WILL the entry of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in the probe of the shooting to death of 19-year-old Amierkhan Mangacop by a physician non-uniformed personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Region XI assuage the fear of the victim’s family that his case will just be another possible whitewash?
The public will know, or may have the opportunity to come up with its conclusion, when the investigation is terminated and charges are filed against the physician.
The NBI probers, which is a team from Manila perhaps to ensure a sense of security on the victim’s family, started their investigation immediately after the NBI head office group arrived in Davao City last Sunday, according to published reports. The team’s initial activities include its plea to witnesses who may have factual knowledge of the incident to come out and give their statement to the NBI. They wanted not only to get words from witnesses but also any documentary evidence on the shooting incident such as video footages if by chance any witness happened to have taken it in the midst of the melee.
There are initial reports that the suspect is floating information that he was merely doing the crime in “self-defense.” But the victim was not found bringing with him any weapon that could endanger the suspect’s life. Moreover if the suspect did it in self-defense was it necessary for him to shoot the victim as many as seven times. Common sense will tell anyone that self-defense can only be resorted to if there is already an attack against a person and the latter finds it necessary to disable the attacker to effectively stop him from doing his evil intention. It is not even necessary to shoot the attacker. In the case of the Amierkhan slaying the suspect could have just aimed his gun at the victim, if indeed he really was poised on attacking him. Or, if the itch on the suspect’s fingers to fire his gun was uncontrollable, hitting the victim on his leg could have deterred him from attacking, if he really was about to attack. But no, he did not. Instead the suspect emptied the chamber of his gun with all the bullets hitting the victim. Now who will ever survive with that kind of onslaught? Can that be a self-defense against an imaginary enemy?
Can such claims by the suspect have legal legs to stand on? But according to a police officer in the PNP regional headquarters it depends on the ability of the suspect’s lawyer to circumvent the law for such a scenario to happen.
Now the NBI probers’ participation as requested by the victim’s family is already in place. With whom the NBI people will be coordinating on the probe? The police, we have no doubt. Will the NBI investigators be able to observe any effort to conceal some facts on the case? And if they detect any will they be ready to antagonize the initial probers so the truth will out?
Let us pray that in this particular case the NBI and the Police will not act as the giver of life to the saying, “birds of the same feather flock together.”
We have the family of a senseless killing seeking justice for the sudden demise of their relative whose life was snapped just because of one who wants to defend himself from imagined attacks.
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This coming August (next month) Davao City will be celebrating its world-famous Kadayawan Festival. The festivities were stopped by the city starting on the year the CoViD 19 pandemic “harvested” a number of lives as well as put to a standstill the economic activities in Davao City more than two years ago.
According to newly installed City Administrator Atty. Francis Mark Layug the resumption of the festival this year will continue even as the city government will be focused on ensuring the security of the people who will come out to join the celebration’s many activities. The official also assured Davaoenos that the local government will not be remiss in seeing to it that the various health protocols related to the prevention of the CoViD 19 virus spread will be strictly implemented.
This decision of the city officials to proceed with the in-person celebration of Kadayawan is a very welcome development by the business community especially by the tourism sector.
Personally, we hope that the CoViD cases in the city will not be resurging into new highs or if there will be increases, it would just be in its mildest form so that there will be no apprehension that it would put the festival in jeopardy again.
