Karen Kaye Montebon, the 17-year-old accountancy student who was brutally killed inside the supposed safety of her own home in a gated community in Lapu-Lapu City, was laid to rest last Sunday. At the time of her interment, there was no indication that her murder was anywhere near a solution, despite a coordinated probe by various law enforcement agencies, and the dangling of reward money by the local government.
The growing elusiveness of justice, and the seeming impunity with which criminals seem to strike, not just in many places in the country but most especially in this heretofore very peaceful island province of Cebu, is starting to get under the skin of most people, but most markedly among the young, which is significant. The young normally busy themselves with political, social and environmental issues but seldom vent their frustrations on law enforcement matters.
Well, they finally did last week, just days prior to the Karen Kaye's burial. At a prayer vigil, fellow students and teachers from the University of San Carlos lighted candles and wrote their sentiments candidly on a giant white board -- messages that seemed too raw and startling given the strictly Roman Catholic foundation of their school.
One messages scrawled boldly on the white board screamed "Yes for the death penalty." Another said "Kill all the criminals." And still another said "We need you Duterte," in obvious reference to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, whose reputed manner of dealing with criminals is widely credited for supposedly making his city one of the most peaceful in the country.
It is, of course, neither right nor fair to even remotely ascribe the patently individual sentiments of the students and teachers as reflective of any policy or philosophy of their school or of the religious foundation upon which it is based. But the hair on the back of one's neck cannot but stand on reflecting the extreme reaches to which the swing has swung in the mood of the young studentry and faculty of a strictly Catholic educational community.
Even more "scary" is how seemingly easy it is to agree and concur with the sentiment, an agreement and concurrence that is in fact behind the seeming popularity of a person like Duterte. It is a sentiment that does not exactly proceed from a conviction, from a careful determination of what is right and what is wrong. Rather, it is a sentiment given impetus by frustration -- a dam of pent up emotions finally breaking loose.
Yes to the death penalty. Kill all the criminals. These are not easy words to say, even for the normally unbridled young. But there it is, unsynchronized, unbidden. The unsolved killing of Karen Kaye followed the still unsolved and separate ambush-slayings of two lawyers, not to mention the almost daily killings of others whose lesser prominence and proximity to the centers of power make such occurrences go almost unnoticed. Something must be terribly wrong with our country.