tribal murders

The cordilleras is one of the northern hinterland regions of the Philippine archipelago. It is occupied by various tribes and sub tribes who maintain their independence from one another and at times engage each other in a tribal war. Innocent victims have lost their lives from numerous senseless cold blooded killings that can happen anytime, peace and order is very illusive and still far from being resolved despite the advance of technology and education. There are contributory factors that are hindering the peace initiatives of concerned citizens who are weary of tribal killings. Firstly, the tribes cannot forget the murdered tribe members who were killed by the other tribes. Generations will pass but the clamor for revenge is handed down to the younger ones till their death is avenged. Secondly, the law enforcers who are members of a tribe are protecting their tribe mate whenever they are involve in troubles with a member of another tribe. In other cases a police officer will walk away from his duty to save or protect human lives just to prevent his tribe from being involved in future troubles. At this point in time they are so ineffective that crimes are never solved and the culprits are not arrested though publicly known. Thirdly, after a tribal killing the leaders of the tribe together with local elected leaders gather and try to come up with a resolution. In most cases the payment of a blood money to the victim's relative is enough and the criminals go free. The payment of blood money should be punitive to prevent the wrong doers from committing more crimes but the total contribution of the culprits is just a small portion, the bulk of the amount is a contribution of the community and from the coffers of local government. These practices should be stopped because it is just a temporary solution of a case but did not solve the problem. They are actually encouraged to commit another crime because they did not feel the pain of punishment. Fourth, The murderers are given a heroes welcome by their tribe after a tribal killing, the women would hang decorations on the neck of these criminals during a celebration and the young ones are encouraged to follow their steps of bravery. Fifth, the tribal community is a perfect hiding place of the culprits who do not know what is justice since the protection of their tribe member is paramount to anything else. they would utterly disregard the crimes committed no matter how horrible it may be. These and other social difficulties on the part of the government and the communities need extra attention for indeed human dignity is violated against the poor and innocent victims who have died without Justice.