Mayor Tom and businessmen say: Vigilante killings do not affect city

The world seems to be getting smaller for criminals in Cebu City and Cebu Province.

Cebu City mayor Tomas Osmeña said that many of these criminals have moved their operations elsewhere in the province, but Cebu Provincial Police Office director Vicente Loot also said that his men are ready for them.

Mayor Osmeña and the business community are not worried that there might be ill-effects of the spate of killings in the city, which are believed to have been the handiwork of the vigilantes.

As to who these vigilantes are, nobody can really tell yet since the police continues to face a blank wall in their efforts to identify the perpetrators.

"As of now I cannot give the exact prognosis if it will have a bad effect in our economy or not, but I don't' think so. Everybody has his own opinion. I think there's a big bad effect if we have many criminals here," Osmeña said during his regular press conference at the City Hall yesterday.

Robert Go, president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), said the business community is not worrying too much about the spate of vigilante killings, as they do not affect their businesses.

"Makaingon mi nga dili kaayo bug-at ang among worries. The victims were noted hoodlums," Go said.

However he added, "we are God-fearing people and it is not good that we take the law into our own hands."

The mayor further said that there is now a major turn of events wherein it seems criminals are heeding his call for them to transfer elsewhere if they do not want to be killed here.

The mayor said that Ramon 'Nito' Durano III of Danao City, once told him that Cebu City's suspected robbers are transferring their operations to his lair after three men recently robbed a lotto outlet in barangay Sabang and carted away P300,000 worth of cash and checks.

"This is a turn of events. Karon nabali na gyud, sa una hadlok sila sa mga Durano karon hadlok na sila sa mga Osmeña," (Now, it is the exact opposite, before the people were afraid of the Duranos, now they're afraid of the Osmeñas.) the mayor said while smiling adding many criminals have moved out from the city for fear of their own life.

Supt. Loot, for his part, said that it might be true that the robbers in the city are now operating in the province for fear that they might be targets of the vigilantes.

However Loot said the robbers are not also safe in the province because the provincial police are well prepared.

He said that it would be hard for these robbers to operate in the towns as the police have initiated efforts of cleansing the crime-prone areas. This is part of their pro-active effort in addressing criminality.

Loot said that two big robberies that hit the province these year were not related to each other because the Land Bank robbery last August 2 in Bogo town was the work of the local boys who were immediately identified.

While the robbery at Aspac Bank last week, was the works of the robbery gangs of Cebu City but they were immediately arrested through radio links.

The mayor once again denied that he is the man behind these vigilante killings and blamed the media for insinuating such.

However, the mayor admitted, that since 60 to 70 percent of the Cebu City residents are his political supporters, there is always a possibility that the vigilantes are his supporters and it could be also that the victims are his supporters too.

The mayor also downplayed insinuations that he is giving s financial reward everytime these vigilantes killed criminals.

Osmeña said that there is a possibility that some individual businessmen are financing these vigilantes especially families that have been victims of criminal elements.

Go, for his part, said that as far as their group is concerned, he does not know of anyone doing it, but said, if there are, then this will not be divulged.

"Nobody knows the truth about vigilante. But as far as we are concerned, wa mi kahibalo ana. Pero ug naa man gani, di sad gyud na magpahibalo," Go said.

So far, an estimated 105 deaths in Cebu City since December of last year have been tagged as the handiwork of the vigilantes. - with reports from Flor Z. Perolina