“Never use a cannon to kill a fly.”
--Confucius
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- The list of people murdered by the notorious riding-in-tandem killers in Western Visayas, particularly in Iloilo and Negros, and those massacred in “encounters” and police raids is getting thicker; and it appears that Western Visayas has now become the biggest cemetery in the Philippines.
The latest victims, Mercedes Nava, 66, and Erwin Fontillas, 45, mowed down in broad daylight by unidentified killers riding in motorcycle in Brgy. Calajunan, Mandurriao in Iloilo City in the Philippines on January 4, 2019, were another unarmed civilians.
The unprovoked double murder perpetrated in the first week of New Year could mean only one thing: a culture of impunity has now beclouded the “City of Love.”
The killing spree that included the massacres last year of seven suspected members of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Antique in August and the nine farmers in Sagay, Negros Occidental in October; the unsolved murders also last year of Small Town Lottery (STL) operator Samuel Aguilar in March, village chief Remia Gregori in June, and ex-cop Apple Alag in November and Bacolod lawyers and Rafael Atotubo and Ben Ramos, to name only a few, means nobody is safe anymore--not even lawyers, priests, cops, journalists, students, farmers, vendors, and drug addicts.
-o0o-
Every now and then there is violence and bloodshed; and dead bodies are piling up.
If the killings won’t stop, we will soon have to put all the cadavers together in one extended cemetery for all the victims of violence and atrocities.
The reputation of the Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) headed by Chief Supt. John Bulalacao is at stake here.
The people are pinning their hopes on the police authority for the progress and quick resolution of the aforementioned sensational crimes.
Ilonggos are anxiously waiting for the immediate arrest and the filing of necessary cases in court against the culprits.
As the people’s demand for justice accelerates, the authorities can’t afford to let those cases slumber or be buried in the police files and be subsequently forgotten and become part of statistics.
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Some of these murders aren’t really difficult to crack.
The pieces of evidence and major leads in some of these cases are just waiting to be dug up and unsnarled by determined investigators.
There are many available sources and resources to tap and where to start untangling the ropes of puzzlement: social and mainstream media, community assets, history or background of the involved parties--their affiliations and activities.
If we believe some of the tipsters and sources, most of the hired killers haven’t really left the region and are just waiting for their next lucrative “assignment.”
The motives behind some of these murders can be obtained in the script of soap opera films--jealousy, vengeance, double cross, hatred, envy, avarice, rivalry, politics.
With its vast intelligence resources, there is no way the police can’t put all the dots in their proper holes and solve the puzzles one after another.
We have full trust and confidence on the Philippine National Police (PNP) to finish the job.
Showing posts with label #justiceforginggingnava. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #justiceforginggingnava. Show all posts
Monday, January 7, 2019
Friday, January 4, 2019
Gingging Nava's murder an extreme act of irrationality
“It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- Businessman and Iloilo Press Club president Rommel Ynion has offered a reward of P100,000 to anyone who can help police investigators identify the gunmen and the mastermind in the girsly murder of Iloilo City socialiate, Mercedes “Gingging” Nava, and her companion, Erwin Fontillas, in Brgy. Calajunan, Mandurriao in Iloilo City in the Philippines on January 4, 2019.
“Beating up a minor like Joaquin Montes who is a Taekwondo black belt and an emergent psycopath is more acceptable than shooting in broad daylight with .45 caliber handgun 65-year-old Mercedes "Gingging" Nava, who was unarmed and helpless at the time of her murder. This is cowardice at its worst. I am offering Php 100,000 to whoever can lead authorities to the gunmen and mastermind of this horrific crime,” Ynion wrote in his Facebook account.
“The bounty should be higher. But, that is all I can afford for now. I would like to urge moneyed Ilonggos to help me raise the reward to Php 5 million. We need to stop these criminals dead in their tracks. This is not a laughing matter, folks. If this continues unabated, the next victim could be any of you. Lets stand up and fight this menace to our society. Please share this post. Make it viral if you can until it reaches a crescendo to awaken authorities to the urgency of this matter. Cowardice is a weakness we cannot allow to consume us. Let us fight!”
-o0o-
We don’t need to be guided by any moral code to know that murder is wrong.
And the fact that the victim in the Iloilo murder was a woman supports the male warrior hypothesis, the patriarchal dominance.
Men perpetrate about 90 percent of the world’s homicides and start all of the wars because evolution has shaped men to become warriors.
We have been programmed to attack, destroy, and conquer.
We always fight to keep power once we hold it, and when we find ourselves without economic resources, we feel entitled to acquire things by force if we see no other way.
Once we have acquired absolute power, we become reluctant to give it up.
It took two world wars and a post-industrial economy for women to obtain basic rights and opportunities.
Aristotle once said actions themselves are not the source of immorality, but the character that commits those actions is.
Thus, an action is not judged good or bad based on the action itself, but rather its relation to the virtue of the person committing it.
