Lawmakers, not the law

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TARTLING events surrounding the implementation of RA 10592 or the GCTA (Good Conduct Time Allowance) Law once more point to the rot in our justice system. It has always been there really, smelling foul as ever if not fouler.

To recall, the rot is essentially in the heart of a system that does not convict rich and powerful criminals (even after decades-long litigation), delays arresting those somehow convicted, provides them with special jail cells, and, as we now learn, releases them before their prison terms expire by virtue of the GCTA law.

Yet, we have never gotten together to check an egregiously crooked system. We have been content with blaming current officials for injustices done in their watch, hence crime continues to pay for the rich and powerful.

The GCTA, at face value, is a good law because some prisoners can in fact be rehabbed and inserted back into society. But its poor design and crazy implementing rules betray the sinister intentions of those who enacted it. Allowing the Bucor (Bureau of Corrections) chief to release prisoners without clearance from the DOJ or the President in case of heinous crimes is just so incredibly insane. It is an invitation to bribes so as to avoid the hassle of a parole or executive pardon.

(There is incidentally a concomitant cultural or moral rot or why does Nicanor Faeldon not resign, but has to be ordered to, after such a blunder on his part?)

When I ask myself why this is so, my memory instinctively cuts back to a 50’s Western movie where the head of a cattle rustling gang was a US senator. When he was exposed but could not be arrested for some legal technicality, he sneered at frustrated federal agents saying: “That’s the beauty of being a legislator. When we do something illegal, we can always enact a law that makes it legal.”

So is the GCTA such a law, an escape hatch for convicted high officials and their accomplices? It looks that way. Or else why is everybody just playing the blame game. Congressional probes are supposed to be in aid also of legislation, but why is nobody asking how and why it happened so loopholes in the GCTA law can be plugged?

All questions instead are meant to identify whom to blame and all emotions, like of anger or disgust, are directed at persons and not on imperfections of RA 10592.

I’m almost sure that when they have their goat, they will leave GCTA as it is for when it’s their time to be the incumbents who will benefit from this self-serving law.

I also suspect this, not any moral scruple, is why senators are against the death penalty. They do not feel safe with it as there can be no easy escape hatch if you are sentenced to death. Ergo, it must be opposed. Self-serving lawmakers, not the law, are the issue.*

CONCERNED ARTISTS OF THE PHILIPPINES

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HE freedom to speak truth to power is essential if we are to imagine and enact democracy.

When the very defenders and advocates of our collective civil, human, and political rights are themselves threatened and being attacked, we have to speak out. We have to fight back.

Today we stand in solidarity with filmmaker and visual artist Kiri Dalena, who along with her colleagues and co-officers from rights rights watchdog Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights, is fighting back against a perjury case filed by National Security Adviser (NSA) Hermogenes Esperon Jr. last July. Other respondents include human rights advocates Tinay Palabay, Jigs Clamor and Edita Burgos, mother of the forcibly disappeared activist Jonas Burgos.

The irony, impunity, and injustice of Esperon’s charges are not lost on us. Esperon charged Karapatan, Gabriela, and Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) with perjury after they formally sought from the courts a petition of writ of amparo and habeas data: A legal remedy for persons whose right to life, liberty, and security is threatened.

This petition was sought from the courts because members of Karapatan, Gabriela, and RMP all around the country were being vilified, harassed, and killed by suspected state forces on a scale proximate to the years under Martial Law. They still are.

The charges filed by Esperon as NSA adviser are forms of reprisal, retaliation, intimidation, and harassment. These endanger and threaten the safety of human rights advocates and fellow cultural workers who have tirelessly spoken out against the killings, enforced disappearances, and repression of the administration.

There is no security in the silencing of voices speaking truth to power. Let us remain vigilant and active in condemning these acts of harassment and state insecurity.

No to the perjury charges against rights defenders!*