Punchline
The other ‘death penalty’
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
I can’t agree more with the indefatigable Archbishop Oscar Cruz. His reaction to President Arroyo’s wholesale commutation of death sentences of convicted felons to life imprisonment rings true.
Indeed, the state cannot remove what it has not given, and furthermore, life imprisonment in our grimy, forsaken overcrowded jails can actually be a worse punishment. Worse, the convict can never know if he will get out of it alive since there are hired killers among them.
Death by lethal injection is actually a cop-out punishment. Save for the fact that the convict’s life can be quickly been snuffed out ceremoniously, there is no prolonged pain that can match the pains suffered by his victim.
But these arguments only serve the issues and the fate surrounding the convicted felons. There is the other much bigger life-and-death issue that must be addressed.
I refer to the life and death issue involving potential victims, you and I.
There exists the real possibility of seeing the same crimes being committed against any of us or any of our loved-ones.
The bigger issue is – should we allow government to refuse to carry out a death sentence while sick minds freely impose the “death sentence” on any of us?
In which case, I must go beyond the Archbishop’s take on the issue two levels up.
***
The objection of most citizens to the commutation is not about their thirst for blood, or to recompense someone’s lost life but more for out of fear for their own lives.
It is a natural defense mechanism by a people in a society that feels the government cannot guarantee the general safety of its citizenry. It’s a reflection of the loss or the lack of faith in the police and judicial system’s capability to place a higher premium on the lives of future innocent victims rather than the offenders.
Frankly, I believe only the relatives of the victims really care about the fate of the convicted felons. The convicted criminals only become a public concern when they are reported to have escaped, freely roaming the streets to inflict more harm on more unsuspecting victims.
There lies precisely the majority’s argument for the continued implementation of the death penalty by the Arroyo government.
Our people want a deterrent to the commission of these heinous crimes that can make anyone a potential victim because nothing else protects them. In fact, the citizens don’t need statistics to prove that the death penalty is not a deterrent.
What the citizenry direly needs to see is proof that not only government can protect its citizenry from recidivists, blood-thirsty drug lords and sex offenders, abusive law enforcers, corrupt government officials and cheating businessmen but must demonstrate it can dispense justice swiftly.
Until this is had, the contentious debate on the morality of the death penalty will remain irrelevant in the minds of our people and will not help citizens feel safer in this country.
Alas, the death penalty for the free and innocent will remain.
***
I have personally experienced the injustice of the system and I am now witnessing its consequences.
My father was murdered in his editorial office by a Lingayen councilor in 1966. But being a protégé of another influential Pangasinan politico close to then President Marcos, the killer was not sentenced to death or life imprisonment but 20 years.
The convicted mastermind, who was behind a ghost payroll racket in Lingayen, was eventually pardoned by President Marcos after 5 years of a privileged life in Muntinlupa. (His weekly routine was “in today-out tomorrow”). And to rub insult to injury, he was given a job at the Bureau of Customs days after he was freed to make up for his lost economic opportunities.
The murderer finally died of some ailment some 10 years ago. Frankly, it no longer mattered to our family how he fared after he was pardoned. (The family had earlier rejected offers by some individuals whom my father had helped in the past, to have his murderer killed while in prison).
Our family simply found solace in our faith in God’s mercy.
***
The spate of killing of journalists has turned from bad to worse since Mrs. Arroyo became president.
More journalists have since been assassinated and the suspected masterminds, mostly politicians and police officers involved in corruption, remain scot-free to this day.
As things stand today, more crusading journalists risk being killed today because we have a government that not only condones corruption but protects its corrupt and criminal allies in government.
Until the government stakes its integrity in a full-blown war against corruption, I see no end to the killing of journalists in this country.
So, the death penalty for journalists stays.
***
Who’s minding the environment?
While the Dagupan City government sets out to party for the Bangus Festival, the city’s water moving through its tributaries along a number of barangays reek of fecal stench.
Thanks to our negligent officials, the coliform bacterium is silently and quickly multiplying in our murky rivers. The bacteria is just waiting to grow in monstrous numbers before it attacks and gobble up the aqua industry with a vengeance while our city officials drink, dance and sing through the streets. And that’s just for starters.
Soon, children will be afflicted with skin and gastro diseases. Then deaths in the families will follow.
And at the rate the city is going, the Bangus Festival, henceforth, will be observed every year to simply remember how the city lost the once-bankable bangus industry because our city government officials today led by Mayor Benjamin Lim drank, danced, and sang while our rivers wept.
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Cleanliness and sanitation, and preservation of the environment are and should be a major concern of all governments. We lay waste our environment and there’s absolutely no community to govern or a constituency to speak of.
Dagupan City‘s main life valve is in its rivers and coastal waters. You kill the rivers, you kill Dagupan and its environs.
But nobody in city hall has made Mayor Benjie Lim or any city councilor accountable for the continued operation of the dumpsite located so 20 meters away from the shoreline. We have yet to hear a public condemnation of the continued unregulated operation of fishpens in the city. There is not a pipsqueak heard over the continued failure of the city government to construct the promised sanitary landfill.
Given the officials (and yes, the residents’) apathy, the city will just be one big toilet in the years to come. And we will deserve every reeking stench of it.
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