Ruby Rose Barrameda-Jimenez
Manila Times Editorial
Is Satan in power among our elite?
The horrible murder of Ruby Rose Barrameda-Jimenez has made many wonder if those who say that something Satanic is now in control of Philippine society are right.
Her murder was by a small band of professional killers allegedly in the pay of a wealthy businessman, her father-in-law, who allegedly ordered the killers to deal with Ruby Rose the way they had also dealt with other targets for liquidation under this businessman’s orders. And the disposition of her body was in the US mafia gang style celebrated in movies and detective novels—she was put in wet cement in a sealed drum that was then dropped with weights into the sea.
What makes the notion of Satanic presence a hair-raising prospect this time—and no longer the “amusing drivel” of old women or overly religious people—is that Ruby Rose’s murder and tragedy fits into a pattern of mafia-style murders.
We do not need to go into the hundreds of murdered and disappeared leftist militants and working journalists. We will now just mention recent murders that come to our mind of persons who were done in obviously by people in power and of wealth—members of the elite—whose illegal activities were threatened with exposure by the victims.
The first to come to mind is the double murder of Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his friend and driver Emmanuel Corbito. They were abducted and, the witnesses say, burned and their remains were placed in a drum. Dacer apparently had the goods on some people of wealth and power.
Then there was the murder of journalist Marlene Garcia-Esperat. There’s some good news about this. The actual killers of Marlene, who gunned her down in front of her two children in their house, sped away and eluded arrest but were eventually caught, arraigned, tried, found guilty and sentenced. But the masterminds—government officials with the Department of Agriculture whose activities Marlene was exposing—managed to evade prosecution. Finally, the court issued warrants for their arrest. Marlene was not just any kind of journalist. She had in fact served as the resident ombudsman of the agriculture department in Region XII.
There was also the murder of Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin in front of Saint Carmel’s Church in Quezon City. This was a political murder.
Then we remember the abduction and violent murder of Edgar Bentain. He was the casino employee who apparently leaked photographs (taken by security cameras) of then-President Joseph Estrada gambling in the company of Atong Ang and other friends at the Heritage Casino. Bentain was alleged to have been immersed alive in a drum of wet cement.
There are so many other cases of mafia-style liquidations but these examples would suffice for now.
