Now they're killing people without records?

Call it strange that people are only questioning the execution of Leo Echegaray after this nation finally put an end to the Death Penalty. This was aggravated when Supreme Court Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban came up with an off-the-cuff statement that the Trial Court failed to prove that Echegaray was the father or even the stepfather of the girl, which would have his crime a heinous one and punishable by death. With this statement, many people are now taking the cudgels for Echegaray saying that we have executed an innocent man!

Truth to tell, the Supreme Court rarely comes out all in favor of a decision. During my Law school days, I have read many Supreme Court decisions and often get surprised reading the dissenting opinions which I sometimes believe is even better written than the others.

But the Chief Justice has openly said that what he said was his personal opinion, not the opinion of the High Court. So be that as it may, this ought to end the discussion on the case of Leo Echegaray, which wasn't a miscarriage of justice.

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Victim 165 has entered into our official statistics, virtually a record of unsolved crimes here in Cebu City and a black mark for Cebu's Finest! Of course we expect the police to make its usual, cursory investigation into this latest murder, where supposedly, most if not all of the victims had criminal records. These investigations usually end up in that proverbial blank wall! But the difference in this latest killing is that, the victim, Benjamin Raganas, was found to have no previous criminal record by the police investigators.

If the majority of the Cebu City residents have kept mum about these killings, it is only because most of the victims had a criminal record or two and that their deaths logically would have certainly reduced the number of criminals roaming the streets of Cebu City. But we've always warned that these killers would someday shift their sights and start killing innocent people for their own personal gain or profit. Are we seeing the beginnings of this with the killing of Benjamin Raganas? But who would want to kill a lowly tombstone engraver? Was he perhaps mistaken for someone?

The whole trouble with the killing of the 165 people is that, the police haven't solved any of these murders. Thus, left-leaning groups who often claim to have exclusive rights in the protection of human rights (except for our soldiers) immediately point their fingers to the police as the perpetrator of these crimes… without of course offering any evidences except the usual innuendoes. So the big mystery is, who really is behind these killings?

We'll never know for sure, but yes, certain groups in the police could very well be suspects, but our sights shouldn't stop there. For all we know, it could be done by criminal elements that want to eliminate their potential rivals. Let's not stop there. We can even put the New People's Army (NPA) as suspects. Who knows, they may be trying to sow terror by joining the fray without openly declaring that they are involved in this. Meanwhile, it is really up to the citizenry to do something about this if they cared to do so.

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Still on the killings. The Catholic Bishop's Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) led by its President Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo has warned us of a "disguised authoritarian rule" a direction, which he suspects that the GMA administration is headed. Call this way of thinking paranoia if you wish, but I would like to believe that the killings here in Cebu City and the rest of the country are not linked to Malacañang. I mean, you can accuse Malacañang of orchestrating other things, but surely not the spurious killings that are happening throughout the nation in the hands of so-called vigilantes, which include the killings of journalists.

For instance, in the killings of the press, all you need to do is get a commonality with these killings, which I suspect are mostly done by either people in power or criminal elements that have been exposed by these journalists. So how could Malacañang be involved in it? No sir, I don't believe that we are in a situation where we are having a "subtle dictatorship."

If you ask me, I would rather see the CBCP dig deeper into the continued "colonization" of the rest of the Philippines by one ethnic group: The Tagalogs, who continue to impose their language upon the rest of the country, who show no respect for the cultures of the Ilonggos, the Ifugaos or the Muslims in Mindanao. This is a reality today that we can no longer deny. What does the CBCP have to say on this one?

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