The suspicious shooting of the suspectsed robber-killer of a seaman again raises questions regarding police summary executions or salvaging. This week suspect Ronald Sevilla was shot dead while in police custody as he was being transferred from the Police Precinct 4 of the Manila police to the City Hal Prosecutor’s Office for inquest proceedings. Sevilla purportedly bore three bullet wounds in the head, while handcuffed. The reason given by the poilcemen escorts was that Sevilla was shot while trying to escape.

After decades of problems of this sort, we have still not resolved the problem of police summary executions or salvaging. But the matter seems all the more reprehensible when it is committed in broad daylight in the heart of a capital city, right in the shadow of the City hall. Ironically, “salvaging” literally means to “save”, which adds insult to injury when used to describe summary killings of suspects.

In 1982 Robinson’s scion Robina Gokongwei was kidnapped while coming home from school in U.P. She was eventually rescued and the kidnappers were apprehended. A few days later, while they were in police custody, the suspects were moved at 1am in the morning from their detention cell in WPD to Muntinlupa. On the way, they stopped over somewhere in Tondo with their police escorts and were asked to re-enact the crime in an empty lot in the middle of the night. According to police reports, they then tried to escape and were gunned down. The MetroCom officer in charge of the case was a young Inspector by the name of Panfilo Lacson.

A few years later, notorious drug lord Don Pepe Oyson was under police custody for a string of high profile drug-related crimes. One day, he was being transported via a closed police van from Manila to the Philippine Heart Center for alleged treatment. He never made it. Just before reaching the heart center, he was shot dead while handcuffed inside the van for allegedly resisting his police escorts and trying to escape. The police officer in charge of the operation was none other than then WPD Chief General Alfredo Lim.

And of course we all know the hundreds of activists who perished in recent years by virtue of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s attempt to wipe out “communism” (whatever that is) thru Gen. Jovito Palparan.

It would seem that old habits die hard. Twenty five years after EDSA 1 and our new Constitution, the preservation of human rights still is a challenge for our country. But the most significant damage which such summary killings do is to the rule of law which is supposed to be the foundation of our democratic institutions. Apparently, the Philippines has not totally shaken off its fascist dictatorship tendencies.