What should distinguish the homo sapiens from the rest of the animal kingdom is the respect for law and order. Although throughout human history, we have seen the erratic regard for the law, we still stick to the ideal that the nobler side of man is his capacity to comply with the norms and mores that society imposes upon him.
Society has evolved from the cave, to the tribe, to kingdom, to nation-state, to international groupings, and thanks to technology, to the global village. But although technology has developed in exponential proportions, the same cannot be said of our respect for law and order.
The bestial side of man manifests in terrorist acts, economic sabotage, neo-colonialism, and when all hell break loose, man’s ugliest side is seen in wars.
But nothing compares to the death squads that kill criminals summarily in the name of protecting the peace and quite of society. These groups engage in hypocritical discourse that they are needed in a society where the justice system fails. They take the law into their hands, and would want us to call them our defenders.
The death squads and whoever led them are playing gods, hypocrites and arrogant breeds who claim to weed out the scums of the earth. But when they operate beyond the law, who will now take them to account the many they killed who turned-out to be innocent? Or to render justice to victims who were killed simply due to personal spite?
Since 1998, more than 800 victims in Davao City died at the hands of vigilantes who usually ride in a motorcycle in a group of two using the high-powered .45 caliber pistol, then in the presence of witnesses, pump bullets into the victims. The perpetrators walk away from the crime scene as if nothing happened. And the police, true to the joke that they maintain the peace, come minutes after, when there is no more threat but the terrified but muted silence of the on-lookers.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, with bravado, exclaimed that you should be afraid to live in Davao City if you are a criminal or a member of a syndicate. He points out to the relative peace in the City. But the Human Rights Watch, an international body, points out that according to statistics provided by the Philippines National Police, the number of annual crime incidents has increased some 219 percent in the last decade, while the city’s population rose only by 29 percent. An increasing number of death squad killings appear to have made crime rates worse in Davao.
In Cebu City, there have been reported killings perpetrated by the vigilantes. The vigilante-style killing has claimed 167 lives already since December 2004. Msgr. Achilles Dakay claimed that the vigilantes appeared well-trained, organized and well-paid. Yet despite the vigilante-style killing, crime rate in Cebu City has not abated.
In Cagayan de Oro City, vigilante-style killings have been reported. Usually, the victims are members of the notorious gang of hoodlums known as Batang Mindanao or simply B.M. These victims have been going in and out the jail and have their bodies tattooed with the initials B.M. Still, the killing is done by motorcycle riding men who use .45 caliber pistol in shooting the suspect.
Equally alarming to the spate of death squad killings is that no vigilante group has even been arrested and hailed to court to account for violating the penal laws of the land. The number of vigilante killing in Davao is now 800 or so, but no one has ever been caught. Mayor Duterte cannot take pride that the criminals live dangerously in that city. Even with the vigilantes, the crime rate there has grown exponentially.
Besides, as a lawyer and as a mayor, he should know that vigilantes violate the laws, and should therefore be arrested, prosecuted, and put to jail. Fact is no vigilante has been arrested. The Davao Death Squad has been associated with him, and if only to erase this stigma, he should rein on the vigilantes. Otherwise, he will forever bear the stigma.
The same is true with Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmena. 167 vigilante-style killing since December 2004 is no joke. It will be good to the honor of the surname he carries if vigilantes will be caught.
Across the country, there has been a marked increase of reported vigilante killings that this practice of exacting justice, if it does at all, is becoming a counter-culture, that threatens to further undermine our justice system.
Every victim who dies in the hands of the vigilantes is one strand that is taken away from the fabric of our society. If this goes unabated, one day, we will realize that there is no more strand that binds us all. When that day comes, God forbid, the law of the jungle will reign instead of the rule of law. People will now take the law in their hands.
That day, we shall have retrogressed in the evolutionary ladder from human to beast, instead of the Darwinian model.
