Raping Justice

Hearing of the news of Jalosjos' release from prison (and the subsequent scandal that ensued) was the last straw for me.

I have consciously avoided posting commentaries on current issues on my blog as I considered it separate from the intended "reality" that I currently chronicle here. But events have pointed out that to render oneself half-blind to what is happening around you would onyl result to a rude awakening.

Today's editorial on the inquirer website (www.inquirer.net) articulates my sentiments on the issue. If I were to put my feelings into words, it would read like an Eminem song -- full of expletives and the fire and brimstone of discontent and anger.

Now, if only I had a Death Note...

The Inquirer Editorial:

Convicted rapist Romeo Jalosjos is said to be ready to leave prison a free man; his victim, who is now in her 20s but was 11 years old at the time of the crime, has been reduced to sending an angry e-mail to the Department of Social Welfare and Development. “She’s very upset. She can’t believe it’s happening,” the victim’s former counsel said.

But this is the Philippines in the year 2007, under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and rapists and plunderers and assassins get preferential treatment. On Jan. 1, in an editorial entitled “Rapist’s justice,” we wrote about the Arroyo administration’s assault on the rule of law, after its agents transferred convicted rapist Daniel Smith—in the middle of the night, despite the lack of a court order—to the US Embassy. The illegal transfer was obviously an attempt to please the United States. But the “same spirit of expediency animates other initiatives that will forever be associated with this administration ... They are all marked by the same attitude to law: What is legal is what we can get away with.”

Rather like rape itself, actually: an act of violence that seeks to intimidate victims into submission, and thus allow criminals to get away with the crime.

The assaults on the rule of law have continued. The absolute pardon granted to deposed President Joseph Estrada remains a divisive issue because it was obviously undertaken for political expediency, and because Estrada refuses to acknowledge any shortcoming or offer any restitution. The conditional pardon granted to former sergeant Pablo Martinez, who was convicted for his role in the assassination of opposition leader Ninoy Aquino, is similarly controversial—it brings us farther away from, rather than closer to, a resolution of the mystery surrounding the assassination, a true turning point in our history.

And now, this: the much-reported granting of parole to Jalosjos, the wealthy ex-politician who is a political ally of the President’s. His early release, after some 14 years in prison, is possible because of good behavior, some officials have taken pains to point out. But that’s like saying that a box of matches in the hands of an arsonist is the real cause of a given fire. The true cause of Jalosjos’ early release, when it comes, is the President’s decision to commute his sentence last April, from two life (40-year) terms to only 16 years. That decision was like putting lit matches in the hands of a known pyromaniac.

No question about it: The Arroyo administration has prepared the groundwork for the once and future politician’s Christmas release. No amount of dissembling from Malacañang officials can disguise that essential fact.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita either deliberately misrepresented the situation or is shockingly ignorant of it. He said there was no recommendation from the Board of Pardons and Parole for Jalosjos’ early release. “There are no papers, no documents,” he said. And then the clincher: Ermita said Jalosjos was not eligible for pardon because he wasn’t 70 years old yet. True, but you don’t need to be 70 to be paroled.

No one disputes the President’s prerogative to grant executive clemency; in legal language borrowed from theology, the exercise of that prerogative is an “act of grace.” But the President is given those awesome powers to rectify the sometimes inevitable errors of justice, not to violate the rule of law. The exercise of that fateful prerogative is meant to uphold what lawyers call the majesty of the law, not to soil the administration of justice with the dirt rags of politics.

What does a rapist like Jalosjos learn from President Arroyo’s act of grace? That this President will take care of her own. If that means launching a fresh attack on the rule of law, then so be it: She will commute a rapist’s life sentence to repay a political favor, pardon an assassin to spite political opponents, undo a conviction to ensure her political survival, transfer a convicted US Marine without a court order to curry US support, feign inutility in extraditing a key campaign financier, issue an immoral executive order to protect her secretaries and generals from a Senate investigation, condone the incendiary policy of a favorite general.

Caught in the web of the law, a rapist like Jalosjos will say: I’m a friend of the President’s. It’s only a matter of time.


My Thoughts:

*hinga ng malalim...*

Putang Ina mo Gloria! Magsama kayo ni Jalosjos sa Impyerno! Salot!