MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
It’s the day after Christmas but I beg the reader’s indulgence, for I will not be writing as a Christian.
I’m not entertaining any sympathy for that Tarlac policeman who killed at close range and in cold blood a mother and her son during an argument over a land title on a Sunday afternoon, and I will not mention his name here because I won’t let it stain this space and leave an ugly odor in the air.
While the court decides where to detain him, with two generals hastily spreading a blanket over the double murder by calling it an “isolated incident” – isolated, as in quarantined? – the murderous cop has been putting on a meek-and-mild performance of remorse, even begging the PNP to “help my family,” what cheek! No lawful punishment will ever be fair and just enough, as far as his victims, Sonia and Frank Anthony Gregorio, and their surviving kin are concerned.
Hanging is too good for him. Our Constitution does not allow capital punishment. The people have found their most hated man – a policeman – and they cry for blood. The Church will continue to argue against a death penalty. But this policeman is more than a typical bad cop. His checkered history includes two cases of homicide, dropped for alleged lack of evidence; one case of robbery extortion; suspicion of drug dealing. Will he get away with murder this time?
The President wants to keep him in jail until he rots. Why not put him in the same cell with cop killers/killer cops and let’s see how they’ll make mincemeat out of him? Wait! Before he comes out of the meat grinder, he should be made to kneel before the entire force of 200,000 policemen and ask for their forgiveness, one by one, one at a time until his knees bleed. He should kneel in front of each of the Gregorios, neighbors, the entire barangay, before moving his own family out of the area for their own good.
He has broken the law in the most odious way. He has destroyed the peace of the community. He has no place in society. He’s still a dangerous man, or else why does the PNP chief think the witnesses against him need protection? Police protection?