Another one down

I was sleeping soundly when I received a phone call at about past 4 in the morning. "Wake up! Mayor Blanco of Ronda was shot inside the municipal hall!" the voice said. Still left in dreamland, I propped myself on the bed and asked if it was real. It was and the rest of the members of the media were on their way there to cover the story. I was left to join sessions in investigative journalism, but I remained to be disturbed.

Mayor Nonie Blanco was one of those people in the narco list of the president. Since the mention of his name, it was common knowledge that he has changed his everyday routine. He chose at times to sleep inside the municipal hall to keep himself safe, knowing that he could be next in line of those elected officials gunned down. To the surprise of everybody, the place where he thought would be the safest, would be the last place he would ever be in alive.

According to eyewitnesses, his personal guards were asked to back off and stay down as the perpetrators entered. The next thing that happened was the series of gunshots. The police station that was supposedly very near the municipal hall did not deploy men immediately. Thanks to an operation that was done in the wee hours of the morning, only two men were allegedly left inside the station.

Now that there's another one down, what do we expect now? Maybe the usual drill as somebody gets killed: The admittance that there is still no motive in mind with the investigation and the creation of a special task group to fast track the investigation. Next is the moto proprio investigation of the Commission on Human Rights. The body will then be laid to rest and the family, including his constituents will continue to call for justice. Ronda is a town badly wounded by now, that they've lost both their mayor and vice mayor in a year.

There are no people to point out or blame. The only thing that people are trying to figure out is his alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade. As everybody knew, he denied this and this has not been proven yet.

Have we fallen into the pitfall of apathy where we don't care anymore that an official has been gunned down? Is the fight for human rights over? In this day and time, I simply shrug my shoulders. It is even harder to point out if this place is still safe as it used to be.

We really don't know what's next. There are still people on that list who could be gunned down as well. Is there an established pattern? Maybe, we can't tell or even validate. Nobody does that better than the police. My heart breaks every time somebody dies. I believe we all deserve a fair and speedy trial, and that justice should be served. At this moment, it all feels like a dream waiting to come true. I wonder if I will ever live to see that day.