Two news reports emphasized prevalent conflicting legal infrastructures that, unfortunately, we take for granted. The first item came in the form of the announcement by our police that they have concluded the investigation into the incident involving the companion of the girl friend of the city mayor's son. The second is about the clamor of the police hierarchy of officials for the mayor to return to office rather than take an extended leave of absence.
Let us take the first item. An earlier news reported a young lady being threatened. Accordingly, she received text messages containing fearsome statements. She also got a camera (or was it a cellular phone with a camera?) that seemed punctured by a bullet indicating a harmful message. She took the threat for real but did nothing more.
It looked like the lady did not seek police help. Our cops were, if we were to believe the succeeding stories, just waiting for her to come and show physical evidence behind the reported threats. It did not come to the mind of the police to investigate. For them, rather than send out their sleuths to know the facts, it was a very responsible move just to wait for any complainant. After a long period of foot dragging on the part of the lady, the police finally came up with a resolution. The reported crime did not happen because the complainant failed to show up at the police station!
The present state of the police is a very disturbing legal infrastructure. I cannot imagine how unprotected the citizens are. We do not enjoy police protection before a crime is committed neither do we get police assistance after the commission of a felony. Our policemen do not investigate incidents of plausible criminal violations if the complainants do not show their faces at their headquarters. This incident of reported threats against the lady and the police inaction tend to confirm a lingering lesson - unless we file a complaint and bring forth evidence, our cops will not do anything.
It is very disturbing to me in the light that this matter involved the son of our city mayor.
Now, the second item. In the conference among the high echelon of our police force, top officers were quoted as asking His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña to return to work. This plea must have been aired because the mayor took an official leave of absence when he went to the US for a medical check up. While abroad, the report of his son allegedly having threatened somebody came up. Upon his return, he apparently extended his leave under the pretext of not interfering with the police investigation into the reported threats.
The rationale for the police exhortation to the mayor to report to work is that they have already closed their investigation even if their statement that no such crime was committed is, at best, nebulous. With the clearing of the reported involvement of the mayor's son, the mayor does not need to further his sabbatical.
I do not describe the urging of the police for the mayor to resume office as an attempt to ingratiate themselves to the powers that be. But, certainly, what the police officers did amounted to a disservice of, if not a grave insult upon, the vice mayor. By claiming that things would go back to normal situation under the leadership of the mayor, they, in effect, decried that the vice mayor was an incompetent leader.
Such a seeming stamp of disapproval only damages the aspiration of the vice mayor to become our next city chief executive. If the current vice mayor is incompetent to handle the peace and order aspect of the job, he may be equally incompetent to deal with the other spheres of mayorship.
But, I do not share the police innuendo. By our electing him vice mayor for about nine years already, we placed him in a situation to succeed. This is a legal political structure. Part of the vice mayor's terrain is the possibility of becoming mayor. We place at the doorstep of the vice mayor the inescapable duty to step up and assume the position of mayor in certain times. Are the police officers saying that all these years, we had taken the risk of getting an incompetent man to lead our city? I ask this question because, if you ask me today, I do not share the sentiment of the police.