Wednesday, March 12, 2008 Malilong: Suspects' admission on TV By Frank Malilong The Other Side
IMAGINE that you’re the father of a gem of a little girl. You send her to the university from your modest earnings, hoping to equip her for the days when you would no longer be around. Everything goes as planned until one evening when you’re told that your little girl is gone forever, felled by bullets from a gun fired by a half-crazed killer.
Then one day, you see the killer’s face on television, admitting the crime and saying sorry, it was nothing personal; killing your daughter was just a trip. How would you have felt?
My blood curled while watching the news on television Monday afternoon. I wonder how the father of Ruby Jade Ruba, the 20-year-old nursing student who took two bullets in her heart when she screamed, most probably in fear after being robbed, felt.
“Sorry” can’t bring your precious little girl back to life. In fact, it only served to rub salt to a fresh wound. You know that your daughter’s death was senseless but until you listened to the self-confessed killer, you did not realize that it was that senseless.
I am sure that the triggerman and his two other cohorts have parents; they certainly did not spring out of the caves, their behavior notwithstanding. I wonder what these parents feel and what they are thinking now.
Is it sympathy for Ruby Jade’s grieving family or shame for what their children did or both? Or are they too busy looking for a lawyer to help them get their sons off the hook to find time to feel? Will it be long before we see a huckster announcing that his clients have recanted their admission because it was made out of duress and fear?
The suspects, of course, continue to be presumed innocent, the televised admission (by two of the three) notwithstanding. The judge has to personally hear the admission itself or proof that the one made outside of his courtroom was lawfully obtained.
From experience, a long spell comes in between the appearance before a TV camera and one before a court of justice. Many things can happen in the meantime. I hope that none of them would add insult to the injury of those who loved Ruby Jade.
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Mayor Tomas Osmena found in the Ruby Jade murder another opportunity to take a swipe at lawyers, more particularly their organization, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP).
“When a policeman is killed in the line of duty, the IBP says nothing. When a girl is mercilessly slaughtered, the IBP says nothing. When a suspected criminal gets killed, they scream like hell.”
Not so, said former Cebu City IBP president Democrito Barcenas. The IBP has condemned Ruby Jade’s killing and has urged the authorities to solve the crime, said Mocring. Maybe, the newspapers did not print the IBP statement, which is not the IBP’s fault or the mayor was not able to read it (neither did I, by the way), which is not the IBP’s fault either.
The IBP is unique among all other professional organizations because membership is compulsory. An attorney has to be a member and must pay his dues otherwise he will be dropped from the roll.
It is perhaps because of this, aside from the obvious fact that we are naturally officious, that the IBP has been offering unsolicited opinion on so many things. I see nothing wrong with that except that if it is about something that is outside the fundamental purposes of the organization, the members should be consulted.
