EDITORIAL – Lack of leadership is responsible for crimes

Mayor Tomas Osmeña continues to insist that it is perfectly all right to summarily kill criminals even if it has now been shown that summary executions does not in any way solve or even minimize crimes.

True, there had been a brief lull in crimes after so-called vigilantes began a summary killing spree of known criminals, with Osmeña admitting he may have inspired both the vigilantes and the executions. To date, roughly a hundred have already been killed in this manner.

But after that brief lull, in which criminals may have made some minor adjustments, crime has once again become a daily fare in our lives. The spate of bank robberies both in and out of the city proves that.

Of course, Osmeña is entitled to his own opinion. But his opinion in this regard is a very solitary one. Most Cebuanos are against vigilante killings, not because they love criminals, but because they fear the killings will eventually erode respect for the law.

Those with more analytical minds go beyond their fears of an eventual breakdown of law and order and a descent into anarchy. They believe the resort to summary executions reflects a breakdown of leadership.

A leader who resorts to the summary execution of society's enemies is a leader who is short of viable options, which is kind of surprising considering that government, with all its powers, is not supposed to run out of options.

There is always some remedy out there, if only Osmeña cares to look. The problem is probably that the mayor, known to always get his way and to brook no opposition, simply wants a quick fix.

And who wouldn't, for as long as the quick fix does not run over the toes of everybody else, including those whose problems the fix is supposed to solve. This is getting to be monotonous, but again we have to say - you do not burn down the house to kill a rat.

Our take on the matter is that, early on, Osmeña, being no fool, already knew he made a mistake. But being the kind of person who, as we said, brooks no opposition, he dug in when the entire population rose up to criticize summary executions. And so, here we are.