GORDON SLAMS COMPLACENCY, LACK OF SENSE OF
URGENCY TO SOLVE KILLINGS, OTHER CRIMES

With persons riding-in-tandem on motorcycles committing over 3,000 crimes in 2013 alone and a total of almost 34,000 crimes since 2010, plus thousands more killed by other perpetrators that have yet to be solved by all authorities involved in law enforcement, Senator Richard J. Gordon has slammed the nation's continuing complacency and lack of urgency by law enforcers to solve crimes and file charges against perpetrators.

During the deliberation in the Senate on the 2017 budget of the Department of Justice, Gordon was dismayed that there is no continuity in investigation whenever there is a change in the administration. Ongoing investigations conducted during the time of the outgoing administration are not continued to closure in the new administration.

"Nakakapagtaka naman at nakakalungkot na just because there is a change of administration, and it is almost five months into the current administration, up to now they do not know what is going on in those cases. That is a disappointment...There should be continuity," the senator said, citing as example the killings last year of Trial Court Judges Erwin Alaba and Wilfredo Nieves.

"...There is an awful lot of killings. We call them extra-legal, extrajudicial. We call them salvaging. We call them riding-in-tandem. And the only thing that does not surprise me but does dismay and shocks me is the continuing complacency and the continuing lack of sense of urgency by all elements involved in law enforcement to solve all these cases and file charges to achieve closure," he added.

Gordon, Chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, which is investigating recent and rampant killings, noted that one of the conclusions the committee arrived at based on the investigation in aid of legislation was that there have been many killings in the country, with all kinds of people killed including judges and members of the media.

Records showed that 26 judges have been killed from 1999 to August 2016, including Alaba and Nieves. Since 2010, there had been 33,567 cases of motorcycle-riding crimes.

"These killings strike at the very heart of justice in this country because it shows the temerity and the impunity OF criminals that they can defy the magistrates of the land by having them killed. I would imagine that when 26 judges were killed, it would have been a wake-up call for any administration to have the National Bureau of Investigation, the premier law enforcement organization of the country investigate these cases," Gordon said.

He added that it is very clear that if there is a complaint, the jurisdiction of the NBI could extend to investigations of killings against ordinary citizens, media practitioners and activists, and members of the Judiciary such as justices and judges.