NOT IN MY NAME

The President expressed his reservations about reimposing the death penalty because the judicial system isn't perfect. He used to be for it but has changed his mind. The President is right on this issue and here is why.

In People v. Efren Mateo, G.R. Nos. 147678-87, the Supreme Court made a landmark admission that the judicial system isn't perfect and how! Citing cold, hard statistics, the Supreme Court said that:

"Statistics would disclose that within the eleven-year period since the re-imposition of the death penalty law in 1993 until June 2004, the trial courts have imposed capital punishment in approximately 1,493, out of which 907 cases have been passed upon in review by the Court. In the Supreme Court, where these staggering numbers find their way on automatic review, the penalty has been affirmed in only 230 cases comprising but 25.36% of the total number. Significantly, in more than half or 64.61% of the cases, the judgment has been modified through an order of remand for further proceedings, by the application of the Indeterminate Sentence Law or by a reduction of the sentence. Indeed, the reduction by the Court of the death penalty to reclusion perpetua has been made in no less than 483 cases or 53.25% of the total number. The Court has also rendered a judgment of acquittal in sixty-five (65) cases. In sum, the cases where the judgment of death has either been modified or vacated consist of an astounding 71.77% of the total of death penalty cases directly elevated before the Court on automatic review that translates to a total of six hundred fifty-one (651) out of nine hundred seven (907) appellants saved from lethal injection." (underscoring provided, citations omitted)

The death penalty is the most final of all penalties. It cannot and should not exist where the conditions for determining guilt or innocence are so imperfect--as admitted by no less than the Supreme Court itself.

I have witnessed two executions. It is an experience I do not wish to inflict on my worst enemy. In the only triple execution so far (three convicts in one day, one after the other), at least one of the three who was killed was widely acknowledged by the inmates in Bilibid to be absolutely innocent.

My heart goes out to the Lozano and Evangelista families and all the others who have lost loved ones in the cycle of senseless violence but more violence is not the solution.

By all means, hunt down those who inflict this senseless violence, arrest them, build up cases against them, charge them, try them and keep them in jail. This must be done for every criminal who kills, who steals, who pillages, who plunders for it is this certainty that one who breaks the law will be held accountable that deters a criminal; it is not the severity of a punishment the criminal is confident of evading because he can get a good lawyer, can intimidate or kill witnesses and occasionally may even buy off judges.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best and most memorably:

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars."

The death penalty is State-sanctioned murder.

The greatest irony and tragedy is that it is carried out in the name of the People.

I raise my voice to join the President's.

I OPPOSE THE DEATH PENALTY IN ANY FORM, MANNER, INSTANCE OR CIRCUMSTANCE.

DO NOT KILL IN MY NAME.

No Joking Matter

Comedian Tito Sotto, Chair of the Dangerous Drugs Board, is asking for the death penalty for drugs. The problem with putting comedians in public office is that they start to think their jokes can actually become policy.

The proliferation of drugs in the country is a serious matter and should not be left to comedians--bad ones at that (if you don't believe me, watch Iskul Bukol: The Reunion). The death penalty for drugs is also not a joke and should certainly not be left to comedians like Tito Sotto.

I have witnessed personally two executions--that is why I know it is not a joke. I have gone to death row countless times, interacted with those on death row and their families and have seen their plight--that is why I know it is not a joke. I have also interacted with victims' families and have come to understand that their cry is not for death but for justice and that, because the system is not perfect, the line between justice sometimes bleeds into death. That is why I know that the death penalty is not a joke.

The country has been down this road before. In 1994, the death penalty was restored in the Philippines. From February 5, 1998 to January 4, 1999, seven executions were carried out and nine persons were executed (including a triple execution on the same day; which has to be a dubious record of sorts). In 2006, the death penalty was abolished by law.

Now the comedian Tito Sotto wants the death penalty for drugs back. As if it were some silver bullet that would stop the importation of drugs through ports where money could convince eyes to become temporarily blind, ears to become temporarily death and lips to become silent. As it the death penalty were some magic enchantment that would assure that no one would ever be victimized again by drugs.

I listen to the hearings on the PDEA bribery charges against the DOJ and marvel at the illogic behind the comedian Tito Sotto's conclusion--that the reimposition of the death penalty could have prevented the farce that is now going on.

Even with the death penalty for drugs, you will still have prosecutors who are willing to look the other way, lawyers who will be over zealous for their clients' cause to the extent of writing the decisions themselves, high ranking government officials who cannot be outraged enough at official and evident malfeasance to be trusted with holding sway over the administration of justice. The comedian Tito Sotto's proposal to reimpose the death penalty for drugs cannot answer the evident flaws in the justice system that has become so evident in the past few months--with the Court of Appeals Meralco scandal and the PDEA-DOJ bribery charges.

Death is such a final penalty. After seven executions, nine executed and an official finding by the Supreme Court in People v. Mateo that the judicial review process is not infallible and that, in fact, there is a high error rate in convictions, there is no place for such a final penalty in such an imperfect system.

If there is one thing that I have learned in almost 19 years of practicing law, it is that the facts can be changed, the evidence can be tampered with, witnesses can lie, but death will always be final. And if there is one thing that I have learned in watching comedians, it is that they are always joking but they are not always funny.

The death penalty is no joke and it is no laughing matter. The comedian Tito Sotto should stick to jokes.

The First

"While victims of enforced disappearances are separated from the rest of the world behind secret walls, they are not separated from the constitutional protection of their basic rights. The constitution is an overarching sky that covers all in its protection. The case at bar involves the rights to life, liberty and security in the first petition for a writ of amparo filed before this Court."

