EDITORIAL - A hate crime?

The Filipino lawyer who was shot last Saturday in Philadelphia has died.

According to reports, John Albert “Jal” Laylo and his mother Leah Bustamante Laylo were in an Uber car heading to the airport to fly to Chicago when shots were fired at their car.

One of the bullets hit John Albert in the back of the head while his mother was hurt by glass shards. He was rushed to the hospital where he died several hours later.

The police are still investigating the incident.

While some are calling the incident a “random” shooting, it seems nothing was random about it at all. The assailant or assailants were deliberate in shooting their car, and the shots were concentrated in the rear where the victim and his mother were.

For now other details about the incident are scant, but we cannot shake the feeling that this was a hate crime.

John Albert was not working in the US, merely visiting some relatives there. In the few weeks they had been there on vacation --according his mother’s tweet--it’s unlikely that he could have made enemies who wanted him dead that much.

So was it a hate crime? Considering how more and more people are targeting Asians in the US for whatever reasons they have, this won’t exactly be farfetched. There has been no shortage of attacks on people with oriental features since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and when the previous US administration drew lines between ethnic groups.

Of course we could be wrong. The crime might have nothing to do with the color of his skin or his features at all. John Albert might have made some enemies during the few weeks he was there. Or he could have just been mistaken for someone else. Certainly, this doesn’t make the situation any better or offer more comfort to his family and friends.

We hope this case is solved soon. Cases like these tend to test the bonds of a community and make a city, especially one that has seen a mass shooting recently, question where it is headed.