The murder of Zamboanga Judge Reynerio Estacio Sr. of the Zamboanga Regional Trial Court last Friday by two motorcycle-riding men brought to focus once more the culture of impunity that has pervaded Philippine society for decades. The ambush also brought to fore the worsening peace and order condition in the country and the incompetence of the country’s law enforcement agencies.
The latest killing came in the wake of a report by the US State Department that extra-judicial killings remained a concern in 2013 and a report by the International News Safety Institute (INSI) that ranked the Philippines second only to war-torn Syria as the “World’s Most Dangerous Country for Journalists.”
The INSI report said that 12 journalists and one media worker were killed last year in the country, tied with India and second to Syria’s 19 media murders. The deaths, however, included four media men who died while covering typhoon Yolanda in Leyte.
So far, 27 journalists have been killed since 2010 when Aquino assumed power, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.
While the media killings have sent shivers to crusading journalists all over the country, these crusaders have long accepted the fact that their noble profession comes with such risks. Hundreds of journalists have either been killed, maimed, or simply disappeared in the Philippines for years, but the deaths, the tortures, the imprisonment, and the disappearance of these journalists have not stopped other media men to carry on the crusade to fight corruption, crimes, and other evils of our society.
The criminal lords and corrupt politicians have grown even bolder. They have not only gone out to kill the media men who expose crimes and corruption, they are now going after the adjudicators of their crimes, the judges. And they kill lawyers and judges in broad daylight, usually near or in their homes, sometimes in front of their family, as in the case of Judge Estacio, who was shot seven times while revving his car in front of his house. His wife, who was with him, survived the attack.
The list of murdered lawyers and judges under the Aquino administration has been growing, as listed by the Inquirer: Aug. 4, 2010, prosecutor Macadatar Marsangca, Iligan City; Oct. 4, 2010, Judge Reynaldo Lacasandile, Tagudin, Ilocos Sur; Jan. 19, 2011, Judge Fredelito Pingao, Currimao, Ilocos Norte; Aug. 5, 2011, lawyer Archer Baldwin Martinez, Dumaguete City; Aug. 3, 2012, lawyer Manolo Zerna, Tanjay City, Negros Oriental; Aug. 18, 2012, lawyer Xerxes Balios Camacho, former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Northern Samar chapter; Sept. 20, 2012, lawyer Nicomedes Romagos, in Cataingan, Masbate; Oct. 29, 2012, lawyer Lazaro Gayo in Agoo, La Union; Nov. 14, 2012, lawyer Sulpicio Landicho, Tanauan City, Batangas.
IBP president Roan Libarios said that in the last 10 years, at least 200 lawyers and judges have been shot in cold blood. He said most of these murders remain unsolved, with police authorities using the perennial line “lack of evidence and witnesses” to justify their failure, thereby generating a feeling of helplessness among the general public.
The murders have exposed the criminals’ lack of respect and fear of the country’s law enforcers. These criminals are not even considering laying low despite the high-profile coverage of the assassinations, and the people’s angry reaction. They don’t seem to fear a police crackdown, or are they so confident that the police won’t go after them for reasons known only to them and their police collaborators?
The government cannot allow the perpetrators of these dastardly crimes to continually get away with their treacherous acts. For one, the government’s failure to solve the murders would send the wrong signal to other crime lords and corrupt politicians that they can get away with murdering people in the same way that they have gotten away with illegal gambling, kidnappings, robberies, drug dealing, smuggling, bribery and many other crimes for years.
Secondly, it would confirm doubts of local businessmen and foreign investors that this government is inutile against lawlessness, and that this government cannot protect their investments, much less their lives and those of their family.
How can a country combat crime and corruption when the government cannot even protect the people who expose and prosecute these corrupt officials and criminals? How can police not find the killers and masterminds when the assassinations were executed in broad daylight and in very public places? How can they not pinpoint the masterminds when the motives can easily be established by looking into the recent writings or broadcasts of the slain journalists, and the high-profile cases handled by the murdered judges?
The slain media men and judges had one thing in common — they were at the time of their murders, exposing corruption by local officials, and/or their collusion with criminal syndicates, or in the case of the lawyers and judges, were handling serious criminal cases.
By murdering the media men and the judges, the criminals are obviously sending warnings to other journalists and judges to keep off their activities.
If President Aquino is really serious about curbing crime and corruption, he should place all necessary manpower and resources to arrest and put to jail, and immediately to the gas chambers, the perpetrators of these crimes. The government itself must instill fear on the criminals, in the same manner that the murderers are instilling fear on journalists and judges.
(valabelgas@aol.com)