Some kind of a smoking gun!

In the last few days, we were treated to a riveting incident which we called "road rage". I do recall having written, several years ago, of the first of such cases that took place on American soil. It figured, quite ironically, a man supposed to be a peacemaker because he was a church leader although the most infamous incident of road rage in our country happened a few decades ago involving a wealthy businessman named Rolito Go and his reported victim in student Eldon Maguan.

True to the off-tangent nature of this column, I will not talk anymore about the case of the prominent Cebuano personality who, out of supposed road rage, shot another person. It is not necessary to beat on a proverbial dead horse because we are understandably familiar with the details of such incident. But, I will try to highlight on an angle of such a case that seems worthy of this space.

Early in the administration of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, he named the so-called drug lords operating in the country. In his list were highly-placed politicians, judges (one of whom was, for many years already, dead) and a Cebuano. I noticed superlative efforts, both by the government spokespersons and the private individual concerned, to downplay the connection of our provincemate with the president if only to show that President Duterte's campaign versus criminal offenders was so serious that it did not spare known friends. So we wondered why despite the bold act of the president in naming the Cebuano as a major player in the illegal drug trade, no case had apparently been filed against the latter in our courts of law. I searched for reasons why Malacañang's salvo turned to be a dead dud and found none until the recent road rage.

Let us remember that just few days before, there were reports that the father of this alleged young culprit who was involved in the "road rage" figured in another vehicular incident. Death visited in that earlier case. A poor man who was trying to earn few pesos for his family was crushed to death by a speeding expensive sports car reportedly driven by a businessman. Media accounts identified that businessman/reckless driver/killer to be a brother of the alleged drug lord named by no less than the president. Yet, I could not understand why our police authorities did not seem to care at all. On one hand, there was a virtual killer on the loose but on the other hand there were no reports that police and traffic authorities investigated the fatal accident. Was it because the victim was a poor fellow? Or was the culprit so influential as to enjoy protection of powerful persons who walked the corridors of Malacañang.Aha, the news simply died.

Then, some flashbacks took place. Within hours of the reported road rage, news filtered that the young man involved happened to be a son of the reckless driver/killer. So, two persons from one family and only days apart were obviously persons of interest, to borrow a police lingo. But police did not seem interested! Why?

The answer came in the form of another news. It was some kind of a smoking gun the report that the family of the young man was in contact with somebody who is always seen in the company of the president. They had a direct link to Malacañang. I then surmised that our police authorities felt extremely hampered in their movements because they felt unable to do anything that might cause discomfort to the president. There, I rest the case of the poor!