Of Principals, Accomplices and Accessories

Of Principals, accomplices and accessories

When a crime is committed by a single person, the burden of the prosecution is simple: it has to present evidence establishing the elements of the crime and the identity of the accused who committed the same. On the other hand, prosecution of a crime is difficult when it is committed by two or more actors. In such a case, the evidence must show not only the elements of the crime but the participation of all the accused in the commission thereof as well. The evidence must show whether they have acted as principals or accomplices.

Of course, accessories are criminally liable also. However, they do not have any participation in the commission of the crime. Their liability is limited to the acts that they have performed after the principal/s had committed it. 

 First Week, September

Under the Revised Penal Code, a principal is criminally liable for taking direct part in the commission of the crime, or inducing another to commit it, or giving indispensable cooperation to the same. On the other hand, a person is considered as accomplice to the crime if he or she gives material or moral support to the principal accused before or during its commission without any participation in the criminal conspiracy between or among said principals. Principals and accomplices in a crime, as well as those who have acted after its commission as accessories, should be prosecuted if justice is to be done. Full accountability demands that liability should be exacted from all those who have violated the law.

With these basic principles in mind, all persons who have a hand in the pork barrel scam must be exposed and prosecuted. In truth, Janet Lim-Napoles could not have amassed those funds without the indispensable cooperation of officials from the Department of Budget and Management and the direct participation of some Senators and Congressmen. Also, she would not have the callousness to display a lavished lifestyle if she was not assured of protection from high-ranking government officials. Documents pertaining to the pork barrel scam will disclose their common intention of stealing the public funds. Accordingly, they should all be prosecuted for Plunder and the Malversation of Public Funds pursuant to existing laws. In addition, people who have benefited from these acts of despoliation of the public treasury and those who have facilitated or attempted to assist them to evade prosecution should be hailed to court as accessories. This is what justice requires.  

The clamor for accountability and demand for blood must be satisfied if the public is to be pacified. Half-way efforts towards these ends can only be considered as attempts to thwart justice and ridicule the public will.

Of course, all these efforts will go to waste until the source of this evil is totally abolished. Discretionary funds are always prone to abuse and corruption. Their existence gives rise to legions of abuses as no mortal has the power to resist the luxuries and power that they offer to anyone who has access to them. Hence, they should all be abolished. There is no other way but this.  

Rebellion

Government spokespersons have announced that rebellion raps will be filed against Nur Misuari and some leaders of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). They conveniently tagged Misuari’s group as a faction of the MNLF despite of the fact that nobody in the MNLF has tried to contradict or disavow the action of the group. Perhaps a deliberate effort to make the incident appear as an isolated armed assault by a faction of the MNLF, the tag does not describe well in a conspiracy of silence among the other leaders of the Moro armed group.

Compared with arson, murder or torture, rebellion is more reputable as it implies some political sense. In times when the government is plagued with corruptions and accused of neglecting the welfare of its people, rebellion ceased to be a shameful crime. At other times, rebels are hailed as heroes because they take direct political action when others are shamefully silent on the political injustices perpetrated by the government. Somehow the charge of rebellion implies some moral justification for the action of its perpetrators.

Rebellion is also a convenient excuse for atrocities committed by its perpetrators. Rebellion absorbs all violent crimes committed on its occasion or pursuant to the same. Arsons and murders may not be prosecuted separately from rebellion; they are to be proved as integral element thereof. This principle has been affirmed by the Supreme Court in several cases in the past.

             Despite of the seeming logic of this principle, critics are unconvinced of its utility. Prosecuting perpetrators for rebellion means that the government has to let go of the killings and destruction that they have committed. The killings and the destructions committed by rebels would become a mere component of the crime of rebellion. This means that perpetrators have to account only for rebellion whose penalty is lower than the penalty for arson or murder.

The penalty for rebellion is not the supreme penalty under the Revised Penal Code. Only leaders of rebellion face a prison term of twenty years and one day to forty years, which is actually lesser than life imprisonment. Their followers face only a maximum of twenty-year prison term and enjoy the right to post bail for their provisional liberties.

