Friday, May 09, 2008 Malilong: Suspending VSMMC personnel premature By Frank Malilong The Other Side
DID I hear somebody say that the doctors and nurses in the Genaro Jorolan (so, that’s his real name) case should be preventively suspended?
A preventive suspension is not a penalty; rather it is a precautionary measure to make sure that people who are under investigation are in no position to destroy the evidence, intimidate the witnesses or endanger the property or safety of others.
The evidence is on tape; the star and probably, only, witness is under the protection of, among others, his lawyers, a barangay captain and the gay rights association; and, as Jorolan’s case showed, the respondents promote, rather than endanger, lives.
Or is the argument that unless they are suspended, the doctors and the nurses are in a position to videotape surgical procedures such as the one that the gay florist underwent? So how many more patients with foreign objects lodged in their rear apertures do we expect?
The respondents, or some of them, are probably guilty of inappropriate conduct in their handling of the patient’s case but the jury is still out. Most of us may have already formed our opinions but as certain as we are of their correctness, they are not the ones that count.
Let the axe fall but the lynching mob should hold its horses and wait, as we all should, for the official verdict. A suspension is premature and will only deprive the people of the services of trained medical and nursing professionals.
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The killing of a suspect in the Carcar robbery may have happened while the victim was already outside their custody but the police nevertheless still bear the burden for his death.
Recolly Igoy was a natural target for liquidation because of what he knew and the police ought to have taken special measures to ensure his safety until he has reached home. The police have not obviously learned their lesson from an earlier incident in which a newly-released robbery suspect was also rubbed out.
Igoy’s lips are now forever sealed. I trust that during the time that he was detained, the police were able to extract enough information from him to help them in the fight against crime. It would be doubly tragic if they haven’t.
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Local tennis lovers are being treated to a feast at Baseline where the Cebuana Lhuillier Men’s Open is ongoing. It’s been a long time since we had a similar gathering of the nation’s top racket wielders. The last one was in Liloan but not too many were able to watch it because of the distance.
Jean Henri Lhuillier deserves our praise for bringing the tournament to his hometown. So do Sun.Star colleague John Pages and Jun Toledo, upon whose shoulders rested the burden of running the tournament smoothly.
It’s a pity that the local contingent has been wiped out in singles but that does not make the tournament less interesting. If at all, our debacle should serve as a wake-up call to Cebu’s sports leaders to come up with a rational tennis program. We have good players but the lack of really competitive tournaments has hampered their development. They can’t seem to survive beyond the second set.
Perhaps, Lhuillier, who is said to have played competitively during his college days and who in fact played doubles with Toledo yesterday, could be persuaded to do more in starting a tennis renaissance in Cebu. I don’t think a tournament that comes far and in between will suffice.
