A killing culture?

One of the advantages of living in a University Town, as we like to call Dumaguete, is that we can always lean on the expertise of people in the academe. These people can explain the reasons behind many phenomena, such as, but not limited to, crime. When I was still a graduate student in public administration, we learned that theory and practice should go hand in hand. I am reminded of the quote often attributed to Prof. Reynaldo Rivera, which goes, "Practice without theory is blind. Theory without practice is meaningless."

Crime being the issue of the hour in Dumaguete, where six crime suspects were gunned down in the last three weeks, with many more before them, we took a poll on what the people thought of crime in Dumaguete.

Many people think that the killings here are the work of vigilantes. There is a good reason to think that the killings were done by one group because of the pattern in which these killings were done. These six killings were all done by two people riding a motorcycle and they used .9 mm guns and all the people they killed were linked to a crime, mostly illegal drugs.

Many people are actually glad that the crime suspects are being eliminated. I haven't gone to the police headquarters to check on whether the crime rate for holdups, pickpocketing, snatching and what not, has gone down. Police Supt. Dionardo Carlos, the chief of police of Dumaguete, says Dumaguete is still a safe place because the crimes do not affect 99 percent of the people.

At least, I am glad to see that many of the foreigners who hang out at their usual watering holes along the boulevard as early as 8 a.m. do not seem the least bothered, for as long as they have their daily dose of beer and are pampered by their Filipina wives when they return home, wherever home is.

But whether the crime suspects are cowering in fear over the so-called vigilante killings, this, in fact, merely adds to the social lawlessness which these people are presumably trying to solve. I still don't feel safe knowing that there are people living in my community who can kill with impunity, whether they are on the side of the law or not.

My college sociology professor, Lorna Makil, offered an explanation as to why these crimes are taking place. She says that what we are seeing is part of organizational breakdown resulting from rapid social change. Dumaguete, as well as many other places in the country, is undergoing rapid social change. This, she said, is a situation which Emile Durkheim, the father of modern sociology, calls "anomie," or a situation of normlessness resulting from the failure of social institutions during this period of change.

What to do? Another Dumagueteño suggests that, perhaps, the government should try to address the root issue of crime which is poverty. That's quite a tall order. And given the fact that elections are just around the corner, politicians may be tempted to think of other things than merely giving jobs to the poor.*

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