I was listening to a radio news report about a “coordinator” for a rent-a-car business who was gunned down in Lapu-Lapu City on Friday night, Oct. 15, 2021.
Apparently, the victim was carrying P1.5 million in cash that was placed inside a plastic bag. He was shot dead by a lone gunman outside his office on the third floor of a building in Barangay Pusok.
Everything seemed to be straightforward except for the reporting.
The news anchor was saying that it must have been an inside job, which implicated the victim’s companion at the time of the incident whom the former named several times during the report, based on the convoluted and very confusing narrative of the reporter.
Trust me, I don’t want to be in the companion’s shoes right now. I felt sorry for him that his name was dragged into this heinous crime even though he wasn’t officially a suspect let alone a “person of interest.” At least, as far as the police were concerned. Not yet, anyway.
Of course, it was very early in the morning and the person in charge of the investigation was probably still asleep but I still think the news anchor should have waited until he interviewed the police official or any police official to shed light on what happened before repeatedly mentioning the companion’s name over the airwaves.
I’m not a lawyer, unlike the news anchor, so I may be wrong in assuming that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But after listening to the news report, I was left with the feeling that the letter “G” was already branded on the companion’s forehead, which I thought was unfair.
Again, I’m just an ordinary citizen. I am no longer an editor for the country’s largest community paper, having resigned at the end of August of this year after 23 years of service, give and take. So what do I know, right?
I don’t usually wake up before 10 a.m., plus I’m deaf in one ear, so I may have misunderstood the report or may have misheard the chain of events, which was recounted in the vernacular. Not that I don’t understand nor speak Cebuano because I do.
Anyway, I thought there were too many holes in the story. I mean it wasn’t even clear if the perpetrators walked away with the plastic bag containing the “P1.5 million” in cash. At the end I just assumed they did.
With that said, I may just miss working in the newsroom and harassing reporters to get to the bottom of things. After all, a news report is about facts and not about what a news anchor thinks or believes.
Even if he or she is right.