Requiem for Rodel
The authorities have solved the murder.
In screaming headlines, we are informed that the gunman and his cohorts have surrendered, confessing to the deed, and all pointing to Mayor Carlwyn Baldo as the mastermind of the killing of Congressman Rodel Batocabe.
In broad daylight, the gunmen just casually popped a gun and shot Batocabe and his police escort. The brazen manner in which they implemented the execution was shocking: but more shocking was the target. Not just the unarmed, powerless and poor, numbering in the thousands, that have been mowed down in this extrajudicial killing environment that envelops the country. The killers have struck down a member of Congress.
I would daresay Batocabe was a good man. I met him in Law school at the University of the Philippines, although I may have encountered him earlier in college days (I generally don’t remember anymore when I met Law students if they also took their pre-law in UP, unless the college encounter was spectacularly fortuitous). While the campus was huge, it was possible to bump into a million students if one had the restlessness I had during those days.
But in Law school, Rodel was a batch ahead and wasn’t hard to miss. Down-to-earth, with a smiling face, and a general aura that he was going to utter a wisecrack anytime soon, Rodel the Law student was an approachable fellow, scarcely the definition of a trapo-to-be.
He was a dormer like I was, meaning he stayed in one of the ghastly facilities provided by the university for out-of-town students that sometimes ran out of water or would be shot at by fratmen. One would not have thought then that his future would be ended by a bullet from a hitman.
But the jolly Rodel decided to enter politics and made quite a name for himself in the House of Representatives. Persistent, gifted with the legal acumen acquired from the College of Law, and able to navigate the treacherous waters of Congress, Batocabe became a source of pride to his Law school batchmates.
Of course, he made choices I would not agree with, like withdrawing the measure taxing beauty products. In my January 2017 column “Taxing beauty” I fully supported his idea of imposing vanity taxes on beauty products. He succumbed to political pressure, however, and let lapse the proposed bill.
But overall, he comported himself with more dignity and gravity, and succeeded in many more achievements than some of his colleagues. I will let the obituaries and social media posts speak about what he accomplished. Most certainly, he didn’t deserve to die.
What the conspirators shouldn’t have done, if they were smart about it, was to slay his police escort. Attacking a fellow brother in the Philippine National Police must have sent alarm bells jangling all over policemen’s spines nationwide, and gave even more impetus to solving the crime quickly. You bet the cops are going to slam down hard if one of their number ends up murdered.
And so here we have a quick and tidy solution. The expected opponent in the mayoral race this year is accused of ordering the slay, implemented by guns-for-hire who now claim they weren’t given the promised blood money.
What a nasty, brutal end to a promising lawyer and lawmaker. Batocabe deserves justice, and it should be to everyone’s interest to see this is meted. It will be years before a powerful mayor is fully tried and hopefully, sentenced. At that point, the rage which we all feel now should not be tempered by time. Or politics. Or convenience. Or Catholic forgiveness. That much, Rodel deserves.
- Latest
