Friday, May 23, 2008 Seares: Unsafe streets? You bet By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
SINCE the newsbreak that lawyer Richard Sison was ambushed and murdered on a Cebu City street, there have been cries of desperation, including this lament: Are our streets still safe?
Unless you are the President or some other public or private VIP, with all those bodyguards and security measures, you aren't safe from a murderous motorcycle-riding gunman toting a 9mm submachine pistol, who was Sison's assassin.
Sison defended Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza against big-time-graft lawsuits and repeated heckling from pesky, civic-minded taxpayers like businessman Efrain Pelaez.
The lawyer was so high-profile the police promptly organized a task force in his name (Task Force Sison), an unerring recognition of celebrity.
Six feet under
And the lawyers group IBP publicly condemned the murder, an honor it didn't give to a Mandaue City lawyer who months ago was similarly ambushed but survived. Maybe, a "compañero" doesn't move the IBP to gnash its teeth until it's sure he's six feet under.
Who's safe from a gunman bent on rubbing you out? Not busy M.J. Cuenco Ave. or crowded Capitol. The rash of killings attests to that.
And killers are so cocky they don't wear mask, hood, or even helmet while they're motorcycle-borne. They must think that if they can get away with murder, they can dodge a traffic citation.
Impunity or exemption from punishment has a lot to do with it. A local government cannot tolerate almost 200 unsolved summary executions without promoting culture of death and non-liability: Life is cheap, killing is easy, and chances are the gunman rides, gloriously free, into the sunset.
