EDITORIAL - Tipping point

First, youngsters wearing black shirts and belonging to a certain group now believed to have been spawned by the Akrho, a fraternity-cum-gang notorious for violence and criminal acts, were arrested by police in Mabolo for peddling marijuana.

Now, another group of youngsters, also wearing black shirts, went on a rampage in Punta Princesa, smashing up a parked car belonging to a lawyer, and attacking and stabbing dead a student whose only fault was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Maybe it is too much of putting one and one together to conclude that the two groups of black-shirted youngsters belong to the same group simply on account of the color of their garb and their involvement in criminal activities.

But then, what else is there to proceed from? The peace-loving community in Cebu does not have the goods on those who are trying to disrupt our way of life as we used to know it. There is little known of these maniacs because the authorities have not done their jobs.

These groups strike fear in our hearts not necessarily because they are brave or do not fear death. We fear them because the failure of the authorities to rein in violence and crime has made them assume a wrong sense of impunity.

Anyone who is convinced he can get away with crime will most likely go ahead and commit crime. The lack of deterence breeds a false sense of security, and then spawns a wrong measure of courage.

Once society is eventually convinced that the authorities cannot meet its obligations and expectations get frustrated far too often to be endured, the door begins to crack open for anarchy to step in.

In fact, all the ingredients for anarchy are already in place. What is keeping society from flinging the door wide open is its tremendous capacity for patience, its tenacious belief that order is still preferable to chaos.

But nothing is forever. There is always that straw that will finally break the camel's back. There is always that final drop that makes the cup runneth over. The sad thing about it is that we no longer pray it will not happen but that it will not happen in our lifetime.