| Photo by Rajesh Rajput on Unsplash
There appears to be a merciful attitude towards plunderers and criminals in the Philippines lately. Apprehending law enforcement officers are humiliated and portrayed as inept at best and dismissed as incompetents. Perhaps plunderers deserve mercy. Maybe law enforcement needs better training, and their tactics made the letter of the law more compelling.
Plunderers are also granted presidential pardons as if the republic owed them apologies. Most egregiously, the plunder law has been ruled silent on lifetime bans on holding public office. Plunderers of advanced age are freed for humanitarian reasons or granted medical waivers and treated with kid gloves and never see the accommodations at the National Bilibid Prison.
Recently, a retired general was released for having served a sentence for a lesser offense, granting exemption from a life sentence. The original plea bargain was an act of mercy, and the courts would grant further clemency. This while having returned only a fraction of the alleged plundered funds and this while the family of co-conspirators remain at large and never prosecuted.
There are legislative proposals to revive the death penalty for heinous crimes such as drug trafficking, rape, and murder. Most noteworthy is the lack of consideration of the death penalty for plunder, graft, and corruption. And yet when a broader discussion of their heinous nature, rape, murder, and drug trafficking cannot compare to the number of untold deaths caused by lacking health care and education due to plundered budgets and denied services and social safety nets. It bears repeating how health-related issues are placed under God’s mercy through prayer instead of seeking medical attention simply because government hospitals and the illusion of universal health care remain unaffordable. Never mind those who cannot even dream of attending higher education due to the lack of a comprehensive scholarship covering costs beyond tuition and dormitories.
Mercy or some semblance of it should not be a prerogative for the guilty and the victims. The wickedness of heinous crimes should be attributed to plunder and acts of graft and corruption. If guilty is the verdict for plunder of a certain sum, in this case, P50M or more, the recovery of plundered funds should include all assets beyond the plundered amount as there is no telling how much or if all amassed wealth constitutes all remaining assets. Even if the defendant proves any residual beyond the alleged plundered wealth is legitimate, the forfeiture of such assets will be the proper penalty beyond merely returning illegally obtained assets.
“Punishment should render the offender financially destitute, just as other Filipinos are impoverished by theft. These thieves should be removed from their palatial homes and denied their gilded lifestyles. If they are left to live in a nipa hut that would still not be justice for as long as there are homeless Filipinos.”
Given time and further litigation, the Queen of Plunder, Madame Janet Napoles, will almost assuredly be set free. Plunder prerequisites conspiring with a government official. Senator Bong Revilla, the co-accused in the same case, has been acquitted based on the testimony of a handwriting expert. Government prosecutors lost their effort to repudiate the handwriting expert. Congratulations to Senator Revilla for being elected Senator again. Lacking a government official as a co-conspirator, Ms. Napoles should be free shortly.
Plunder or any act of graft or corruption should be punishable by reclusion perpetua, life sentence, without parole, currently not bailable, and should be ineligible for a presidential pardon. These acts are acts of economic sabotage. Often forgotten is that plundered funds are stolen from every hardworking Filipino. Plunder results in the denial of government services. Punishment should render the offender financially destitute, just as other Filipinos are impoverished by theft. These thieves should be removed from their palatial homes and denied their gilded lifestyles. If they are left to live in a nipa hut that would still not be justice for as long as there are homeless Filipinos.
Sentencing should be mandatory and taken out of the hands of judges. That would require an act of Congress. But if the threshold of P50M is any indication, legislators would be hesitant to pass such a measure, as if in anticipation that they would be among the first offenders. Let this abomination of a high nominal threshold be reduced to P5,000.00 instead, include forfeiture of all assets, loss of the monicker ‘honorable’, pensions and benefits, ideally leading to financial ruin, ban from public office up to the third degree of consanguinity and affinity, and never a presidential pardon.
A firing squad would be preferable – an option that would make an interesting topic for public opinion polling. Social Weather Station or Pulse Asia, anyone?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Crispin Fernandez advocates for overseas Filipinos, public health, transformative political change, and patriotic economics. He is also a community organizer and leader, and freelance writer.
