Punitive and impunity are opposites however the present extended “telenovelas” within the Congress of the Philippines (each homes, the Senate and the Home of Representatives) spotlight the paradox of “punitive impunity.”
For all our claims of being a Christian nation, of being forgiving and turning the opposite cheek after being slapped, we are literally very vengeful and punitive, fast to retaliate—the punishments typically extra extreme than the assault in opposition to us. Even worse, we demand the punishment as quickly as doable, even with out due course of to ascertain if the accused is certainly responsible.
The observe of legislation within the Philippines appears to be obsessive about prosecution and acquiring essentially the most extreme punishments doable, worse for the poor, who’re unable to get competent legal professionals to barter for acquittal or lighter sentences.
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I’m considering, for instance, of the various lolas, grandmothers, serving life sentences in our prisons for promoting or transporting illicit medication.
Observe, too, how punishments are thought of, by human rights advocates, to be merciless and inhuman not simply because they inflict ache but in addition due to different types of struggling, together with humiliation. You see that in our barangay and police station “justice,” the place a complainant is inspired to bodily assault the individual being accused of a criminal offense, starting from theft to adultery.
How does our being punitive relate to impunity?
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First, impunity itself is among the worst types of punishment, depriving the disenfranchised, the disempowered, entry to due course of and a good trial, plus restorative justice and rehabilitation, whether or not as victims of crimes or as these accused of crimes.
Second, essentially the most extreme punishments, and the “justice” system that enforces the legal guidelines are formulated by folks whose energy is predicated on impunity, exempt from the punishments and the accompanying struggling, loss, and humiliation.
We’ve seen that within the congressional hearings, notably within the ongoing investigations into Vice President Sara Duterte as training secretary in addition to her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, and his warfare on medication throughout his incumbency.
Father and daughter continuously invoke all types of entitlements even in the way in which the investigations are performed, giving new meanings to the vanity that’s impunity.
And, shock, shock, the duo now complains about persecution and, within the case of Sara, citing the Anti-Terrorism Act as unjust as a result of the act threatens to confiscate their belongings, bar them from journey, enable entry into and search their property, and so forth and so forth.
A lawyer, Sara is up to date on this horrible legislation, one which was handed throughout the time period of Duterte, the daddy. We have now seen how, for the reason that act handed in 2020 on the peak of COVID, merely submitting prices in opposition to “individuals of curiosity” turns into a weapon of oppression, persecution, and most significantly, punishment. The impunity that allowed Duterte to ram the act by means of Congress expanded the arsenal of merciless and inhuman punishment, beginning with the “Crimson-tagging,” the place accusing the “individual of curiosity” of being a communist can endanger the lifetime of the accused.
In impact, when Sara complains in regards to the act, she’s screaming, with expletives, “Foul!” Certainly, the act is among the foulest travesties of legislation and legal guidelines. “Karma,” I hear folks commenting, however we ought to be extra introspective and assume arduous: permitting the usage of the act in opposition to Sara additional legitimizes it, and can open its use, sooner or later, in opposition to many Filipinos.
Why can’t we discover different legal guidelines to deliver Sara to justice? I agree, too, with the view that impeachment, one other punitive motion, just isn’t applicable right here, with Duterte’s legal professionals certain to search out methods to stall and stonewall the processes and waste extra taxpayer cash.
I additionally wish to level out a blind spot that our punitive system of impunity has created. That is the way in which our Congress is fast to remand folks being investigated to penitentiaries, generally even threatening that motion throughout the listening to itself. Our legislators are too fast to scream, “Kulong! (off to jail),” in impact turning into choose and executioner.
When Sara’s chief of employees Zuleika Lopez (and one other witness within the Alice Guo trial) had been ordered to be jailed, it was not stunning to search out hysterical responses. The cynical amongst us would possibly assume it’s theatrics however actually, given the horrible state of our jails and the way in which inmates might be detained for indefinite intervals of time (consider former senator Leila de Lima’s six years in jail throughout Duterte’s and a part of Marcos’ time period)—who wouldn’t go into extreme anxiousness assaults?
As for the remainder of the nation, shouldn’t we be extra anxious than entertained by the antics engendered by punitive impunity?
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