EDITORIAL — Suspicion and innocence are spheres that musn't intersect

It was unfortunate that several policemen from different units in Cebu province had to be invited "under false pretexts" to Cebu City by investigators looking into the killing of a money-lender and her secretary.

It was worse when they had to be paraded before the media in a lineup so that witnesses hidden inside a building could take a look and perhaps identify them. That the witnesses failed to identify anyone only adds resentment to their embarrassment.

This paper regrets having published a photo of the policemen and apologizes to them, especially since it was never made clear to anyone, least of all the policemen involved, if they were being considered as suspects, in which case they were not.

The matter of parading suspects before the media has always been a thorny issue, and the incident only seemed to have exacerbated the problem. While the resort to such procedure, if it can be called that, cannot be avoided, it must admittedly be used sparingly.

There has recently been an effort on the local level between the media and the police to deal with the matter. But what can really be done in a situation that, while it has its downside, can also provide untold benefits to some?

Parading suspects has always been a tool used by the authorities to prove they are doing their jobs. This comes as no surprise for a sector that has constantly been accused, rightly or wrongly, of being inefficient and lazy.

But proving one is doing a good job at the expense of others does not hack well with those who realize that the pursuit of justice must not be allowed to run roughshod over certain inalienable rights, such as the presumption of innocence.

On the other hand, there is only so much that can be done to address the problem at the local level if the larger and more prominent leaders of the nation, such as the president and higher police officials, see nothing wrong in deriving media mileage from parading suspects.