AS WE go even deeper into the case of the missing cockfight enthusiasts, who were abducted in 2021 and 2022, the water gets murkier – in the literal and figurative senses.
Search operations for the missing men began last week. This early, authorities confirmed that human remains were found in the sacks recovered from the lake. This alone is a resounding call to keep sweeping the lake. The Secretary of Justice, Jesus Crispin Remulla, said the search could take up to six months.
Meanwhile, the whistleblower in the “sabungeros” case, Julie Patidongan, has filed cases against police officials linked to the case. He had earlier named prominent businessman Charlie Ang, actress Gretchen Barretto, and former Regional Trial Court Judge Felix Reyes, all of whom have denied involvement in the deaths.
The men were supposedly caught cheating in the high-stakes game, and their abduction and deaths served as punishment for their deeds.
Investigators are up against nature. The weather in the past few days has been cooperating, but a typhoon, or worse a volcanic eruption, could derail their efforts and the timeline. Poor visibility and a murky lake floor can make the job doubly harder. The challenges specific to working in a lake are formidable,
The next steps would be to extract DNA samples from the bones and then compare them with the samples from the kin of the missing men. Science takes a central role, and we can only hope that the experts are allowed to do their jobs without hurdles. Noise and indignation notwithstanding, the case will fall apart if no forensic ties are established between the discovered bones and the missing. And only through careful handling and processing of the evidence can the link be established.
And while the public’s attention is glued to the developments in the search, the real culprit – the sense of power and impunity that emboldens those behind this mystery, runs strong and deep.
Those people who planned and executed the killings felt they could get away with anything. So-called public servants who served as protectors felt those lives were worth less than what they stood to gain. They need to be outed and punished, of course after scrutiny and adequate evidence. The Filipino people need to know that crimes of this magnitude may have been taking place in the past depending on who is in power, but this will no longer hold.
If authorities bungle this job and if the people move on to the next sensational case without seeing a just resolution on this one, then we may as well prepare ourselves for a different case, a differest set of victims and villains, in different terrain, and a different body of water.
