Pattern

They happened in spates. But there is little to suggest they constitute a pattern.

First there were the killings of the priests. Then there were the killings of local government executives.

 When they happened in quick sequence, there was reason to be concerned that some sort of systematic extermination might be afoot.

Some 200 priests asked to be armed, although the hierarchy was alarmed at the thought. Local executives, for their part, asked for a meeting with President Duterte presumably to talk about upgrading their personal security.

The PNP announced they found no pattern in the killings. The NBI, for its part, constituted a team to double-check the PNP conclusion. The conclusion seemed hard to accept by those willing to think the worst, especially about the President.

Soon enough, like many things in our sad society, the killings were unduly politicized.

Partisan bishops declared the President responsible for the killings – if only because he created an atmosphere that encouraged violence. Militant priests described the killing of clergymen an attempt to intimidate the Church. None of them had any evidence to support those frightening claims.

As for the mayors and vice-mayors, it was easy to assign blame to the controversial “narco-lists.” But so far, only one among those killed figures in any of the lists. This cannot possibly be the single thread that runs across those murders.

The scraggly opposition, constantly scrounging for issues to raise, are now demanding a congressional hearing on the spate of assassinations. Until some semblance of a pattern emerges, that might be a premature call. These are police matters better left to the police. Legislators are not exactly the best qualified to do post-mortems.

Surely, this sequence of assassinations needs to be investigated thoroughly and solved as soon as possible. The more time it takes for the police to rule on these murders, the more the situation will be exploited by those with a political axe to grind.

Unfortunately, we live in conditions so hospitable to political intrigue.

We do have a high murder and homicide rate. Many things explain that. Access to firearms is easy. Assassins are cheap. Police investigators are swamped by so many killings that have happened. The justice system is clogged.

The long-term solution lies in having a completely credible police force. Assassins must be convinced murder will not go unpunished. The investigative agencies need beefing up. Public cooperation with the investigations must be encouraged.

Our law enforcement agencies are certainly not the most credible of our institutions even as we have gained much ground in professionalizing them. They are, in fact, objects of public disdain for incompetence or for cruelty.

But this is not the time to undermine our law enforcement agencies by quick resort to political intrigue or by disseminating unfounded conspiracy theories. This is not the time to tax police morale or to prematurely dismiss the possibility that crimes might be solved and justice served.

The police, for their part, must measure up to the great challenges confronting them. Undermanned and underequipped, they need some amount of heroism to close the gap between capacity and expectation.

Instead of dragging down our police agencies, citizens might want to build a stronger culture of citizen support for law enforcement. That is the only way to progress toward the public order we all want.

Boys

Once again, the whole of humanity is focused on a complex and desperate effort to save individuals trapped in an impossible predicament.

We saw this before, when it took over two months to rescue a brave band of Chilean miners trapped deep underground. The world watched with bated breath, admiring the heroism of rescuers and cheering the success of the difficult extraction.

The same marvel unfolds in the Tham Luang cave complex in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Twelve boys and their young soccer coach somehow strayed deep into a cave. They were trapped after rising water sealed their exit and were found alive and well only nine days after, surviving on water streaming down the walls of a totally dark cave several kilometers deep.

Surviving against the odds for nine long days, with no hint of a comprehensive rescue effort ongoing, is remarkable in itself. These are a brave band, summoning some heroic will to survive.

Extracting them, however, proved to be a great challenge. One trained diver has died in the effort. Meanwhile, oxygen was running thin where the boys are trapped and forthcoming monsoon rains threaten to flood the caves even more. The best divers from several countries are on the scene, putting their own lives at risk to rescue fellow human beings.

More than two weeks after the boys entered the cave, four have been successfully extracted. The rest, we all hope, will be saved.

We all wait in great suspense. This is an effort that would not have been possible at all without the best equipment and the best technical divers there are. Still, that effort has to beat the odds, win the race against time in a most hostile environment.

If this massive effort is successful, it will be a dramatic tribute to the compassion we can muster in the direst of times. That will stand in stark contrast to all the callousness and crassness that seem to have pervaded modern societies these days.

Should this massive effort end in triumph, the real heroes will be those who thought nothing about risking their lives to save another human being. It will be a reassuring story about the power of empathic humanity.