Thursday, May 22, 2008 Seares: Less than candor from Mayor Tomas By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, whose catalogue of faults doesn't list lack of candor, may not be totally truthful about summary executions of crime suspects.
Sometime ago, as bodies of victims piled up, he said he'd inspire vigilante killings but he wouldn't sanction them.
The other day he said vigilante murders are more effective than legal death penalty but he's not, he stressed, "pro vigilante."
That's like a husband telling his wife the other woman is better in bed but he won't have her, at the same time casting a lustful eye on what he says he won't have.
A kind of hypocrisy, which isn't vintage Tomas who calls you a bastard if he thinks you are or is rude if you piss him off.
Maybe the double talk, uttered in the same breath, isn't really that. Many people must know what he means even if what he says is cryptic or confusing.
Being vague
Unclear language cramps the style of a mayor who's used to calling it as he sees it. Being vague is essential here though. He's the city mayor, who's sworn to uphold the law, which says killing is a crime and even death penalty is no longer lawful.
Did anyone expect him to say that he who guns down a crime suspect is immune from arrest and may even get a house and lot? He couldn't even say that in his dreams he wished he weren't a public official so he could run the death squad himself.
It worries people who think their mayor should be the last person to substitute no-nonsense law enforcement with wild, wild west justice, violate the law to enforce law and order, or promote culture of death and impunity in the country's seat of Christianity.
