Bad business

KILLING continues to be big business

Whether it be for political motives, land disputes, or any other conflict, paying somebody to shoot and kill your opponent appears real easy around here judging from the continued crimes perpetrated by guns-for-hire who ride around on motorbikes, solo or in tandem.

Just within this first month of the year, two victims have already been reported, one in San Jacinto on January 2 and another in San Fabian last week, January 25. The first victim died and what is most chilling about the crime is how the lone murderer casually walked in front of the victim’s house and took the fatal shots, witnessed by the victim’s young daughter. Meanwhile, the victim in San Fabian, a barangay kapitan, fortunately survived, but no doubt that the aim was to kill him given the several shots fired in broad daylight along a busy street. Last month, just before the Christmas and New Year holidays, two barangay kagawads were killed in a similar manner in separate incidents in Calasiao and Mangatarem. Those were four incidents in four different towns over a period of two months. For the whole of 2011, there were 111 murders, majority of which involved hired killers. Motives for these crimes were not immediately clear in the investigations, many of which remain unsolved and the shooters uncaught, but what is certain is the cold-bloodedness of the crimes carried out by money-driven killers.

Why this seeming helplessness of the Pangasinan PNP command to stop the syndicate of killers-for-hire riding in tandem in the province? They can easily cite statistics saying crimes have gone down in the province, but truth is statistics are as cold as the murders.

Governor Amado Espino Jr. should also be deeply concerned over this because it mocks his vision of a Pangasinan that is the best place to live in. It’s very bad business for the province.

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Convict or acquit?

THE essence of an impeachment trial is to either acquit or convict.  Mr. Webster, the absolute master of definitions, tells us that impeach means “to accuse a public official before an appropriate tribunal of misconduct in office.” He says impeachment is 1) “the impeaching of a public official before an appropriate tribunal” and 2) “the presentation of formal charges against a public official by the lower house, trial to be before the upper house.”

If found guilty, Renato Corona is deemed fired as Chief Justice and thereafter barred from holding any public position. However, Senator Miriam Santiago says that in the Corona case, “You can [also] mete out the punishment of reprimand or censure.”

But Pacifico Agabin, the retired dean of the UP College of Law, says, “Corona facing impeachment proceedings is, in effect, is already being censured, if not reprimanded.”

Do you submit? We do.

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