EDITORIAL - Once more a call for swift justice

Two motorcycle-riding men ambushed two lawyers and a law firm staff in a car in Mandaue City early evening of Thursday. Lawyer Amelie Ocanada Alegre, who was driving the car, was killed on the spot. Lawyer Briccio Boholst and Anthony Pino survived. Initial assessment by the police had it that Alegre was the target of the hit, with personal issues being cited as probable cause.

Whatever the cause might eventually turn out to be, the ambush came as a shock to Mandaue City, which has always been known to be a peaceful city. Not that it is free from any violence. As a city, it too has had its share of violent incidents. But the type of violence to which an ambush can be categorized is not par for the course for Mandaue, which after 46 years as a city, has not seemed to lose its small town appeal.

It is this rustic air about it that has made Mandaue City a favorite location for residential villages. It just doesn't rain bullets in Mandaue, so to speak. So when something happens like what happened last Thursday, the shock truly reverberates through the senses of Mandauehanons. This is not to say that the violence is more shocking because it happened in Mandaue. All violence is.

But you cannot blame Mandauehanons if they want to remain protective of the kind of life they have grown used to. That is simply the way Mandauehanons are - simple, decent, peace-loving and hard-working folk who never forget to give thanks to God for everything. You shake the senses of such people, and they cannot sleep over the disruption.

Still the incident goes beyond Mandaue and what Mandauehanons feel. It is an assault to the peaceful aspirations of everyone, wherever they might choose to pursue their endeavors. It is a disruption inflicted by those who have chosen to operate outside the ambit of what the world has striven to achieve as a civilized society.

 Such a society cannot allow such disruptive influences to rule. It must put a stop to the madness. The police and other law enforcement agencies must see to it that the world as we know it cannot be hobbled and made infirm by the lawless and the criminal. All too often the police and other law enforcement agencies have been found wanting in the performance of their duties.

They must be reminded that theirs is not a just a job for which they get paid. Theirs is a responsibility they have chosen to bear on their shoulders, even at the expense of their own natural and peaceful home life. They must bring the perpetrators of this latest atrocious disturbance to justice promptly, and the masterminds out in the open that they might be exposed for the evil they personify.