Rebellion is not easy to prosecute also. Showing that an armed group encamped in a barangay and killed members of the security forces that attempted to flush them out would not be sufficient. Motive should be proven even if jurisprudence tells that motive is not an element of a crime. Since rebellion is a political crime, proof must be adduced showing the political motive of the offender to overthrow the government or to remove allegiance to the government any part of the Philippine territory. Certainly, a declaration by the perpetrators that they went to the place to conduct a peace rally does not show the political motive needed to nail them for rebellion. Government prosecutors must adduce more evidence to establish the necessary motive.

And finally, no claim for damages or compensation may be made by victims against the accused in rebellion. There is no civil liability to speak of in rebellion because the crime is deemed committed against the public order. Claimants become faceless participants in a play where the State is trying to pin down a group of scoundrels who used armed violence to challenge its authority. Victims of atrocities are left in the margin waiting their turn to be called to trial so that they can identify the perpetrators and make a detail narration of their harrowing experiences. Sadly, their services would be terminated without any compensation or any sign of gratitude from the State which purport to represent their interest in the trial.      

Armed Violence in Zamboanga City

3rd Week September

News reports claimed that around a hundred fighters of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) have taken hostage some civilians in Zamboanga City. As of this writing, the firefight between MNLF fighters and government troops is still ongoing. Meanwhile, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is on heightened alert because of reported attacks by the combined forces of the MNLF, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Abu Sayaff in other areas in Mindanao. Once again, the region is mired in chaos, bloodshed and uncertainty.

The MNLF had launched a separatist rebellion in the 1970s against the Philippine government in a bid to establish an independent Bangsamoro Republic in Mindanao. These armed hostilities have ceased with the signing of the Final Peace Agreement in 1996 between the MNLF and the government.  As part of the agreement, many fighters of the MNLF were absorbed in the AFP while the claim for a separate republic gave way to a renewed autonomous region. Despite of this, critics and the hardcore elements of the MNLF have continued to assert that the fight for the right to self-determination of the Bangsamoro people remains alive.

Meanwhile, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a splinter group of the MNLF, has continued with its claim for an Islamic Bangsamoro Republic in Mindanao. The government has tried both military and political approaches to deal with the MILF. The Estrada Administration had launched a total war against the MILF but failed to root out the armed group from the region. The Arroyo administration had tried to make peace with the MILF. Its effort towards peace resulted to the forging of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain Aspect of the Tripoli Agreement (MOA-AD).   However, the controversies which the agreement created and the oppositions posed by many traditional politicians prevented the signing of the agreement.

Last year, the Aquino Administration has announced the signing of the Framework Agreement between the MILF and the government. In the hindsight, the Framework Agreement is a soft version of the aborted MOA-AD. Practically, it is Episode 1 of the MOA-AD.

Meanwhile, Chairman Nur Misuari of the MNLF has declared the establishment of the Independent Republic of Mindanao. His declaration failed to get serious attention from the national media; not much was heard from concerned government agencies also. And now, the armed clashes between the MNLF and government forces put Zamboanga City in the center of the Philippines. They give Misuari’s declaration the attention that it did not get before.   Is this the opening salvo of a renewed armed conflict between the MNLF and the Philippine government?

Nothing is certain at this point. An internal armed conflict is a protracted armed violence between an armed dissident group and the government. Whether the MNLF can still sustain a protracted armed campaign against the government remains to be seen. Most of its fighters are aged but veterans of the armed conflict that lasted for almost two decades. On the other hand, the government claimed it will certainly contain the armed violence and prevent it from spilling out of Zamboanga City. However, its actions in the past days show its capability to do so.

If there is anything certain, it is none other than the displacement and suffering that the armed clashes are bringing to innocent civilians. As long as the fighting continues, civilians will continue to suffer injuries and sustain damages. The fighting must stop now. By what means? Let the circumstances dictate the strategy and the tactics. 

PERKS

The government has explained that the bonuses which the officials of the Social Security System (SSS) have received are legally justified. No statute prohibits the P1 million performance bonus granted to each member of the Board of Trustees. Emilio De Quiros, Jr., the Executive Officer of the SSS, was even quoted to justify the grant as necessary since the system needs to compensate its officials well if it is to compete with the private sector in hiring competitive people. In other words, such “perks” make the SSS competitive with private social insurance companies.

