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Saving OFWs
from the gallows
Regarding the article “Saving OFWs from the
gallows” by Alfredo G. Rosario [November 13, 2008]:
The primary scope of any penalty is to redress
the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is
voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of
expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public
order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as
possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.
If bloodless means are sufficient to defend
against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public
authority should limit itself to such means, because they better
correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are
more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. The Fifth
Commandment states: “Thou shall not murder.”
Today, as a consequence of the possibilities
which the state has for effectively preventing crimes, the cases in
which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity, are
very rare, if not practically non-existent.
There ultimately remains no moral justification
for imposing a sentence of death. Violence begets violence both in
our hearts and in our actions. By continuing the tradition of
responding to killing with state-sanctioned killing, we rob
ourselves of moral consistency and perpetuate that which we seek to
sanction.
Paul Kokoski
234 Columbia Drive
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
L9C 3Y9
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To Joachim Prosper:
Is this racism?
I would like to make a comment on Mr. Joachim
Prosper’s letter to the Editor, Manila Times, dated November 29,
2008.
In his comment regarding PRC-US relations, Mr.
Prosper states that “The problem is that many Americans are racist
and cannot imagine the closeness of a true partnership between their
country with a nation of slant-eyed people.”
I’d like to remind Mr. Prosper that Americans,
by a landslide margin, have just elected a Black-American as their
new President. Is that racism? For decades now, America has been in
partnerships with Japan and South Korea— two nations of obviously
“slant-eyed people.” Is that racism?
Furthermore, although there is a lot that need
to be ironed out between the two nations, America, in effect, has
been in partnership with the PRC in many ways. The most recent
example is joining hands together, along with other nations, to
convince North Korea to forsake their nuclear weapons ambition.
Juantio T. Fuerte
Glen Allen, VA
JTFuerte@aol.com
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