single vigilante killing.
They need not take the law into their hands or be like those investigators they see on cable television. They do not have to do detective work. They need only to add their voice to the chorus of disapproval to this unconstitutional mode of ridding Cebu of criminals.
To the dismay of organizations in the forefront of the protest movement against such killings, there is no such public outcry.
Political leaders, church officials and, yes, Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu City chapter president Alex Tolentino have strongly and publicly objected to these summary killings. But then, 175 people have died since December 22, 2004 and it seems that, to many residents, the killing of suspected criminals or people with criminal records is not something over which they should lose sleep. On the contrary, it seemed to them that the death of those people should make them sleep better at night because every killing means one evil person less from this world.
Such a way of reasoning, if it could even be called that, is sad because it only shows how little we value human life.
IBP’s Tolentino braved public ridicule when he promised to come up with information on the persons involved in the vigilante killings. The delay in releasing this information brought him more flak from among his fellow lawyers and from media. Yet, he continued; and tomorrow, Monday, he will turn over to the National Bureau of Investigation all the data he gathered since last year.
Tolentino will be armed with an IBP resolution authorizing him to endorse the information, including names and photos, to the proper investigators. He described his data as “raw” and it would then be up to investigators to determine what to pursue next.
It was in spite of the criticism and the doubts over his agenda that Tolentino did what many failed to carry out. That was to do his part in raising a relentless outcry over all these summary killings.
The issue here is not whether Tolentino did a good enough job as an investigator or as a detective. He may have been over enthusiastic in making public the little he knew or he may have wanted to play the role of whistle-blower. That is a mere sidelight; but, at the same time, it does not diminish his intentions to contribute to the move to end the vigilante killings.
The issue is on the rising number of summary killings, the failure of those in government to put at end to the murders, the inability to resolve those cases, and the absence of a public outcry.
(Ms. Cabaero can be reached at e-mail address ninicab@sunstar.com.ph)