Of course, the reasoning is flawed. No right thinking person can agree to that.  

So what if it is legally permissible? Does it give the SSS Board the right to appropriate P276 million worth of bonuses? 

In the first place, these officials are not chosen because of their supposed qualifications to hold an equivalent position in private companies. Members of the Board are chosen because they are supposed to represent the interest of the stakeholders in the SSS. The law provides for their representation. Their appointments have nothing to do with these professional qualifications. And secondly, the fund and its profits are not for them to squander. The SSS funds are intended for specific purpose that not even the President of the Philippines could touch the. As such, the SSS officials should not be so reckless in handling the funds entrusted to their care.

One wonders whether these officials are living in a different moral order. De Quiros’ moral justification fails in every conceivable moral maxim unless by some arbitrary machination we may be forced to believe that in this case, the end justifies the means. And even by this remote possibility, Machiavellian logic would likely reject such ethical re-formulation since the ends that the SSS has advanced is highly dubious and inexplicable.

            Under existing practice, political appointees to government-owned and controlled corporations normally enjoy some perks. These perks, (the term is beginning to sound more of “pork”), are extended to officials of these corporations to keep them in the public service and draw them away from the lure of fat salaries in private companies. Such idea is also flawed of course. It conveys the uncanny equation between luxuries and public service. In a country where the poor could not afford even the so-called free public education, luxuries—including occasional ones—for public officials are a scandal. And thus, any justification for “perks” in the name of public service fails, not only because of the inherent contradictions of these terms, but by simple logic as well. There is no such thing as sweet dreams in the middle of a nightmare. Awake or not, one simply could not believe that it exists even in a dream land.  

            So what is to be done to this anomalous practice of giving perks to public officials to keep them in the public service?

Abolish the perks, dismiss the officials. This is the only logical answer to the question. Contrary to the notion of some people, talents are not wanting in the bureaucracy and the rosters of government-owned and controlled corporations. Talents and geniuses are there. What is wanting is the political will that can discover and place them in their proper places. Bribes are not necessary to make them do their best. What public servants need is equitable and decent compensation that afford them dignified existence and assures good future for their love ones. Unlike those who have been appointed because of patronage and political affiliation, talented and dedicated public servants live by becoming living examples of the mandate of their position.

             

Crimes and Rewards

Promising rewards for information significant for the capture of big time criminals is not new. However, it does not happen all the time. The PNP rarely offers rewards for information that can lead to the arrest of suspects, notorious or otherwise. In few instances, the victims’ relatives also gamble away a huge amount of money in exchange or vital information that can lead to the arrest of suspects and the resolution of the crimes.

The community is one of the pillars of the criminal justice system. Almost all theories of law enforcement and penology point to the importance of public participation in criminal investigation and prosecution. The preservation of order and public peace serves as the primary goal of law enforcement. The foundation and the ends of the criminal justice system lead to the people. However, because of the continuing failure of the system to assure people of fast and effective justice, public participation has given way to indifference and apathy. These in turn lead to the loss of the civic consciousness of the citizens.

Offering reward to induce public participation in criminal investigations shows the weak state of our law enforcement. It indicates the failure of the law enforcement agencies to do their job of putting suspects behind bars. As stated, it reflects the loss of the civic consciousness of the citizenry.  Material incentives have replaced the spirit of voluntarism which has been the foundation of sound public order.

Law enforcement authorities usually release a “Most Wanted” poster disclosing the bounty placed on the head of each suspect listed therein. Meanwhile, the National Internal Revenue Code states the instances where rewards maybe claimed by informers who tipped off the authorities about violations of the revenue code.

Since rewards cannot be promised in all instances, they also reflect the unequal treatment that government officials give to the cases pending before them. The case of a beautiful and rich young lady who was killed by unidentified suspects after her late night hang-out in Global City illustrates this point. The Las Pinas government has offered a P500, 000.00 rewards for any information that can lead to the identification and arrest of the suspects. Later, Malacanang raised the bounty to P2.5 million.  After the authorities announced the P2.5 million rewards for anyone who could provide information that may lead to the arrest of the suspects, somebody surrendered to the NBI and admitted that he was one of those who abducted and stabbed the victim.