Chief Justice Reynato Puno starts his Decision in Secretary of National Defense v. Manalo, G.R. No. 180906 in this way. Read the decision here.

It's a petition that was first filed as a prohibition suit which later, after the Rule on the Writ of Amparo was passed, became an amparo petition--the very first in the Supreme Court and the very first in the Court of Appeals.

I'm proud to have been part of the team that litigated this. Kudos to Bombi Sunga, FLAG Deputy Coordinator for Metro Manila for first taking this case on, when the Manalo Brothers disappeared and litigating this issue before the CA as a habeas corpus case and to Jose Manuel Diokno, FLAG National Chair, for shepherding us through this case. Also to Cookie Diokno, FLAG Secretary General, for the great staff support.

A blast from the past... for me, at least

"I read the news today, oh boy" (credit the Beatles for this line which I shamelessly rip off) and it spoke of the United States Supreme Court ruling 7-2 on the constitutionality of lethal injection as a method of execution for the first time; the landmark ruling is Baze v. Rees, involving a capital case from Kentucky. (Read the link to an AI-US blog, which also posts a link to the decision.)

What struck me wasn't that the US Supreme Court ruled but that it was ruling for the very first time on the constitutionality of lethal injection.

This brought me back to March 2, 1998, when, on behalf of probably my most well-known client, I filed a petition for prohibition, injunction and/or TRO assailing the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 8177 designating lethal injection as the mode of execution in the country; the petition docketed as G.R. No. 132601 was given due course and, on October 12, 1998, the Philippine Supreme Court ruled, for the first time and apparently nine (9) years before the United States, that lethal injection was, to rip off Chief Justice Fernando's famous double negative, "not unconstitutional."

What also strikes me about Baze is the obvious absence of unanimity; there are seven (7) separate opinions, with only two (2) Justices joining the Chief Justice Roberts in his plurality (if you could even call it that) opinion, three (3) Justices concurring only in the result and with separate opinions, and with two (2) Justices (Ginsberg and Souter) dissenting.

Unlike the Philippines, which has, at least for the moment, prohibited capital punishment, it appears that the debate in the United States has just gotten a lot more interesting.

"From strength to strength"

Recent post in Newsbreak on the Chief Justice's public pronouncements. Read here.

Why was this never a message in the Elections?

U2 and Pearl Jam asking us to "Make Poverty History!"

Desaparecidos

"They Dance Alone" (Gueca Solo)
(Sting,* 1987; from "Nothing Like the Sun")

Why are these women here, dancing on their own?
Why is there this sadness in their eyes?
Why are the soldiers here, their faces fixed like stone?
I can't see what it is that they despise.

They're dancing with the missing.
They're dancing with the dead.
They dance with the invisible ones.
Their anguish is unsaid.
They're dancing with their fathers.
They're dancing with their sons.
They're dancing with their husbands.
They dance alone; they dance alone.

It's the only form of protest they're allowed.
I've seen their silent faces scream so loud.
If they were to speak these words, they'd go missing too.
Another woman on a torture table, what else can they do?

They're dancing with the missing.
They're dancing with the dead.
They dance with the invisible ones.
Their anguish is unsaid.
They're dancing with their fathers.
They're dancing with their sons.
They're dancing with their husbands.
They dance alone; they dance alone.

One day we'll dance on their graves;
One day we'll sing our freedom.
One day we'll laugh in our joy;
And we'll dance.

One day we'll dance on their graves;
One day we'll sing our freedom.
One day we'll laugh in our joy;
And we'll dance.

Ellas danzan con los desaparecidos;
Ellas danzan con los muertos;
Ellas danzan con amores invisibles;
Ellas danzan con silenciosa angustia;
Danzan con sus padres;
Danzan con sus hijos;
Danzan con sus esposos;
Ellas danzan solas; danzan solas.

Hey Mr. Pinochet, you've sown a bitter crop.
It's foreign money that supports you;
One day the money's going to stop.
No wages for your torturers;
No budget for your guns.
Can you think of your own mother,
dancin' with her invisible son?

They're dancing with the missing.
They're dancing with the dead.
They dance with the invisible ones.
Their anguish is unsaid.
They're dancing with their fathers.
They're dancing with their sons.
They're dancing with their husbands.
They dance alone; they dance alone.

This is one of those songs that don't chart or don't become hits but nonetheless stir up in you rage, passion, compassion, empathy, and anger--all at the same time.

Sting wrote this in 1987 but he might as well have written this last week when Edith Burgos, tragically, brought to the country's attention to those who are involuntarily disappeared.

When Sting wrote and performed this in 1987, people had been disappearing long before that in many dictatorships around the world--Pinochet's Chile and Marcos's Philippines among them; now, in 2007, in this country, people are disappearing again and Jay Jay Burgos is just the most recent and perhaps the "most famous" in recent memory because he carries Joe Burgos's name. Yet, there are so many nameless and faceless desaparecidos.

To those who have made Jay Jay and many like him (like SherlynCadapan and Karen Empeno) disappear, "can you think of your own mother, dancin' with her invisible son?"

To Edith Burgos and the mothers of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno and many others who have been made to disappear, I have no words at my disposal to give you comfort save those that I now lift up in prayer to God who is merciful and just.


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*Sting wrote this after he saw a brief news story about women dancing in the streets of Chile torn apart by the Pinochet regime. The women were dancing in the streets with pictures of their husbands, fathers, brothers or sons pinned to their clothes or they were holding the pictures and dancing with them.