EDITORIAL - Int'l flavor to crime concerns

The Korean embassy is alarmed by what it says is the rising number of fatal crimes committed against Korean nationals in the Philippines. A statement from the embassy and reported by a national daily said at least nine South Koreans have already been killed in the Philippines since January. It asked the Philippine government to intensify efforts to curb this rising criminality.

We cannot but agree with the observation that criminality in the country is on the rise. There is not a day that passes in this country that it is not rocked by reports of all sorts of criminal activity, including murders, rapes and abductions. Even if the government is not inclined to accept the fact -- President Aquino boasted of improvements in police action versus crime in his SONA -- it is there for everyone to validate.

We agree that government has to do more in arresting this sweeping tide of criminality. And we say this not only because the Koreans are already complaining but because crime affects the lives of everyone, even those who are not the direct victims of crimes. Crime instills fear in the community. Fear in turn restricts all human activity, including those that are meant to improve the lives of everyone.

Maybe it is just the Koreans who are complaining now, which may perhaps be explained by the fact that it is only in recent years that their presence in the country have really grown in number. But who knows what other nationalities may start complaining too, not only because they have themselves become victims to crime but even owing to just plain fear of an environment that is palpably spinning out of control.

Members of the community, including those of many nationalities who have chosen the Philippines to stay or visit, do not have to become actual victims of crime to experience fear. All they have to do is see with their own eyes what is going on around them and they will feel fear wherever they go, even, ironically, in the very "safety" of their own homes or temporary places of stay.

Korea's concern is a very valid one. Nine Koreans dead in just seven months is alarming indeed and not even the fact that the laws on averages may tend to have an impact on that number (there are so many Koreans now in the Philippines that any statistics about anything should tend to be higher) should assuage their concern. A single life lost needlessly to crime is one life too many.

The Philippine government should realize that while now it is just the Koreans, tomorrow they may be joined by others. The moment the concern gets to assume a truly international color, everything that this country has done to promote itself -- as a tourism destination, as an investment site, as a place for conventions, etc -- will all come tumbling down and we are in no position to pick up the pieces.

The Korean complaint does not come from local critics that the president and his political drumbeaters always tend to dismiss as simply being out to discredit his administration. It is an official complaint by a foreign country grown concerned over the plight of its nationals in the Philippines, whose safety and security have been compromised by lack of serious and efficient government action against rising crime.