Shame. On. Us

By Rhona Canoy

SO… A man was killed last Friday night. For doing his job, I presume. And yet for us, it was just one of those things. If you don’t want to be depressed or provoked, stop reading right now. This is not the column for you today.

A couple of issues ago, I wrote about the significance of balance regarding our five quotients. At the time, I had just come from giving a talk to a small community that recently suffered the death of a teen suicide. I carelessly focused on only that particular circumstance, neglecting to paint a bigger picture. But I think now it’s time.

The news of someone being shot at and murdered by drive-bys or “riding-in-tandems” have become ubiquitous in our lives so much so that we hardly blink or bat an eyelash when we hear about it. These killings seem to only increase in significance if the victim or killers are someone we know or know of. This is particularly disturbing and yet no one seems to realize it.

How many times has human life been undervalued? And how many times must it continue before we are affected? I have friends who will argue that this includes all those alleged EJKs but that is for another argument. Today it matters to me that we are apparently a truly lawless society. When the President declared martial law using lawlessness as a basis for his declaration, some people raised their voices in protest. And yet, people who report or hear about acts such as what happened last Friday forget that it was a lawless act as well.

We are a society sadly failing in the quotients. Obviously, the perpetrators were of a somewhat high IQ. Think about it. The planning to talk about the crime and plan it. To get a gun. To know when and where the target would be at 7 pm on Friday. To make sure that only the target would be shot. And to execute a clean getaway. That takes a lot of cerebral capacity. Therefore, high IQ.

And yet. And yet. For someone to do it reveals a personality sadly lacking or failing in the other four quotients. Let’s pretend for a moment that we have some idea why they did what they did. Let’s pretend that the killer held a grudge against that particular traffic enforcer for taking down part of his house which was built on an allotted sidewalk, as mandated by law. So this gun-wielding person was stewing because he got caught breaking a national law, further supported by a local ordinance.

How insane is that? We complain (myself included) about the stupidity we see every single day displayed by individuals who seem to know nothing about laws. Traffic laws mostly, because those are the easiest to see. And how many drivers have had altercations because their ignorance of the traffic laws resulted in manifestations of the laws of physics?

Being lawless has become our way of life. Being lawless has become what defines us. This saddens me. Confuses me. It almost makes me lose hope. If those shooters were hired by someone who wanted revenge against the enforcer, that makes it even more sinister. Someone went out and (by choice) looked for amoral people willing to do the deed. Someone willingly paid hard-earned (let’s assume that) money to have someone snuffed. And someone gleefully felt satisfaction in the taking of another person’s life. As revenge.

Have we become an evil society? Feeling entitled? Arrogant? Vengeful? Not just in this. In many other things. fights break out because of thoughtless, hurtful words and acts. Stabbings result because of misinterpreted stares. Lifelong friendships are ended because of whispered gossip. Enforcers are shot because they found you to be a lawbreaker.

But then that shouldn’t be surprising. Didn’t a city councilor some recent years ago slap another enforcer because he was cited for breaking the law? So if even our lawmakers and public officials behave so atrociously, then these killings should no longer surprise us. All of the energy expended on defending a media network franchise would be better spent on curing this social malady.

It is sad to admit that we are a people who don’t like laws and their enforcement, especially when it affects us directly. Jaywalking didn’t have any legal meaning until breaking this law resulted in a hefty fine. Sidewalk encroachment didn’t have any legal meaning until our homes or little sari-sari stores and carinderias were demolished to enforce the law. No parking signs didn’t have any legal meaning until parking tickets and fines were issued.

So we are basically a society that finds laws abhorrent. Therefore snarled traffic shouldn’t offend us or vex us. Filthy garbage piled along city streets shouldn’t offend us or vex us. Single-use plastic clogging our waterways and drainage canals shouldn’t offend us or vex us. Enforcers killed by drive-bys shouldn’t offend us or vex us. But these things do, don’t they? They offend us and vex us.

Maybe it’s time we walk the talk. Time to step up and create the progressive, peaceful, law-abiding society we all(?) dream about. Or maybe time to simply accept the lawlessness that we allow and stop complaining about it. Have we become so inured? Have we become so uncaring? Have we become so narcissistic that all this evil only matters when it affects us directly. Either way, time to walk the talk.

He was doing his job. Making sure people were following the law. He was a young man, surely with a family who will miss him forever. He was killed needlessly. His name was Mark Langam and I speak his name to honor his death. And to acknowledge my shame.