Just almost a week after the Ateneo de Manila University murders, the doctor-shooter’s father, Rolando Yulo, was shot in broad daylight outside his residence in Lamitan City, Basilan.
Dr. Chao Tiao Yumol killed former mayor of Lamitan City, Basilan, along with her aide, and a security guard of the said university.
Following his attempt to escape through a commandeered car, the bystanders near he also tried to run over manager to catch him, and handed him over to the police.
Two days after he underwent inquest proceedings, the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office indicted him for the murders. On top of that, after shooting and wounding the former mayor’s daughter, Yumol was also charged with frustrated murder with bail set at P200,000. He is also facing a car theft charge with no bail after he commandeered a vehicle to flee his crime scene, another charge for the illegal possession of firearms and malicious mischief, with a bail set at P60,000 and P3,000, respectively. However, while awaiting for the commitment order for his transfer to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology facility, he will remain in the Quezon City police headquarters at Camp Karingal.
Seized from his were a 9mm pistol and a .45 caliber with a silencer. It was found out that while the 9mm pistol belonged to the shooter, the .45 caliber handgun was traced to be owned by an Army lieutenant who reported in November 2019 that he lost it in Patikul, Sulu.
Going back to the shooter’s motive for the amock, he accused the former mayor of selling drugs in the said province, hence, destroying the lives of the youth.
The netizens are divided with one side praising the physician-shooter for what he did, saying that it glorifies his attempt to bring justice to his province, as if singling out that he has taken three [3] lives for what he has done. If one may look at it clearly, even if his claims might have been true, it will never be justifiable to claim a life to satisfy any intention. With what happened earlier this morning to his father, what would these “critics” think of? Possibly an act of “an eye for an eye” after the physician has taken the life of the mother of a graduating daughter, or the fathers of their children.
For over lifetimes, an eye for an eye phrase represents what a lot may have view as a harsh sense of justice based on revenge, however, the said code may be a complex one as it encompasses a single point: revenge. This has been a way of punishment for wealthy or noble persons, lower-class persons or known commoners, or slaves back in the day. On his given lifetime demise over the people tragically left by these shooting victims, including the daughter of the slain mayor who only wanted to savor her graduation from a prestigious law school, has now been left with nothing but a traumatic experience that even the death as an eye for an eye punishment against her mother’s shooter can never bring justice to.
When faced in death for punishment for a heinous crime, a victim may never achieve comfort even upon knowing that someone close to their culprit was dragged as an extra pay for what they went through. A death of anyone to pay for what they did will never equal the pain that a grieving heart has. The death of the physician’s father may just be a cherry on top of what is bound to happen, and even without the final conclusion of who did that, one may infer that this could have been done by someone close to the victims. Nevertheless, it is speculative, but one may assume so.
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