EDITORIAL - Mysteries

Thorough police sleuthing can take time, and cracking a case - especially one that has been carefully planned by the perpetrators - can take many months or even years. It took more than a year and coordination with law enforcement agencies abroad before someone who didn’t look like a fall guy was arrested for the bombings that left more than 20 people dead, most of them Light Rail Transit commuters, on Dec. 30, 2000. The suspect has been linked to an al-Qaeda affiliate operating in Southeast Asia.

But Philippine law enforcers can’t blame the public for being impatient about the pace of criminal investigation. While the Rizal Day bombings appear to have been solved, some of the biggest cases in recent years remain a mystery. There’s the case of casino employee Edgar Bentain, missing since he leaked a videotape of then Vice President Joseph Estrada playing baccarat at the VIP pit of a casino with bosom buddy Charlie "Atong" Ang.

There’s the abduction and murder of publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000. Several suspects have been indicted but the mastermind remains unknown. There’s the murder of militant labor leader Felimon Lagman, and the brutal killing of well-loved actress Nida Blanca. Recently there was a spate of bomb scares in Metro Manila and Mindanao. Explosives without triggering devices were planted in crowded areas in an effort to sow fear. A new group called the Indigenous People’s Federal State Army, which purports to espouse a shift to federalism, claimed responsibility for the bomb scare. A report last week said the National Bureau of Investigation was closing in on members of the group. Let’s hope the NBI is not just issuing statements to appease an impatient public. A man claiming to speak for the IPFSA has warned that they have planted more bombs. Duds or the real thing, those planted explosives create a climate of uncertainty. The administration, already criticized for being weak in law enforcement, can’t afford to have yet another unsolved crime.