There are the hard realities and truths and then there are the democratic institutions built by a people who presumably aspire to live by said truths as closely as human thinking faculties permit.
The trouble with the way Filipinos have applied their expensive Made-in-the-USA criminal justice system is that they did not put such a presumed aspiration behind it. And so the result is evident today. Nobody in the Philippines can establish with a widely-enough recognised measure of authority whether or not the Marcoses, say, are guilty of the crimes against freedom, human rights, and the American Way that Filipinos have made a fad out of accusing them of.
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If there was, to run with that example, any “spitting on heroes’ graves” going on here by proposing that the late former President Ferdinand E. Marcos be buried at the Fort McKinley Libingan ng mga Bayani, it was done by Filipinos as a whole. As a people. They did it by failing to muster a collective resolve to see to it that the proper investigations are routinely mounted and justice served to its full conclusion via institutional channels whenever a crime is alleged.
So it goes back to that familiar question whenever the chattering classes are up in arms over the way allegedly “bad” people continue to galivant all over society with supposed impunity:
Where are the convictions?
If there are none to serve as the bases for punitive action then guess what:
Tough luck.
Do we want to be a country where the law and the due process built around it so it is applied fairly rule over everyone? Or do we want to be a primitive society where justice is delivered by shills and vigilantes?
All evidence so far shows that Filipinos prefer the latter — because primitivism has long been a Filipino comfort zone where there is very little hard thinking to be expected and mediocrity and chronic wretchedness prevail as a persistent normal. Look no further than the circus kicked up by the Iglesia Ni Cristo in late August that caused a particularly wretched form of traffic gridlock to sweep across much of Metro Manila. This was all about a monumental tantrum the INC leadership chucked over an investigation being conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) following allegations of kidnapping involving key INC officers.
This is the sort of attitude that makes resolving crimes in the Philippines such an appallingly negotiable undertaking. The INC top guns apparently thought they are entitled to negotiate with the government for a waiver on that investigation. But in most modern societies, investigating a crime is absolutely non-negotiable. When a crime is reported, it is investigated. No questions asked. Resist the investigation, and you get thrown into jail. Simple.
Indeed, that INC stunt is an act of disrupting a police investigation under some kind of idiotic assumption that they are exempt from investigation. But the Philippines’ Revised Penal Code is quite clear on the Number One criteria that constitutes a legal exemption from criminal liability:
Art. 12. Circumstances which exempt from criminal liability. — the following are exempt from criminal liability:
1. An imbecile or an insane person, unless the latter has acted during a lucid interval.
When the imbecile or an insane person has committed an act which the law defines as a felony (delito), the court shall order his confinement in one of the hospitals or asylums established for persons thus afflicted, which he shall not be permitted to leave without first obtaining the permission of the same court.
It is safe to assume, therefore, that Filipinos who see themselves as exempt from investigation when they are accused of a crime can be legally regarded as imbeciles. Perhaps the INC had that in mind when they trooped to EDSA and gridlocked half the metropolis last August.
Stepping back from that, consider the whole notion that one can continue accusing someone of a crime after one had massively failed to convict that person of said crime. Before one can even take seriously such a position upheld by various shills and emo “activists”, we should first ask why…
Why was a crime (if, in fact, one was committed) allowed to go unpunished for decades?
Was the person accused of said crime an imbecile? If so then Filipinos should be ashamed of themselves, as they’ve been had by an imbecile. For that matter, that is what seems to be the broader insight one can derive from observering the way Filipinos continue to be routinely ruled by criminals year after year, election after election. Filipinos are a people who bow to imbeciles.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Interesting theory, I have to say, though not quite accurate. Imbeciles are not exempt from criminal investigation in the Philippines. They are only exempt from liability if they are found guilty. The basis for this is that in order to be held criminally liable, one has to:
1. Know that one will be committing a criminal act.
2. Act with Freedom.
3. Intended to commit a felonious act.
That said, even if said imbecile is not exempted from investigation, I still agree with your sentiment. Where are the convictions!?!
Thanks for that clarification. I think a commenter earlier posted reference to a Supreme Court ruling on the culpability of the Marcoses for their alleged crimes. And, indeed, that simply highlights even more what a flaccid nation Filipinos make — that people supposedly already established as guilty by a court still remain at large.
Where are the convictions?
Pinoy style: A very large grey area between right and wrong, legal and illegal, left and right, etc. Thus, anybody can get away with almost anything and everything.
