For the innocents
THE death of Senior Insp. Alexander Nuñez last Saturday drives home the enormity of the sacrifice some of our law enforcers end up making.
The 38-year-old father of two was heading home to share a Christmas Eve meal with his young family when he ran into a commotion in Carmen, the town next to the one he served as police chief. Nuñez didn’t have to sort out the trouble himself. He had the choice of calling his fellow officers in Carmen town, so they could stop the commotion that later turned out to have been caused by five brothers, who had been drinking.
Nuñez, however, apparently wasn’t one to think only of his own interests. So he interrupted his drive home to try to prevent one of the brothers, later identified as Carlito Jayson, from harming the caretaker of the store where they had been carousing.
Carlito died that same day, after Nuñez shot him in self-defense. Of the five brothers involved in that day’s troubles, only two are alive and left to give the police some necessary answers.
For instance, how did Carlito get away with keeping a gun while drinking with his brothers? Was it licensed? Why weren’t there any barangay tanods or Carmen police officers around who could have paci- fied the Jaysons before they lost control of Carlito? Were there no adults in that community in Barangay Puente, Carmen town who could have helped Senior Inspector Nuñez when he arrived and tried to get the Jaysons to calm down? And if the brothers, indeed, had a reputation for notoriety and crime—three of them had been previously charged with murder— why were they not behind bars?
Most people no longer celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which falls today. The feast was supposed to be in honor of some of Christianity’s earliest martyrs, the boys two years old or younger who had been slaughtered on orders of King Herod, because he wanted to eliminate any threat to his throne.
Officer Nuñez walked into a commotion he could have easily ignored, because he took seriously his task of eliminating proven threats to the lives of others. He couldn’t have known then that his sense of duty would leave two innocents—his own sons, ages 6 and 3—bereft. For their sakes, we hope the police force of Cebu Province, but especially of Carmen town, will find the last suspect who remains at large, so he can help provide the answers to this Christmas Eve tragedy.