Watching the Senate inquiry on the murder of a 17-year-old drug suspect makes me feel like government officials are making us look like fools who don’t know anything about law and order.
Clearly, the whole brouhaha appeared like a grand show of “concern” among legislators that made me want to puke.
It’s a pity that government has really gone to the dogs. When it comes to accountability, every one of those who were supposed to “serve and protect” citizens that figured in the killing of Kian de los Santos stubbornly kept their silence.
Did I hear it right when General Bato justified the abuse of power by his subordinates as their way of following the cue given by their commander in chief in his pronouncements to go after drug suspects and kill them if they must?
On the pretext of invoking the right against self-incrimination (well, that’s how they were visibly coached by their counsel), each one of the police officers simply refused to speak.
It’s exasperating and infuriating, to say the least, to expect this senate hearing to produce results. One can’t help but be disappointed with the way the senate committee seemingly and all-too willingly allowed the erring police to get away with murder.
I don’t understand why the senate inquiry should call all those involved but allow them to keep mum about the incident, even with the presence of their lawyers, when that was exactly the reason why they are called. It’s beyond logic, really!
It’s just a waste of people’s money.
I can understand how the aggrieved family of Kian must have felt that day. It was just like pulling their legs at such time when they are deep in grief. To be reminded no less by Sen. Panfilo Lacson to rein in their emotions at the hearing was an added insult to the aggrieved family, as if telling them to behave in front of the dis-honorables.
I could not even contain my emotions while watching as I raised my voice in disgust at the way the hearing was conducted. My son had to remind me that my angry voice could already be heard out in the streets.
But for the whole two hours or so that I was glued to the TV screen, almost against my sensibilities, I swear, I was more agitated than enlightened.
How can Justice Secretary Aguirre say that the whole thing about Kian’s murder was “blown out of proportion?”
Didn’t he saw the pile of dead bodies now growing in numbers in the government’s drug war, whether the killings were perpetrated by vigilantes or by the police?
Was he not worried that the rush of unabated killings lately is a clear sign that law and order is dead in this country? Sadly, many people do not seem to believe anymore, if not, are even apprehensive with the presence of the police force including the military forces in the countryside as they have become the judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one.
One thing is as clear as daylight, and that is all of them, the legislators, the secretary of justice, the police, and yes, the supposed “oppositions” among the senate committee who pretend to question the conduct of police operations and President Duterte’s war against drug have but one hidden agenda: and that is to save the President.
It’s not about Kian de los Santos’ murder, it’s not about the unabated killings. Nothing more, nothing less.
