Volume 1, Issue No. 18
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . .
Our latest as of Thursday, December 19, 2019
~ A decade of waiting finally came to an end on Thursday (December 19, Manila time) when a Regional Trial Court judge convicted "beyond reasonable doubt" 28 assailants, including scions of the powerful Ampatuan clan in the Southern Philippines, of murdering 57 people, 32 of them provincial journalists. Fifteen others, mostly members of the police force, were found guilty as accessories. Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes sentenced the murderers to a prison term of 40 years.
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THE AMPATUAN MASSACRE OF 2009
A 40-Year Lease for Murderers of Journalists
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.” ―
The impact of that horrific event has not left me though it has been a decade since. I feel both pity and sorrow for the families left behind. But more strongly, I am filled with revulsion.
I had my share of hatred hurled at me as an investigative journalist for the many stories of irregularities I uncovered here and in California but my encounters are no match for the cruelty and intensity of the horror the 32 Filipino journalists had been subjected to.
Were I to sit in judgment of the perpetrators of what the Committee to Protect Journalists called "the single deadliest event for journalists in history", I would have sent them to their deaths by musketry. I would like to watch them crow in fear of the speeding bullets that would snuff out their miserable lives.
I am a believer in the law of retaliation - an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth - the principle that says that a person who has injured another person is to be penalized to a similar degree. It basically means that the punishment equally matches the crime.
So when Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes on Thursday (December 19, 2019, Manila time) handed down her verdict in a 761-page document in the 10-year-old trial of the 100-plus accused in the wholesale killings, I feel short-changed.
The Ampatuan brothers Datu Andal Jr., Zaldy, Anwar Sr., and their 25 cohorts convicted of 57 counts of murder do not deserve a 40-year lease on their lives, which was the sentence they got. I would have ended their earthly existence on the same day (November 23) the massacre took place in 2009.
I fear they would get out of prison before 40 years, enjoy life again, and popping in and out of our midst, perhaps laughing at how insufferable we have made ourselves to be because of their impunity.
Prison walls isolate them from the rest of the population, yes, but they are a luxury quite comfortable for animals. I would have preferred a pigpen, or something like that, for them to eat and live for what remains of their lives.
Journalists or not, the victims or their families are entitled to exact their own revenge within the limits of the law. That's my personal view.
But in the Philippines, the mode of punishment has been defanged. The death penalty is suspended, not abolished, and in its stead, the most a victim could wish for justice is life imprisonment for the criminal.
Reclusion perpetua fixes their sentence at 40 years. Pardon or parole is allowed only after the first 30 years have been served.
In this case, I'd like to be merciful, however. So instead of allowing them to agonize, the law of retaliation should take its course. I know it's wishful thinking. (Copyright 2019. All Rights Reserved).
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