THINKING FREE
Unsolvable Crimes Can Be Prevented
My title should have been “How the Idea of Preventing
Unsolvable Crimes Came to my Mind”.
However, it is too long.
By “unsolvable crime”, I mean a crime of murder hatched and planned by a mastermind and a hired killer in absolute secrecy. All crimes of that nature are always added to the long list of UNSOLVED CRIMES.
For example, during the past five or six years, ten Judges were murdered obviously, by hired killers, like Judge Henrick Gingoyan, only 53 years old, of RTC Pasay, who was fatally shot by two motorcycle- riding gunmen near his residence last December 31, 2005.
Judge Gingoyan was the tenth Judge to be assassinated within said period. The other nine are: Judge Milnar T. Lammawin, of RTC Branch 25, Tabuk, Kalinga; Judge Voltaire Y. Rosales, of RTC Branch 83 in Tanauan City, Batangas; Judge Paterno G. Tiamson, of RTC Branch 69 in Binangonan, Rizal; Judge Pinera A. Biden, of the Municipal Circuit Trial Court of Kabugao, Apayao; Judge Oscar Gaby M. Uson, of RTC Branch 52 in Tayug, Pangasinan; Judge Eugenio R. Valles, of RTC Branch 3 in Nabunturan, Campostella Valley; Judge Ariston L. Rubio, of RTC Branch 17 in Batac, Ilocos Norte; Judge Hassan T. Ibnohaijil, of RTC Branch 45 in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro; and Judge Celso F. Lorenzo, Sr., of RTC Branch 1 in Borongan, Eastern Samar.
Up to this day, the case folder of each of the above-enumerated murders of Judges has one common marking: “CRIME UNSOLVED”.
I had a talk with a well-respected Judge who told me that there are those who believe that he was the real target of the gunman who fatally shot a Provincial Guard who was doing his morning jogging at Pulangtubig. I told him that even with the limited authority of the City Council, we will think of a way to prevent crimes which are impossible to solve.
On another occasion, a lawyerauditor approached me and said that the auditors involved in an on-going investigation of a malversation case had become apprehensive and hesitant to testify after the fatal shooting of City Treasurer Erlinda Tumongha. I shared with him my idea of a crimeprevention ordinance.
Also, I consulted businessmen, lawyers, doctors, and other professional groups, and they were appreciative of my effort to prevent crimes which are difficult or impossible to solve.
Above all, I dug deep into my relatively long association with life and the law to determine whether the crimeprevention ordinance I had in my mind at that time was workable, moral, legal and valid.
I read my final draft of Ordinance No. 73 and concluded that the same could survive the prism of legal and moral scrutiny.
Modern penology is what the critics of Ordinance No. 73 have failed to update themselves with. The emphasis now is on crime prevention, not just crime solving. The FBI is now responsible, among other things, for preventing crimes in the U.S.A. In the case of a mastermind inducing thru money another to kill a third person, experience shows that if the killing actually takes place, it is impossible to prove a crime where knowledge of the same is only confined to two people.
I might be a lousy lawyer in the eyes of one Judge, but I am a good amateur detective without credentials.
It was a dream of my boyhood to become a detective. I was, however, persuaded by my parents to become a lawyer. I still nurture the thought that I would have been a very good detective.
I have helped friends identify writers of death-threat letters, who are potential masterminds. We just mailed xerox copies of the letters back to the writers. By this simple method, crimes are nipped in the bud.
In most cases, I identified deaththreat writers by their penmanship.
The late Chief Orlando Consing, a local handwriting expert in his time, helped us in our effort. My point is, a potential mastermind can be dissuaded from pursuing his evil plan if there is a possibility of his being exposed by the person he intends to hire. That is provided in Ordinance No. 73. That is the deterrent part of the ordinance.
The promise of reward will be fulfilled by the City only (1) if the gunman is discharged by the Court to testify as a state witness because he has all the qualifications to become such, (2) if he actually testifies, and (3) the case as against him is dismissed.
Modern penology gives the criminal some kind of special treatment in exchange for vital information against his worst co-conspirator.
The government has to make compromises to unearth clandestine criminals who walk the same streets that we walk on. With them, there is a perpetual danger to Judges, mediamen, businessmen, politicians, and any ordinary person who has enemies. That is the reason and purpose of discharge of an accused as a state witness.
That is why Ordinance No. 73 would want to complement that concept in modern penology now enshrined in the Revised Criminal Procedure.
BY THE WAY, THE PUBLIC SHOULD NOT BE MISLED BY PEOPLE WHO IN BAD FAITH PEDDLE THE WRONG INFORMATION THAT ORDINANCE NO. 73 IS A DISAPPROVED ORDINANCE AND THEREFORE INVALID.
ORDINANCE NO. 73 IS NOW IN EFFECT AND OPERATIVE AS A VALID ORDINANCE.
IF THERE IS ANY TAKER, I AM WILLING TO ACCEPT A FRIENDLY DISCUSSION ON WHETHER THE DELAYED DISAPPROVAL IS VALID OR NOT. I SAY IT IS ULTRA VIRES AND INVALID. COME FORWARD OR SHUT UP!

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