The RCBC Bank Massacre

I felt deep anger and moral anguish on the violent deaths of ten individuals who were all shot in the head in a bloody robbery of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) branch in Laguna, Philippines. It has been two weeks since it happened but the brutal inhumanity of the killings continue to circulate in broadcast and print media and the internet. No sane person can be neutral about it after seeing the gruesome pictures of the victims in RCBC bank massacre. There’s no need to repeat the details here, but recent events related to the incident require closer introspection.

Police Investigation. The responding police team broke into the RCBC Cabuyao branch, and started trampling around the scene of the crime due urgency of finding and saving any survivors. It appears from news reports that even the police were taken aback by the extreme violence of the killings. I hope the Philippine National Police (PNP) Scene of the Crime Operations (SOCO) people remain cool, scientific and methodical in collecting all possible physical evidences which could prove the real killers.

Task Force RCBC. Understandably, President Arroyo was furious and ordered the PNP to immediately find and arrest the perpetrators. Task Force RCBC was formed, composed of investigators from the Regional Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Regional Crime Laboratory, Traffic Management Group, Laguna Police Provincial Office and Civil Security Group. Each unit has its own leadership, operatives, organizational structure and way of doing things and therein lies the problem. We can only wish the head of Task Force RCBC all the luck. Task Force RCBC lost no time in going after the criminals. The PNP Director General emphasized that he did not issue a shoot-to-kill order against the robbers, but the Task Force promptly gunned down the first four suspects they encountered—whom they said battled it out in a fair gunfight like the cowboys in the Old West.

Rubout or Shootout. The relatives of the four slain men claim rubout which led to speculation that at least “men in uniform”, whether in active service or not, were involved in the RCBC robbery itself. For purposes of the investigation, these guys were clearly more valuable alive than dead, or at least until the murders are solved. The official PNP statement says that the four men killed were really members of a notorious kidnap and robbery-holdup group. The rumor is that the police is using the RCBC massacre as an excuse to go after existing criminal syndicates. The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said that initial findings indicated that the suspected members of a crime gang were summarily executed, not killed in a shootout.

Crime and Justice. The question on a lot of people’s minds is why the crime was so violent and extreme. The obvious answer seems to be that the identities of robbers are familiar to witnesses and the criminals wanted no witnesses-alive. The execution-style killings showed that these criminals are willing to go diabolical to escape prosecution, killing with impunity and without remorse. Police claim that based on accounts of some witnesses, they have identified the real names, backgrounds, affiliations, and the last known addresses of five suspects while four others were only identified through their aliases. We hope they are brought to justice soon. As the old saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied – for the victims, their families and loved ones.

Preventive Measures. Some major lapses in security measures of RCBC Cabuyao branch were discovered after the violent incident. The CCTV security camera and bank alarm were out of order and not functioning. There was only one security guard on duty when it should be at least two guards at the time of incident. There was also no regular police visibility in the area. There was clear indication of an inside job based on police investigation but how such vital information became known to the RCBC criminals do not require much after-thinking. What matters most in these lapses is for other banks to ensure the security and safety of their personnel, as well as the customers, by ensuring that such mentioned lapses are prevented at all cost in their respective banks – if they don’t want the possibility of another bank tragedy in the near future!

Money and Power. The robbery-massacre in RCBC is a reflection of wide-scale violence on a national scale. The RCBC killers apparently stole 12-15 millions of pesos at gunpoint while some of our national leaders routinely steal twenty, fifty, or a hundred times over with the stroke of a pen, or after a few secret meetings or golf sessions. The RCBC massacre stole 10 lives due power of the gun while hundred time more lives have been lost, among the poor and defenseless, owing to lack of food, medicine or fundamental health care because the funds for these basic needs found their way to the pockets of those corrupt people in power.