Number one, the justice system is totally broken. There is really no Justice, so even police don’t have the will to enforce the law. It is a jungle out there, and everyone for himself. No society has progress under such a situation.
Number two, have feeling they could no longer hold Ferdie or Imelda criminally liable as statutes of limitation are way over already. So with this, they are stirring up the propaganda, in the absence of anything solid, to stop the growing clamor for BBM. It has to be a massive propaganda as we are seeing the stirring of it now.
That is okay for afterall Philippines is about very, very dirty politics. What I don’t like is that they are using supposed crimes of Marcos to really cover the more heinous crimes they have been, and are, committing. Hope people see through this hypocrisy.
I am not saying Marcos is clean, but the ones today are far more criminally minded carrying deeds that are meant to damage, and are using a dead man as a cover, pretending to be cleaner than him, when that is the biggest lie of all.
But, that is also their incentive to keep the justice system to remain broken.
No comment.
Just recently, they just lost a another case against Puregold. What a joke. Of course, they will lose because Kris has just been gifted with another one, so now two big Puregold outlets!
there’s the so called 5 pillars of justice in our system. check mayor duterte’s frustration about it: http://n5e.interaksyon.com/videos/803AAAA4CB134E2/24/happy-hour-mayor-rodrigo-duterte-part-5-5
Vice on HBO Season One:Killer Kids(Episode 1)
Yeah, never seen or heard anyone talking about that episode. Was not picked up by the local media. Wonder why?
we’ve been had. the edsa revolution was a sham. these folks (post-edsa and our current crap of leaders) saw that marcos could get away with anything. they saw the template and followed it. so really the simple explanation is…why convict someone when you hope to cross the same bridge they used or do the same things they did.
that once-in-a-nation’s-lifetime’s chance to show justice could be meted out to anyone not just as revenge but as a matter of justice was lost by queen of democracy herself Cory Aquino….really i could go on ranting how these two families (aquino and marcos) combined to f over the philippines.
plays….the jerks sayaw sa bubog
@benign0. But how do you explain Erap – Wasn’t he convicted? At least WAS (considering he’s now on the loose again)
There you go, you just answered your own question.
RBR, not exactly. Here’s a clue…
Marcos (high IQ lawyer) was just too smart to get convicted. He knew the laws like the back of his hand.
Erap was the exact opposite. Who in his right mind would leave a paper trail to get caught red handed?
That’s why Pinoys are now wary of electing smart high-IQ people into the highest post of the land for fear of another Marcos.
They’d rather have gullible naive simpleton Eraps, PNoys, Poes(dinaya nga lang) – the type they are confident cannot outsmart them.
So you now know who’s gonna win the next election right?
Keep on thing in mind. In the Philippines you can murder someone in plain view of witnesses and get away with it, because there is no prosecution if there are no complainants. In any civilized country the state will file charges. Not here. If no one steps forward it’s like it never happened.
Then there is the thing called “blood money”.
WTF?
Again, in which civilized country is this even acceptable???
I do not take advice or listen to the words of hypocrites or beings that are not self-realized. It’s nothing personal. I am simply no fan of beings that try to sound wise, while trying to mask their imbecility.
BS Aquino? His stupid YellowTard minions? Bah! They can all go kiss their own asses and dicks. I don’t give a shit.
I kinda thought the Inc rallies were manifestations of their distrust of the justice system. Although some called for the investigations be halted, I thought their fear of losing their entire leadership through an ineffective system was the thing that drove them to the streets. I mean stability, especially in faith, is very important to a lot of people and threatening it can make people do or say stupid things.
Whether you agree with my interpretation of the Inc rallies or not, I think it’s safe to say our justice system is flawed.
Here’s a shameless plug of a post from my blog discussing it.:
http://laymanpinoy.blogspot.com/2015/08/filipinos-distrust-justice-system.html?m=1
We have an imbecile president, named : Benigno Aquino III. Their family has imbecile genomes.
It is “Trial By Publicity”, here in the Philippines. The PR people of certain politician, make a story. Send it to their Propaganda Machines, like the: ABS-CBN, Inquirer, etc… Repeat and repeat the “concocted stories”. Until the non-thinking public, accept them as “Truth”.
Adolph Hitler, did it in Nazi Germany, with his Nazi Propaganda Machine. The Aquinos did it in the Philippines, with their Propaganda Machines and paid Journalists, Blog Trolls, etc…
The only “antidote” to this “poison” is :USE YOUR COMMON SENSE”…
Yeah! Bold all-caps looks really good ..,
-common sense for Pinoys party