Aristotle would give two primary reasons why the act of murder is wrong: first, it is an act of bad character, and so certainly the action is performed by a person with bad character, thus the action is not bad but it illustrates the actor’s lack of virtue, which is what we are really punishing; second, regardless of how much virtue or vice a person has, an act of murder is an act of vice, and since virtue is a habit (as is vice) committing murder brings a person’s character closer to committing murder again, since vice, like virtue, is a habit.
Thus murder is only wrong in that it shows the immorality of the character of the person murdering, and in that it increases the vice of the person murdering (since it gets them out of the habit of not murdering, and increases habit towards murdering).
-o0o-
We can never think of murdering others if we only respect our fellow human beings.
Immanuel Kant said we must treat others as an “ends in themselves”, and not merely as a means.
What Kant meant was if we treat someone as a means, we are using him or her to benefit ourselves to achieve a final goal.
However, when we treat someone as an “end in himself or herself” we are giving them value for the simple fact that they are human.
Kantians believe that humans should respect other humans just on the idea of humanity as an end.
“I cannot, therefore, dispose in any way of a man in my own person so as to mutilate him, to damage or kill him” (Kant). One situation I would allow for someone to hurt or kill someone would be in the protection of oneself. If your family, friend, or even yourself is threatened by someone that you feel is going to kill you or severely hurt you if you do not act against him or her, then yeah I support the idea of using force.
--Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- Businessman and Iloilo Press Club president Rommel Ynion has offered a reward of P100,000 to anyone who can help police investigators identify the gunmen and the mastermind in the girsly murder of Iloilo City socialiate, Mercedes “Gingging” Nava, and her companion, Erwin Fontillas, in Brgy. Calajunan, Mandurriao in Iloilo City in the Philippines on January 4, 2019.
“Beating up a minor like Joaquin Montes who is a Taekwondo black belt and an emergent psycopath is more acceptable than shooting in broad daylight with .45 caliber handgun 65-year-old Mercedes "Gingging" Nava, who was unarmed and helpless at the time of her murder. This is cowardice at its worst. I am offering Php 100,000 to whoever can lead authorities to the gunmen and mastermind of this horrific crime,” Ynion wrote in his Facebook account.
“The bounty should be higher. But, that is all I can afford for now. I would like to urge moneyed Ilonggos to help me raise the reward to Php 5 million. We need to stop these criminals dead in their tracks. This is not a laughing matter, folks. If this continues unabated, the next victim could be any of you. Lets stand up and fight this menace to our society. Please share this post. Make it viral if you can until it reaches a crescendo to awaken authorities to the urgency of this matter. Cowardice is a weakness we cannot allow to consume us. Let us fight!”
-o0o-
We don’t need to be guided by any moral code to know that murder is wrong.
And the fact that the victim in the Iloilo murder was a woman supports the male warrior hypothesis, the patriarchal dominance.
Men perpetrate about 90 percent of the world’s homicides and start all of the wars because evolution has shaped men to become warriors.
We have been programmed to attack, destroy, and conquer.
We always fight to keep power once we hold it, and when we find ourselves without economic resources, we feel entitled to acquire things by force if we see no other way.
Once we have acquired absolute power, we become reluctant to give it up.
It took two world wars and a post-industrial economy for women to obtain basic rights and opportunities.
Aristotle once said actions themselves are not the source of immorality, but the character that commits those actions is.
Thus, an action is not judged good or bad based on the action itself, but rather its relation to the virtue of the person committing it.
Aristotle would give two primary reasons why the act of murder is wrong: first, it is an act of bad character, and so certainly the action is performed by a person with bad character, thus the action is not bad but it illustrates the actor’s lack of virtue, which is what we are really punishing; second, regardless of how much virtue or vice a person has, an act of murder is an act of vice, and since virtue is a habit (as is vice) committing murder brings a person’s character closer to committing murder again, since vice, like virtue, is a habit.
Thus murder is only wrong in that it shows the immorality of the character of the person murdering, and in that it increases the vice of the person murdering (since it gets them out of the habit of not murdering, and increases habit towards murdering).
-o0o-
We can never think of murdering others if we only respect our fellow human beings.
Immanuel Kant said we must treat others as an “ends in themselves”, and not merely as a means.
What Kant meant was if we treat someone as a means, we are using him or her to benefit ourselves to achieve a final goal.
However, when we treat someone as an “end in himself or herself” we are giving them value for the simple fact that they are human.
Kantians believe that humans should respect other humans just on the idea of humanity as an end.
“I cannot, therefore, dispose in any way of a man in my own person so as to mutilate him, to damage or kill him” (Kant). One situation I would allow for someone to hurt or kill someone would be in the protection of oneself. If your family, friend, or even yourself is threatened by someone that you feel is going to kill you or severely hurt you if you do not act against him or her, then yeah I support the idea of using force.
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