four suspects in the Rizal Commercial Banking
Corp. Cabuyao, Laguna, branch robbery sounds familiar. Police
officers have been implicated in similar killings before.
The human-rights commission chairman said that
its initial investigation showed that policemen could have rubbed
out the four suspects in the May 16 robbery and killings. “There
is reasonable certainty to believe that it was a case of a rubout,
an out-and-out execution of the three men,” commissioner Leila de
Lima told reporters at the House of Representatives where she
testified at a hearing.
The suspects were killed on May 22 in Tanauan
City, Batangas. The commission recommended dismissal of the police
officers.
Ten RCBC bank officers and employees were
executed gangland style, according to first police reports. All were
shot in the head.
Ms. de Lima said the commission arrived at its
conclusion from the first-hand accounts of eyewitnesses who said
that the suspects, all Tanauan residents, had shown no move or
effort to fight the police officers. The lawmen claimed they were
fired at.
PNP Director General Avelino Razon Jr. has
suspended Police Supt. Gilbert Sauro and eight police officers to
prevent them from using their position to influence the
investigation of the commission.
He has promised an early internal probe to
pinpoint responsibility or to determine innocence. Razon assured the
commission full cooperation.
Murder on Commonwealth Avenue
The police badge received its biggest stain in
the case of the Kuratong Baleleng killings 13 years ago. Eleven
members of the robbery gang were killed extrajudicially on
Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City, by police officers. Police
insiders squealed on the executions; a Senate investigation
confirmed the victims were shot in cold blood. The case has taken
many twists and turns, consuming time and energy, until some of the
original witnesses sought refuge overseas or turned their back on
their testimonies.
Two or three years ago, a group of policemen for
no apparent reason except suspicion, shot at and killed three men on
Ortigas Avenue, Pasig City. TV cameras that happened to lurk in the
vicinity showed the officers firing at the victims inside their car,
none of them armed.
In between, similar killings have taken place:
at a checkpoint in Quezon City where a father and daughter were shot
for ignoring police warning; during a car chase in Manila where
several students took bullets on their bodies; and in a raid on a QC
residence where a young girl lost her life.
Most of the police officers involved in these
killings walked away free. Justice has eluded the victims and their
families. This partly explains the audacity of the miscreant
members.
We call it salvaging
A penchant for cutting corners and abbreviating
due process drives many law enforcers to make unlawful arrests,
exact forced testimonies, and—in the extreme—liquidate criminals
and crime suspects. The killings save time, money and effort;
besides, the bad guys “deserve” their doom, in the name of
speedier justice.
Filipinos call it “salvaging,” our singular
contribution to the English language that means summary or
extralegal killing. An equivalent from afflicted civilians is
“vigilante justice,” an effort to get rid of criminal elements
using brutal methods.
A forgetful and forgiving society abets police
and military abuse. The national memory for the most hideous crimes
by public men or private citizens is befogged with amnesia.
Unfamiliarity with or deliberate violation of
the rules of engagement has prompted the unnecessary use of guns
with lethal consequences.
Shoot-to-kill
It also does not help when high public officers
make irresponsible statements about the rights of criminals or crime
suspects to due process and the power of the police to waste them.
“I think there should be a shoot-to-kill order
against these people already,” Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez
told reporters, in reacting to the RCBC killings. “That’s my
personal view,” he added.
The positive news is that we are getting a
glimpse of a courageous and uncompromising human-rights office. Much
of the public started taking notice when Chairman de Lima assumed
office. She has promised a more proactive and independent agency.
She asked the public to trust her leadership. She has started work
on a national workshop on human rights observance and compliance.
The officers on the carpet are entitled to
presumption of innocence and the right to self-defense. The PNP
should extend fullest cooperation to the Commission on Human Rights.
This is a case that should not drag, like many unsolved crimes, but
should have an honest ending.
