What bigotry does

Herbie Gomez

CONGRATULATIONS to the police officers responsible for the arrest of Jonrey Tordillo, the primary suspect in the grisly murder of 18-year old fastfood worker Divine Grace Vergara of Balulang, this city.

How the police nailed Tordillo is something that should be taught in criminology classes and trainings for law enforcers and crime investigators. It is also an example of how the police-clearance requirement for workers and the law on the mandatory installation of security cameras can aid law enforcers in catching crime suspects.

Vergara, a worker at the Divisoria branch of Jollibee here, went missing in early December 2014. Her decomposing remains were found in the bushes of Talisayan, Misamis Oriental, and she was subsequently identified by her mother shortly before New Year’s Day. Crime scene investigators said the teenager was stabbed to death.

Police figured out that the young worker went with Vergara, a co-worker from Talisayan, to the town supposedly for a party. She would never go home.

Investigators were then able to stumble on CCTV camera footages showing Tordillo and Vergara at a bank, withdrawing money from an ATM machine, shortly before they went to Talisayan.

According to Senior Insp. Cecilio Orcullo, Talisayan police chief, Tordillo went into hiding after the murder. A case was filed, and a court eventually issued an arrest warrant.

How to find Tordillo was the next problem. But the police was patient and waited. Soon, Tordillo’s wife secured a clearance from the Talisayan police because she needed the document to find work elsewhere. There and then, the police found out that she was looking for work or was already hired in Del Monte City in Bulacan.

Orcullo said the police were certain that, sooner or later, Tordillo would rejoin or just see his wife in Bulacan, and so the Talisayan police coordinated with the Del Monte city police so they could put the wife and the suspect in their watchlist.

As expected, Tordillo showed up. He was arrested there on Saturday.

The officers’ IQ and good old fashioned common sense plus excellent network coordination pinned Tordillo down.

These are the kind of police officers that we need to reduce the number of our cold cases. Congratulations!

• •

Roger Jimenez, a pastor in Sacramento, California, delivered a “hate sermon” from his pulpit hours after last week’s mass shooting that saw 49 people dead at a gay club in Orlando, Florida.

The Verity Baptist Church pastor preached: “Hey, are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today? No, I think that’s great. I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida’s a little safer tonight.

“It is unnatural for a man to be attracted to another man.

“The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die.”

Jimenez cited biblical passages as bases for what really sounds like a hate speech. One was a tale about a group of perverts who surrounded an old man’s house and pounded on his door in order to force him into surrendering his male guest so they could sodomize him.

Jimenez cited that passage but skipped the part that shows that the old house owner was as twisted if not, as “immoral” as the perverts.

The old man told the perverts: “No, my brethren! I beg you, do not act so wickedly! Seeing this man has come into my house, do not commit this outrage. Look, here is my virgin daughter and the man’s concubine; let me bring them out now. Humble them, and do with them as you please; but to this man do not do such a vile thing!” The group, according to this tale, took the paramour, and then sexually abused and ravaged her the entire night until the morning.

The story is merely a repetition if not, a copy of an episode in the Sodom and Gomorrah tale which is the favorite of LGBT-bashing homophobes where the “hero,” a morally reprehensible character named Lot, offered his two virgin daughters so his pervert neighbors would spare his two guests. Needless to say, the option the old man offered is as morally offensive and sickening. There is simply no moral lesson whatsoever from these Iron Age tales written by sadists from homophopic tribes in the Middle East during that period.

The problem with this kind of literature is, some have made it a part of their dogma. And so, hate, masquerading as “holiness” and “righteous rage,” is being taught in school and churches.

It’s not like the victims in the Orlando mass shooting molested children. Exactly what did the LGBTs do to Pastor Jimenez or his flock that he wished that all of them were massacred?

Jimenez has a twisted mind that can’t differentiate between homosexuality and pedophilia. Is he free to say this? Yes, of course. But I am also free to think and state that this pastor has a dangerous mind–he is wrong on all levels, is a shame to his congregation, and is a certified bigot.

I hope Baptists would categorically state that Jimenez’s hate comments do not reflect their values. Congregations such as Jimenez’s are potential breeding grounds for mass murderers.

People who value humanity wouldn’t want their children near a man with a sick mind like this. Just imagine what this bigot teaches children in Sunday school.

Pastilan.