EDITORIAL - Pitfalls of fighting crime

An outlet of the courier company LBC was robbed in broad daylight last Tuesday. It would have been easy to dismiss the incident as just another crime that is to be expected in a big and progressive province such as Cebu, except that this is the sixth to have been pulled against the same company this year. For one and the same company to be hit by robbers at an average of almost once every month is uncanny and leaves many questions begging for answers.

Do the robbers belong to the same group? Is there a motive in the choice of a particular company to target? What security measures do similar companies have that make them less likely targets? Is there any protection for the money that is coursed through courier companies which the series of robberies has exposed as quite vulnerable to holdups?

But before anyone can even begin to answer any of these questions, the very same day that the sixth LBC outlet was hit by robbers, no less than three municipal halls in Cebu province were also burglarized. The town halls of Compostela, Carmen and Sogod were ransacked by robbers one after the other, thereby exposing their own vulnerabilities.

And this raises a whole lot of other questions that need to be given quick but credible answers lest the perception of vulnerability begins to take its toll on the image of the entire province, thus harming many of the things that make it a premier province, one that is a haven for tourists and a primary destination for big ticket investments.

All these robberies, in that they did not involve humongous sums of money, and that they were carried out without any loss of life, may seem innocuous indeed when taken separately. But taken together, they should at least merit some real concern on the part of law enforcement authorities, if not some real fast and resolute action.

Of late, law enforcement authorities have been scoring quite laudably against illegal drugs. Although licking the drug problem is far from being on the horizon it can be said without fear of contradiction that recent efforts should have at least given pause to the criminals involved in this nefarious trade. The successes of law enforcers against illegal drugs is something that has not been seen in many many years.

But even successes can pose their own tough questions. Is the current no-nonsense drive against illegal drugs stretching law enforcement too thin? Is the rash of robberies the unintended tradeoff in the fight against drugs? If the security situation is such that to combat one crime, it becomes painfully necessary to abandon vigilance against other crimes, what is the police hierarchy doing about it?