EDITORIAL - Keeping judges safe

Some judges probably feel safer now that they have the green light from the Supreme Court to carry guns. But it will take more than packing guns to keep judges and other legal professionals from being murdered in connection with their work. They can easily be outgunned by people who will most likely be more knowledgeable about using the weapons to kill.

Though guns are useful for self-defense, the best deterrent to the murder of legal professionals is better law enforcement. This doesn’t mean providing bodyguards to every judge, justice and prosecutor. It means keeping the streets safe for everyone and enforcing gun laws. It means solving murders and arresting killers — both the triggerman and the brains.

As in the murders of left-wing activists and journalists, impunity rises with every unsolved crime. Though the number of unexplained killings dropped significantly last year, hundreds of killings in the past decade remain unsolved, and the rate of conviction of accused murders is dismally low.

Solving the murders will provide the true picture on the human rights situation in the country. Are military personnel responsible for many of the murders and disappearances of activists, as the left insists? Are communist rebels responsible for at least some of the cases as part of yet another violent purge, as the military claims? Were most of the killings attributed to the military part of legitimate counterinsurgency operations, as the Armed Forces of the Philippines insists?

Only by solving the murders and disappearances can the whole truth come out. In several of the attacks, the suspected brains are political warlords and influential crooks such as smugglers and gambling barons. These are people who believe the best way to stop negative publicity is by silencing the messenger permanently. These are people who think the best way to get out of a legal fix, or get retribution for an unfavorable court ruling, is by murdering the judge.

Their attitude is reinforced by the thought that they can get away with their crime. Until the government can show that in this country, no one gets away with murder, arming judges — or journalists and activists, for that matter — will not be enough to protect them from a determined killer.