Majesty of the law: Part II

SENIORS’ CORNER

Friday, September 29, 2017 Wednesday, October 11, 2017

That special child inside an LRT carriage reserved for senior citizens keeps flashing back in memory— like those immortal classical western movies, titled: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and THE FASTEST GUN ALIVE. The first articulates the Divine origin of law. The latter portrays the agony of a renowned hotshot frontier’s man who swore not to fire a gun again in the face of the bravado of a county folk villain challenging him to a gun duel before his local congregation. Here is this feared hotshot, portrayed by Audie Murphy, unbelievably chickening out to settle the issue of manhood through the barrel of a gun as was then the culture in Cowboy America. His refusal to be provoked is not cowardice. It is indeed a brave transformation from the violent way of pampering human ego to civilized mode. If anything, the two movies affirm the symbiotic relationships between ordered existence and the rule of law.

Anyway, that special boy was accompanied by his mother. I waived my seat to his Mom and the boy sat on his mother’s lap. As the train slithers away to the next station, the boy un-wrapped a candy. I am expecting the plastic wrapping to kiss the train’s floor. And when it did not, I felt the shame of my prejudice-equating him with not a few Filipinos who mindlessly and at times consciously junk their garbage over waterways and public places. I am humbled by that show of civic duty, who, despite his handicap faithfully obeyed the law for a clean environment.

What the special boy did appeared naïve. Yet, if emulated by the rest of us, who are normal, the reward will be garbagefree streets and unclogged rivers and esteros not to mention the billions of pesos that will be spared from obeying a simple legal and moral duty expressed in the saying: CLEANLINESS IS GODLINESS! That special boy simply follows the rules of engagement in anti-littering.

But precisely from this simple disregard of a minor duty, violent crimes that erode the very foundation of Philippine Society are committed with seeming impunity. President Duterte himself at the beginning of his mandate reported that corruption and syndicated criminalities, aggravated by the illegal drug trade, are the main deterrents to the desired social and economic progress. Incidentally, the President has just created an Anti-graft Commission to curb venalities in the bureaucracy. Aware of the President’s unforgiving track record on this score, the mere creation of the graft-busting Commission is enough to send chilling effects.

Concededly, however, enforcing the law to vanquish violent crimes involves a different tack than that applied in addressing non-violent offenses. This is because in the former the very life of suspected criminals and the law enforcers are at stake. There is no argument to police officers taking preemptive defensive action when confronted with armed criminal elements in the course of a legitimate police operation. That is a universal basic right as long as the person defending himself is not the aggressor.

But in a rule-based and libertarian society, law enforcement is institutionalized precisely to protect the citizenry against lawlessness. Yet, in doing so, the rules of engagement requires them to exercise due restraint in dealing with unarmed offenders by effecting their arrest and the filing of appropriate changes. That is what the people expect.

Now, having said that, it is also undeniable that the most laudable performance of the President is his handline stance in combating criminalities, particularly the war on prohibited drugs. And rightly so, because drug addiction destroys the body and mind, particularly the youth. The fact is that unless we are able to confront the problem of crime, we may find ourselves incapable of dealing with other problems as well. Thus, there is need to revitalize not only our criminal procedures but also our system in lawenforcement. We need to come up with a reasonable certainty that criminal acts will be punished to show that “crime does not pay”. But if we are to avoid the repressive measures with which authoritarianism maintains social order, we need to reinstate self-discipline and true commitment to the majesty of the law. Philippine Society and its rule of law are still resilient. But for all its strength, the rule of law can only survive so many attacks and the bloodsplattered founding of our liberties will be lost if we renege in our vigilance. Liberty and a people’s willing submission to law are inseparable. One cannot long exist without the ot her.