AT a time when the nation is preparing for the exercise of its sovereign prerogative—the election of the officials who will lead the nation in the next six years—a terrorist group in our society, the Abu Sayyaf, brutally kills an innocent foreigner for failure to meet its criminal demands. The foreigner, Canadian John Ridsdel, 65, was one of four persons kidnapped by the terrorist group late last year and held for ransom. The other three—consisting of another Canadian, a Norwegian and a Filipina—remain in the hands of the bandits to this day.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who apparently learned of the crime ahead of almost everybody else, immediately condemned the outrageous act. Similar denunciations came from high officials of the Philippines who called for the apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators.
Yet, even as we join our leaders and the officials of Canada in demanding that the perpetrators be brought to justice, we are skeptical that this will happen any time soon. We are afraid the Abu Sayyaf and other criminal groups will continue their merry way, kidnapping and killing innocent people, Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike, “till kingdom come.”
Till kingdom come? Yes, because the Philippine justice system just cannot be counted upon to speedily and successfully capture the criminals and mete out to them their just deserts. The system is so inefficient, when it is not so rotten, that the criminals are more likely to die from a lightning strike than from any punishment dished out to them by the law.
We have become familiar with the script. The President will give the order to go after the criminals and bring them to justice. Politicians will express repugnance at the brutal act. The Philippine National Police and other law-enforcement agencies will dutifully vow to capture the terrorists. Citizens will remain revolted, awaiting results. But nothing happens until the next kidnapping takes place.
Are we doomed to have the Abu Sayyaf rampaging in our midst forever? Are we under sentence to endure criminal groups for the rest of our lives, given that the communist insurgency, for instance, has been with us in the last 60 years—the longest-running antigovernment movement in Asia, perhaps in the world?
The answer has to be an emphatic no. We protest against any insinuation that our justice system will remain broken forever. This piece has nothing to do with Rodrigo R. Duterte, or with politics at all. But is Duterte’s surge to leadership in the presidential contest an indication of the beginning of a national resolve to clear our country of criminals, from petty street-level thieves to plunderers in their barongs and western jackets, from isolated individuals to groups of well-coordinated operators? If it is, it is exactly what we need.
Let’s repair our justice system if not for the sake of innocent people like Ridsdel, but for the sake of our own self-respect as decent human beings.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano