UNLESS the police can collar, file a case, and attest to the public that the "bunal squad" is not organized by them, then qualms remain that the police are accomplice.
The appearance of a whipping team of masked men had terrified the night owls in this highly-urbanized city where trade and business is 24/7. Citizens named the hoodlums as Davao Bunal Squad, describing their mission of atrocious whipping with rod (metal or wood), leveling mostly the lower torso of target victims.
Days since the first attack, the police and its auxiliary still remained like sleeping cats, ineffective to hook at least one. There are three reported incidents, one was in Sasa on Tuesday, the other gruesome one was on Monday in Barangay 76-A wherein the squad barged into an internet café and did the wanton whipping of mostly minors.
No one can tell exactly or predict who their (bunal squad) preys are. Is the squad organized to cause panic as deterrent for the youth not to go outside of the house at night? What about the students accomplishing their tasks and the night shift workforces? Or is the squad organized to counter and teach some lessons to the juvenile delinquents convulsing night riots? If so, why include the SK Kagawad and a buddy who were ordered by parents to buy burger in a nearby outlet?
Sasa and barangay 76-A are both identified by the police as battlefields of gangsters. Knowing the situations, the police should have patrolled the area regularly. The police are expected to be there "to serve and protect" if not for the purpose of visibility only. Had foot patrols are regular, they should have caught the bunal squad if not the rioters.
To the elements of Davao Bunal Squad, if your task is to end riots in the city, haven't your cognitive mind dictate that putting-on this means is a criminal act that the youth perceive moral and worth emulating?
The police are calling the victims to come forward, record the incident in their book of blotters as the basis for the investigation and appropriate action. But the victims and the citizens are hesitant to report to the police with the suspicions that the police are collaborators to the "bunal squad".
Why blame the citizens whom the police ought to serve and protect? The citizens are in limbo whether or not to report, and where to report the incident, when the criminals look like police and the police look like criminals?
With the coming in of the bunal squad, will Davao City still be the fourth safest city in the world?