EDITORIAL - Trigger-happy

There is a Filipino term for trigger-happy persons: utak pulbura. The term aptly describes Cesar Panlaqui, a Manila barangay tanod who was caught on surveillance video fatally shooting a scavenger who had violated the curfew on Saturday night.

Panlaqui claimed Eduardo Geñoga, who according to relatives suffered from mental illness, was creating a ruckus in the neighborhood during curfew hours and had lunged at him. The video footage, however, showed Geñoga walking away and Panlaqui going after him and firing what turned out to be an unlicensed gun. Geñoga fell to the ground with a gunshot to the chest.

Panlaqui claimed self-defense and said he had intended the gunshot merely to scare Geñoga. But the video footage showed the tanod clearly pointing the gun at the scavenger. What was the nature of the threat that prompted the use of lethal force? Found in Geñoga’s possession were several toy guns that could not possibly be mistaken for the real thing.

Give certain persons authority and they think they have the power of life and death. Panlaqui is just the latest in a long string of barangay personnel to be arrested for violent abusive behavior. Barangay captains have also been implicated in drug trafficking and, during the pandemic, in corruption linked to the distribution of ayuda or assistance.

Panlaqui has been arrested and charged with murder. His story provides a cautionary tale on the proposal to arm civilians as force multipliers in the fight against criminality. Too many people in this country seem to believe that being deputized to act as an officer of the peace gives them a license to kill.