Wednesday, April 02, 2008 Carvajal: My cousin Bing By Orlando P. Carvajal Break Point
EVELIO C. Abad, my cousin Bing, will be buried today. The “boarding house caretaker” was felled by an assassin’s bullet Friday last week. Youngest son of my father’s sister, he was also a not-too-distant relative of the Osmeñas since Bing’s paternal grandmother was a Chiong-Veloso.
However, he did not do too well in life and died lonely and poor. He lived off the rent on the house owned by an older sister. We did not know he had enemies and his death apparently from an assassin’s bullet was a shock to us. We are sad to lose him. I am sadder still because of what I am about to say here.
At the wake we heard theories on the reason for his killing. Some say it was drug-related. But if unpaid debts in the drug underworld had something to do with his death, why was he shot with just one bullet? Why was he left for dead after just one shot? In drug-related killings victims are pumped with many bullets to insure death.
In any case, because he was poor, a nobody in the community, there will be no public indignation over his death. No city official will offer any reward for the capture of his killer or killers. Neither will the police go out on a limb to solve the mystery of his killing. My cousin Bing will simply become an unsolved crime statistics of the city.
Another cousin who went to claim Bing’s remains from the hospital told me a policeman asked him if he was going for an autopsy. But aren’t autopsies done to determine the cause of death and wasn’t Bing so obviously dead from a bullet wound? My cousin, therefore, asked the policeman, what for? Will the autopsy identify the person who fired the bullet that killed Bing? It obviously will not.
I tell this story because the stupidity of the suggestion convinced me the police will never solve Bing’s murder just like the strafing death of three nobodies at Lorega. There will be no special team for Bing like the one to cover the young basketball player’s death or the death of Ruby Jade whose suspected killers have recanted claiming police torture.
There are just too many crimes unprevented and unsolved. On the occasion of my cousin Bing’s death, I would like to know what our police authorities are doing to develop the abilities and skills of our law-enforcers in preventing and solving crimes. May we know also what modern equipment our police force is acquiring to help them prevent and solve crimes when eye-witnesses cannot be found?
In the West, when you are in trouble you go to the police for assistance. In the Philippines, the standard advice has always been if you do not want to add to your troubles do not go to the police. May we know what our police authorities are doing about this bad reputation that they have?
