EDITORIAL - Fragile truce

Two warring gangs in barangay Carreta, the Crips and Bloods, have reportedly agreed to a truce brokered by barangay and police officials following a spate of violence that claimed a few lives and caused injuries to several others.

But before the community starts heaving a sigh of relief, prudence dictates that nobody gets complacent because it is not in the nature of these gangs to tolerate each other's presence in a given area.

These gangs are territorial. More importantly, they are assertive. They are possessed by the need to dominate and inflict the mark of their domination against anyone who catches their fancy, be they rival gang members or plain innocents, making them very dangerous.

Never ever believe that their coming to a truce sprang from a sudden need to transform and be good. The truce is nothing but a tactical ploy to cool things up because the spate of violence in which they figured had made things very hot in Carreta.

The days of violence in that barangay did not go unnoticed. People were alarmed, especially since it is common knowledge that the gangs do not exist only in Carreta but are all over the city and nearby areas.

With the possibility of the violence escalating into other areas, barangay and police officials suddenly found their necks heating up from all the breathing down by an indignant and concerned public. They had to do something and do it fast.

And so these officials brokered a truce, which the gangs promptly accepted. For there was no way they could refuse. The consequences of refusal, even if unsaid, are simply too dire to even contemplate.

The gangs are not exactly dimwits. In an environment of survival, they learn from their insticts. Big city life is very instructive. They know that as gangs who are probably into a lot of other illegal activities aside from violence, they are a breath away from Kingdom Come.

Memories of vigilante killings are not only fresh, they have in fact been recently thrust into the forefront of recall. If you do not go by way of gang violence, you go by way of the vigilantes. The options for peace, no matter how temporary, couldn't have been clearer.