No room for collateral damage

ATRAGEDY others injured in a stabbing rampage by a jealous lover in a condominium in Pasay City has rumpled our sense of security even in the vicinity of our own home, let alone a mall or other public places.

- sion of goodwill without a need to question its sincerity. But supposed to be their place of rest and refuge?

The reality is that nobody holds the certainty of safety in any place at any time. Knowing that, neither would anyone want to live in paranoia even under these troubled times,

Has a normal life become such a luxury in this corner of the

Condominium on Tuesday night over the supposed infidelity four more before he was shot dead by the responding police, dozens of people at the Resorts World Manila casino complex, also in Pasay City.

said he had also been using drugs. Even if he were armed and addicted to prohibited substances, negligence and incompetence by the building’s security force played a big role in the tragedy, as they did in the mass shooting at the casino complex earlier.

preventing any such crime from happening.

One of those who got stabbed as they stood in the way was editor with The Manila Times, and Reuters years earlier, as well as other newspapers, and later joined the Social Security

A gentle, quiet person, Palacios, as well as the other fatalities of what was to come in the thought he was safe in the 25-story high-rise building, with 24-hour security, supposedly.

Besides the agency responsible for the security of the tenants of condominium buildings, police authorities are also expected to secure the areas they cover, and especially respond swiftly to calls for help when crimes are being committed.

up call to the management and security agencies of condominium buildings and other residential areas – as well as police authorities – to tighten their vigilance against criminal elements in the places they are supposed to guard and protect.

Let not such deranged minds be left unhinged when they launch their violent rampage against unsuspecting victims

Those who could be culpable for another horrific chapter in the daily life of ordinary Filipinos should not throw us the line that Palacios and company were in the wrong place at the wrong time, please.

As the nation adapts itself to an increasingly integrating regional community of civilized societies, priding itself with the goodwill and happy disposition of its people as they sin for collateral damage in non- war- zone areas, much less in the vicinity of one’s own dwelling place.