KIDAPAWAN CITY—Alarmed by the spate of unsolved killings believed to have been perpetrated by motorcycle-riding vigilantes, the city council has approved a resolution seeking a deeper investigation of the cases.
A total of 17 cases of summary executions were recorded during the first six months of the year, or an average of almost three deaths per month, said Councilor Francis Palmones, chair of the peace and order committee. In all cases, the killers were not known, he said.
Kidapawan City now has the biggest number of unsolved crimes in the entire Central Mindanao region, he said.
“Seventeen families are grieving over the loss of their loved ones,” Palmones, a former Regional Trial Court judge, said. He said he did not care if all 17 victims were suspected criminals.
“These acts of vigilantism can never be accepted as norm of effecting justice,” he said. “Justice from the barrel of a gun is not justice. Using force, no matter how well intended, is never justified in a free society.”
Even criminals and those suspected of committing wrongdoing “are guaranteed their rights, as enunciated in the Bill of Rights of the 1987 Philippine Constitution,” he added.
While the killings have resulted in the relief of Supt. Leo Ajero as city chief of police, it was better if these had been solved, Palmones said. The official said he never bought the police line that the killings were not solved because nobody wanted to testify.
“Please do not give the lame excuse that there are no witnesses. Continue the investigation, provide evidence to our prosecutors so that perpetrators will be brought to the court of justice,” he said.
Palmones has sought the help of the National Bureau of Investigation and the Commission on Human Rights in identifying the culprits and their real intentions.
“Let it not be said that the city executive, as well as the legislative, has given their imprimatur to this vigilante style of exacting justice. For our continued silence might be misconstrued as apathy, or worse, as implicit to this mockery of justice,” he said.
Councilor Ruby Padilla-Sison, chair of the council’s human rights committee, said a parallel investigation of the series of extrajudicial killings could speed up the process of providing justice to the victims. Williamor A. Magbanua, Inquirer Mindanao