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A close reading of the opinions of the dissenting
justices, including that of Chief Justice Reynato Puno, and
comparing these with the majority decision, convinces me that the
majority failed to serve justice as required by the case on the
basis of the facts alleged by the petitioner. The majority also did
not do the statesmanlike act of using their decision-making power to
serve the higher need of the nation, the state and the public
interest in these times of political turmoil.
The decision grossly enforces the
culture of impunity that reigns in this country.
Most Filipinos see that those who
wield power and commit abuses do so with impunity. Foreigners who
monitor how governments and governors all over the world are
following or rejecting the norms of simple human decency also see
that it is not the rule of law and the tenets of Christianity that
prevail in our country. It is the culture of impunity.
Cuture of impurity, too
Some will think “impunity” is
a typographical error for “impurity.” They cannot be blamed.
“Impurity” can be superimposed on “impunity” in every
sentence above. The meaning will remain the same. For so many of our
leaders have behaved so immorally that all the sins seem to converge
in their every actuation. There is a communion of devils as there is
a communion of saints.
The dictionaries define
“impunity” as “exemption from punishment” and “immunity
from the detrimental effects, as of an action” (Random House) and
“exemption from “punishment, penalty, or harm” (American
Heritage).
Human rights
In recent years, discussions on
the culture of impunity have focused on the human-rights abuses that
government law-enforcement agents and armed forces (and their para-military
surrogates) commit without fear of being charged and punished.
Thus the culture of impunity in
Darfur (the Sudan), Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Israel,
Palestine, China and in Latin America, to name only a few places
that human rights monitors and the international commission of
jurists, UN rapporteurs and journalists have commented on.
While it is usually the
authoritarian or electorally democratic but remorseless governments
that are criticized for their culture of impunity, rebel groups that
have taken control of territories are also guilty of killing,
abducting, raping and massacring their enemies with impunity.
Since President Macapagal-Arroyo’s
accession to Malacañang, the Philippines has become one of the
countries that are always mentioned as a place where the culture of
impunity reigns. This judgment has been made, among others, by the
United Council of Churches, the Presbyterian News Service,
businessmen and economists who are concerned with politics and human
rights, the International Federation of Journalists and the USA’s
Committee to Protect Journalists.
Various groups—connected with
the Catholic Church, the US State Department and the European
Commission—that monitor extrajudicial killings and forced
disappearances of leftwing militants, suspected members of the
Communist Party of the Philippines and its New People’s Army, and
journalists and media practitioners have also declared that the
Philippines has a culture of impunity.
Even the Philippine Commission on
Human Rights has condemned the “culture of impunity that exists”
in this country because the authorities are pretending that there is
no such thing.
The reality that the culture of
impunity—in regard to human rights—indeed reigns in our nation
moved Chief Justice Reynato Puno to organize a national summit on
extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances.
Writ of amparo
Thanks to that summit and Chief
Justice Puno, the Writ of Amparo and the Writ of Habeas Data have
entered our judicial system. Both are needed to supplement the
efficacy of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, which lawyers for government
agents and their paramilitary assistants, helped by some
government-affiliated members of the criminal-justice system,
emasculate or altogether ignore—with impunity.
Amparo has so far made the police
and military release and reveal the whereabouts of some victims. The
jury is still out on Habeas Data.
Beyond human rights
Chief Justice Puno and those
among the other Supremes who see that the truth must be served by
the High Court must do something similar to what they did last year
to uphold the rule of law against the culture of impunity in human
rights violations.
A summit should be held to
strengthen common sense and weaken the mealy-mouthedness of Malacañang,
Secretary Romulo Neri and the SC justices who ruled that executive
privilege can be used to cover up crimes.
Such a summit should reassert
that official mendacity, bribery and corruption—sins and crimes
not as grave and final as the abduction and then killing of
journalists and witnesses—are just as destructive of our Republic
as human rights abuses. It should declare that rights abuses
continue unabated because of the reign of the culture of impunity.
rq_bas@yahoo.com
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