EDITORIAL — A situation we don’t want returned

Just recently two men were found dead in different places in Cebu.

In Barangay Prenza, Balamban Town, the body of Franklin Idaño, 35, a resident of Barangay Basak-San Nicolas, Cebu City, a fisherman and former drug surrenderer, was found last Sunday.

That same day the body of Alexander Langi, a resident of Barangay Basak-Pardo, Cebu City, was found in Sitio Campo 5, Barangay Manipis, Talisay City.

Police investigators believe their deaths were connected because they both disappeared at the same time last June 28 and both were believed to have been killed with the same method, asphyxia, after their heads were found wrapped in tape.

Sadly, finding dumped bodies is nothing new. It saw its height during the martial law years, which saw dead bodies of dissidents, activists, and those suspected of opposition appear in places with signs of torture.

Even past the martial law years it continued, mostly with people suspected of criminal activity. The situation even led to the term “gi-salvage”, the root word of which has a totally different meaning in other dictionaries. In Philippine parlance it seems to mean someone who has been killed to save his soul, or to save the rest of society.

We don’t know if the two are involved in crime and if this was the reason why they were murdered, and we certainly want to give them the benefit of the doubt. No matter what their past was people can change and strive to be better after all.

But criminal or not, no one deserves such a fate as these two did. Let alone to suffer the indignity of having their bodies dumped like they were just trash to be discarded by the side of the road.

We don’t want a return to the times when people thought they could just pick people off the street, kill them, dump their bodies, and get away with it.

In 2002 a woman’s body was found dumped in Dalaguete Town. It eventually led to the downfall of a very influential religious leader. We never know where a simple body dumping case can lead.