TWO Senate committees were asked to investigate the increasing number of killings and violence in Cebu.
For 150 days, from June 1 to Oct. 28 this year, at least 206 people have been killed.
In Senate Resolution 928, Sen. Grace Poe asked the Senate committees on public order and dangerous drugs and public information and mass media to conduct an inquiry on the killings.
She also called on the national government to “mightily charge into the fray and bring back order, bring back the rule of law, denounce the violence in Cebu and hunt down and prosecute murderers and their coddlers.”
Poe cited recent reports that around 112 people were gunned down from February to July this year, 92 of which were allegedly perpetrated by unknown assailants who were mostly men on motorcycles.
She said some of the killings involved local officials, active law enforcers, lawyers and even children as the victims of the crimes.
Some of those murders, which remain unsolved until now, include that of Ronda Mayor Mariano Blanco III, his vice mayor and lawyer Jonah John Ungab, Lagtang, Talisay City village councilor Art Stephen Bas, and his father and former Lagtang village chief Marc Ferdinand Bas.
Law enforcers, particularly those from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), were also murdered by unidentified suspects due to their alleged ties to illegal drugs, such as Baby “Earl” Rallos and Von Rian Tecson.
Poe also quoted the claims of Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña that there are people with police protection who are orchestrating the killings.
“Filipinos, particularly Cebuanos, do not deserve that kind of a society. Such state of lawless violence and impunity has to stop in the name of the laws of men and of God,” Poe said.
This is the second time that the Senate has been asked to conduct an investigation on the series of unsolved murders in Cebu.
Earlier this month, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon and senators Francis Pangilinan, Leila de Lima, Antonio Trillanes IV, Risa Hontiveros and Paolo Benigno Aquino IV filed Senate Resolution 915 expressing “grave concern” on the killings that were allegedly being committed by local police officers.
Meanwhile, since the police has welcomed the Senate’s call for an investigation on the spate of killings in Cebu under the “one-time, big-time” operations of the Philippine National Police, opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros is hopeful that the authorities will be cooperative during the Senate inquiry, which is expected to start soon.
Hontiveros, who was in Cebu City Tuesday, Oct. 30 to attend the commemoration of the sixth anniversary of the passage of the City’s Anti-Discrimination Ordinance, said they have observed that there are suspected extra-judicial killings happening outside the National Capital Region and they are starting a probe on the matter with Cebu.
“It is our duty to exercise oversight in the implementation of the laws, including those that should protect the lives and human rights of Filipinos. For the long term, we look forward to the cooperation and support which is the primary responsibility of our law enforcer officials and front-line local government leaders in ensuring rights, and quality of lives of our constituents,” she said. (RTF, JKV)