A travesty of justice

N ow that the three musketeers of the pork barrel scam, and their mastermind Muse and Cheerleader Janet Napoles, are behind bars, and all the rest of their fellow (35 or so) plunderers or conspirators joining them, another deviant facet of our Philippine culture, besides the culture of corruption, has started to emerge and come under the spotlight once again. I am referring to the government’s and some people’s warped sense of justice and fairness in dealing with criminals in jail.
The jail cells for these criminals have been refurbished with our taxes, the people’s money, specifically to make their incarceration less uncomfortable. Why the special treatment for these legislator law breakers? Jails are not supposed to be comfortable. Their cells must be the same as for all other criminals. Instead of spending the funds for the reconstruction, it should have been given to the homeless and the hungry, and for the schooling of those children in poverty.
Bong, who has been most arrogant, hostile, contentious, and bellicose of all, has been complaining of rats in his jail cell. There is nothing wrong with that. Rats belong to where rats are. Besides, the more than 30 percent of Filipinos in the gutter of poverty today might even gladly take the place of these jailed legislators, with free air-conditioned shelter, with security guards, free TV, free food, and free medical care, etc. and special amenities to boot.
Jails are for criminals and criminals must be in jail. That’s what our constitution and penal code state. There is no provision in either of those two which states that plunderers who are VIPs, celebrities, or legislators, or even former presidents of the country, proven guilty of their crime, should be accorded a special treatment, housed in a Hilton, or even a cheap pension house, version of a jail, and allowed to have amenities like a TV in their cell, special beds, microwave oven, etc., and to party and receive visitors all they want. Criminals are jailed to suffer and pay their debt to society, no matter the age.
The plunderers and those yet to be indicted in the public sector corruption have caused our government and tax payers about P250 Billion annually. That massive hemorrhage from the national coffers has caused untold suffering and deaths among those in gutter of poverty. And these plunderers are responsible for these deaths and suffering.
Those billions stolen by these legislator thieves in one year alone could have provided more than one million new homes for the homeless, 523 classrooms, feeding more than 7 million hungry people, rehabilitation of more than 5.5 million hectares of damaged farmlands, medical care for 210 million indigent families, purchase of more than 94,000 ambulances, 12,500 fire trucks, 400,000 non-polluting electronic jeepneys, more than 17 million school computers, 50 million scholarship programs from the Commission on Higher Education, all for our people, especially our poor fellow Filipinos, the direct victims of these plunderers, led by Enrile, Bong Revilla, Jinggoy Estrada, and their pimp, Janet.
Common criminals in jail for stealing food or money to care for their sick family members or for the education of their children are the ones we should show understanding and compassion for, and give special treatment to, if at all, compared to these greedy plunderers.
Legislators and all government officials or employees, like those in high offices, Supreme Court, members of Congress, priests, policemen and others in law enforcement offices, and other public servants, must be treated to a higher standard and a harsher punishment allowed by law because they took a sacred oath to abide by, uphold, and protect our constitution and the laws of our nation. The ordinary criminals did not.
A priest raping someone is worst than a common rapist; a policeman, justice of the supreme court, or members of congress, who steal commit a graver crime than ordinary thieves. These criminals must be held fully accountable for their crimes and must suffer fully, and not be rewar ded with VIP treatments compared to those others in jail. The maximum penalty required by law must be meted to them, without mercy. They did not show mercy to our suffering, disenfranchised, people now in agonizing abject poverty, with their nose barely above water.
Why should Enrile be shown extra mercy simply because he is old? He should have known better than be a thief. And why should Bong and Jinggoy be given special treatment? We must respect and follow our laws, our penal code. They must be housed and fed, and not be abused in jail. If they are legitimately ill, they must, like other prisoners, be given medical care in jail, or, be hospitalized, if medically justified. They must be treated like all other criminals in jail, equally. No special treatment. The jailed criminal must suffer the consequences of their act. Of all people, Enrile, the framer of the Marcos Martial Law, and legislators Bong and Jinggoy, are both well versed in crime and punishment. They knowingly, and with premeditation, violated the law, now they must suffer for their crime.
If the government wants to give special amenities (TV, cushion, cellphone, microwave oven, etc.,) it must also give the same benefits to all the other prisoners in all jails in the country, without exception.
As a cardiovascular surgeon, I know that the common irregular heart beat is not a justifiable reason for Gigi Reyes not to be in jail or for her to be in a hospital, like Gloria Arroyo, whose condition does not really require hospitalization. There are hundreds of millions of people round the world active and working normally with the common irregular heart beat or neck arthritis and pain. Only life-threatening medical and surgical conditions should be accepted as an indication for hospitalization, which is standard practice in the medical community around the world. Our justice system is being abused by these medical excuses to stay out of jail, and our government seems to be falling for it.
Physicians who certify that such and other trivial medical condition are excuses to keep criminals out of jail and hospitalize them instead, when proven medically wrong by our Department of Health or reputable medical societies, must themselves be brought to court and jailed for unethical practice and for obstruction of justice. These physicians are then as corrupt as those plunderers they are trying to shield from justice, and are therefore culpable themselves.
When former president Gloria Arroyo, while in office, now in hospital arrest herself for plunder, etc., pardoned Erap Estrada, who was jailed for plunder, she irreparably damaged our justice system and the reputation of the Philippines in the eyes of the international community, who has branded the Philippines as a most corrupt country.
In some countries, who we, a democratic and basically a Catholic nation, call barbaric and unchristian for speedy trials and public executions of plunderers among their officials, graft and corruption are rarer, compared to the Philippines, where VIP plunderers and murderers could escape the justice system. This travesty reflects badly on the integrity and honor of our nation and our people.
Are we really more democratic, more Christian, when we turn our cheek the other way and allow the plunderers in our government to proliferate and continue decades after decades to rob the nation’s coffers, people’s tax money, at the expense of those millions in poverty and the countless victims of the various natural disasters, and when the plunderers are caught, grant them executive pardon and allow them to run for public office again?
Why are we so stupid and masochistic? Why do we have that self-destruct culture in us? We are an intelligent people, so why can We, the People, not be a united majority and condemn these plunderers to the maximum penalty, without mercy, and simply abide by the penal code of the nation?
If Christ did not turn His cheek the other way and aggressively condemned usury and the evils that went with it victimizing the poor during His time, you can imagine how He would treat these plunderers in our midst today. Are we trying to act better than Christ?
I say, we, Filipinos, as a nation, are more unchristian, less compassionate, more barbaric to our nation and its people to be soft on plunderers, compared to those nations who expeditiously kill in public squares the massively guilty few to protect the greater majority, especially their marginalized poor.
Besides putting the plunderers behind bars for life (reclusion perpetua), the government must take back the total amount these legislators stole and also confiscate their properties and other assets as a payment of the penalty to the amount prescribed by law. All these billions of pesos could then be used to ameliorate poverty in the country, a true Christian act of love and compassion.
These corrupt legislators and their co-conspirators need a painful lesson. Let’s give them a just one, with maximum pain.
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