Toxic legacy

“It really happened.” Cebu Daily News thus confirmed a US Embassy cable, uncorked by Wikileaks, that many people looked the other way as Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña unleashed death squads, ostensibly to tamp down crime. “Would we ever again wipe out a human life … because the ends justify the means?” the CDN editorial wondered.

Summary executions by faceless vigilantes bolted to 41 by April 2005, US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone Jr. wrote. Now Cebu’s South District congressman, Osmeña washes his hands of the rubouts—sort of. “What do you think I should prioritize, going after criminals or vigilantes?” he asked. “What is worse than vigilante killings is the killing of innocent people.”

May we jog His Honor’s memory a bit? The blood-letting started in July  2004, with a petty hood named Roel Patana. Squeezed between cops,  Patana  picked his handcuffs, tried to grab a pistol and bolted. Then Police Supt. Paul Labra spun that yarn: Patana didn’t get far. Of course.

As prosecutor, judge, jury and prosecutor, Osmeña absolved the cops. “Patana was a pure criminal,” he said, adding that he was more concerned with protecting citizens and shielding trigger-happy cops.

“If Osmeña goes down this path, blood will stain his already checkered legacy,” Sun Star warned then. “Those who arrogate to themselves power to take life play God.”

A city council made up of yes-men predictably played along with murder.

With a lot of publicity, Osmeña created in December 2004 a “Hunters’ Team” that would go after thugs. For every criminal “permanently disabled and neutralized,” Osmeña offered a reward of P20,000, Ricciardone noted. A bounty of P10,000  would be paid to off-duty cops if they eliminated a robber.

“We will respect human rights” the  mayor  pledged. (Wink.) “We’ll go to the law’s limit, then hit them.” (Wink. Wink.)

Does good governance grow out of the barrel of a gun? Viewpoint asked in “Murder with a  wink.” (Inquirer, 12/30/04)

Between December 2004 and March 2008, bonneted gunmen astride motorcycles stalked victims  in Cebu streets. In the first month, vigilantes stacked up 18 bodies.

“After an operation, we’d meet at Mits KTV bar along Bacalso Highway, near St. Francis Funeral Home,” a vigilante told newsmen in confidence. “That’s where we would get the money for our work.”

Looking for a “subject,” the hitmen met a young girl who told them, “Sir is not here.” “Shoot her,” ordered the cop, moonlighting as  backup man. “I refused because she had nothing to do with our work,” the vigilante recalled.

No one was killed in hot pursuit. Not a single  case has been solved. The head count piled up to 117 after 12 months. Cebu’s vigilantes lay low when UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston probed disappearances. Thanks to Ricciardone’s  report, among other reports, the US State Department’s annual review on human rights  lumps Cebu alongside killing fields in Tagum, Digos and Davao.

The press stopped its head count in late  2008. By then, the number of those rubbed out had crested at 183. “There have been no reports of summary execution under my watch,” says the current Cebu City police chief, Senior Supt. Melvin Buenafe.

“Those who trifle with life promote a culture of death,” Pope John Paul II  stressed. Still, Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, then a political ally of  Osmeña, supported  the mayor’s “Hunters’ Team,” the US note recalled. “A chilling message must be sent to suspected criminals and ensure peace and order,” Garcia  said.

The Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry also expressed “strong support for promotion of peace and security  as a vital component in the city’s economic development initiatives.” That’s a  convoluted phrase  for extrajudicial killings.

Did some businessmen chip in for the 183 executions, while  professing fealty to the Penal Code and the Fifth Commandment?

“Osmeña prides himself as an honorable man,” noted the column, “Pissing on our graves.” (Inquirer, 6/22/09) “At P20,000 per head, 117 salvaged victims means the mayor, in honoring his word, paid P2.34 million.

“But it’s taboo to use public funds for crime payrolls,” the commentary pointed out. “Philanthropy is not one of Osmeña’s strong suits. So, who paid? Friends? Drinking buddies? Businessmen? Did they claim these as tax deductions on BIR Form 1071? In Cebu, salvaging is an industry.”

Unpunished serial murder, however, saps the security of every citizen. It also embeds impunity. “The Catholic Church in Cebu, led by Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, and the Cebu chapter of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) criticized … Osmeña and condemned the extrajudicial killings,”  Ricciardone reported. “ Cardinal Vidal forcefully denounced the summary executions in his homilies and through the archdiocese’s newsletter, urging Cebuanos to reject the ‘culture of death’.”

The IBP urged the Cebu City Police Office to arrest death squad members, the US cable added. “Senators Manuel Villar and Richard Gordon warned the Cebu police to stop summary executions of suspected criminals.”

“I feel alluded to,” Osmeña snapped. “But I’m not exactly sad criminals were killed…. It’s a question of dosage.”

So, who decides whose blood will be spilt? Who says stop? Or who decrees more should die? Has human life been stripped to calibrated doses?

Cebu never had a vigilante tradition. The murder-with-a-wink policy spawned a toxic  legacy. Not everyone in our passing generation had a hand in this. Still, our grandchildren will inherit the shambles they never sought or created. This is unfair to those who are “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.”

(Email: juanlmercado@gmail.com)