STRAIGHT TO THE POINT: Puzzles on Christine’s death cry loud for solutions

Atty. Ruphil Bañoc

What kind of mistake can a 16-year-old grade 9 student afford to do so that she would deserve a brutal death?

How can a lady church tithe collector commit a sin that would lead her to a gruesome killing?

Christine Lee Silawan was found dead in a vacant lot of Sitio Mahayahay, Bankal, Lapulapu City last Monday morning, March 11. She was botched uniquely and brutally like a wild animal that only her loving mother can recognize her remains.

During my Straight to the Point Program aired over DYHP RMN Cebu interview with Dr. Benjamin Lara, PNP medico-legal officer who conducted the autopsy, he said that the victim incurred 30 wounds. Nine are defense wounds found in her arms and palms that means that there was a struggle prior to the fatal wounds in the different parts of her body that lead to her death.

Dr. Lara however could not yet conclude if the girl was raped even in the absence of her undergarments because the hymen has already an old healed laceration. Such will take time to determine because the specimen will still be submitted to Camp Crame in Manila for a confirmatory test.

Lara said that Christine was not just stabbed and skinned to the skull but some of her internal organs are also missing. He revealed that the victim’s esophagus, tongue and trachea were missing. He cannot yet conclude the kind of instruments that the killers use in damaging the face and removing the organs.

He admitted that in his many years of experience in conducting autopsies, this is the first time that he encounters a very unique incident that he himself is being puzzled. Ordinary people can’t help, but just shake their heads upon learning of the incident.

Dr. Rene Obra, Chief of Behavioral Sciences of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC), disclosed the 3 possibilities that a person can afford to make such kind of murder. First, if he is under the influence of drugs; second, if a person is psychotic or has schizophrenia, which is a form of psychopathology; and third, when a person is culture bound such that he is a member of a cult that he thinks he made the things as normal within their group, but abnormal from people outside of their group.

This inhuman incident has already caught the attention of President Rodrigo Duterte and has made everyone call justice for the victim. To date, the reward for those who can identify the suspects has already reached P2 million.

Although, Col. Limuel Obon, Lapulapu City Chief of Police, said that they are not anymore facing a blank wall in their investigation, we still call ON the police and other government agencies concerned to double their efforts to solve the crime.

Above all, we call everyone who has ideas of the circumstances that would lead to the solution of the crime to come forward. We should not allow the power of darkness to overshadow our normal and peaceful daily activities.

We should not allow ourselves to be in a “conspiracy of silence” with the devils.