Several people ended up dead after what was called a misencounter along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City recently.
Two parties --one composed of policemen and the other of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency personnel-- ended up shooting it out after they were convinced the others were the bad guys. When the smoke cleared two people were dead. Another two would die of their wounds in the following days.
While some details about the incident are now known, there is still so much that isn’t. What went wrong? How did two parties end up shooting at each other? Was there proper coordination between the agencies regarding the operation? Were they somehow set up by someone involved in the drug trade?
Now many people want answers, one of them Senator Risa Hontiveros who said the Senate should look into the incident.
“We need to look into this further. It is very alarming that this is not the first time that such a misencounter has happened... the National Capital Region Police Office did admit that this has happened numerous times. These ‘misencounters’ should be rare, not common,” Hontiveros is quoted as saying in a news report.
However, President Rodrigo Duterte has said the task to investigate what happened should fall to the National Bureau of Investigation and no one else.
Yes, the Senate should leave this one to the NBI.
The Senate has more important things to do and issues to discuss other than his misencounter. Let them focus on more pressing concerns. For example, we have a pandemic going on that is still wreaking havoc on our economy. Why not focus on that?
It is also best to leave the investigation of this incident to an agency that more or less has a parallel function as the two agencies involved.
We don’t mean to disparage our senators, but NBI personnel will be more familiar with procedures governing law enforcement agencies. They will also know what information to look for and where to find it.
By all means, this incident should be investigated so that it should never happen again. But let’s give the job to those who are better suited to the task. The lawmakers should focus on the more urgent concerns.