Indeed, money works in mysterious ways. In another instance, a P10 million reward was offered by no less than the highest official of the Aquino administration for the arrest of the suspected mastermind of the pork barrel scam. The ploy seemed to work as the suspect surrendered to Malacanang officials immediately after the announcement of the unusually big bounty. Her lawyer reasoned out that people are out to kill or find her and surrendering to the President would pre-empt bounty hunters from finding her. Hers is a special case of course. In no other instance has any Philippine President offered money for information and the arrest of a suspected criminal. This was first in Philippine history.

Public moneys are usually used to pay informer’s rewards. Yet, not every victim is given this special treatment. Many heinous crimes remain unresolved for many years, if not for eternity, because they have not been given such special treatment. They have become cold cases because no hot moneys were put into them as bounties for their resolution. As in life, victims of heinous killings continue to suffer even after death because of poverty. Their deaths do not make them equal with others who lived and died in affluence. The institution of the living is not capable of giving them the treatment they would have in the afterlife. Yes, money works in mysterious ways. Unfortunately, it does work as such only for those who have it in the first place.

Nth PCOS Question

            Ateneo Professor Lex Muga put it lightly when he disclosed his observation that the election results seem to reveal a 60-30-10 pattern. He did not claim that there was fraud in the election despite his discovery that in all the 16 canvass of ballots, the administration slate consistently got 60 percent of the votes, the UNA got 30 percent, while the independent candidates got 10 percent (see http://wew.interaksyon.com/article/64021/midterm-polls-a-month-after--fraud-doubts-linger-as-pcos-defects-surface).

The Comelec continues to deny the probability of electronic rigging. Contrary to the claim that the vote counts of the PCOS followed a pattern (60-30-10), Comelec is maintaining that the seeming symmetry in the results’ ratios is merely due to computer glitches caused by faulty CF cards. The results do not indicate any technical fraud or a mishandling of the elections.

Assuming that we accept this as a fact, should we feel comfortable about the workings of the PCOS?

The PCOS machines had cost our taxpayers billions of pesos. They were purchased not to make the work of the Comelec easier but to secure the credibilty and efficiency of the electoral process. As such, there should be no room for any question that will give rise to speculations and worries.

The alleged pattern disclosed by the results of the PCOS cannot just be brushed aside as product of computer glitches. The synchronized ratios that the machines have generated are alarming. They feed the people’s distrust of the technology and trigger the suspicion that the election body had played dirty with the people’s votes.

The PCOS machines had counted something more than a public opinion. They have scanned and tabulated the sovereign will of the people. Any error or possibility of error in their results must alarm us about the credibility of their functionings. The flimsy ratiocination of the Comelec will not be sufficient to dispel serious questions on the manner by which it has handled the past elections. Understandably, the Comelec will defend the PCOS against the assaults of critics since they were conceived as its saving grace from previous controversies. However, its blanket denial of the questions about the PCOS is highly reprehensible. Its constitutional duty is to safeguard the elections and not to shield any election system from public questions and scrutiny. Failing in its constitutional duty, the Comelec should be made accountable for violation of its mandate. More than giving a general response to the critics’ claim of high-handed rigging, the election body owes us a credible accounting of how it has administered the last election. 

Questions related to the 2016 Presidential election have dominated the broadcast and print media already. News about government and politics are linked to the coming Presidential election. For sure, the Comelec will find means to make its works easier again. In fact, it has intimited its inclination to use same PCOS machines in 2016. Unfortunately, such intimations have only worsened the continuing distrust on the system that the Comelec has adopted in running the elections. The Comelec officials have to deal with the doubts about the automated election system to assure that the next elections will be more acceptable and trustworthy. They should not fail in rectifying whatever mistakes that they have committed during the past elections. Whether they like or not, the PCOS is one of the biggest mistakes that they have to account for and rectify before the next election. This must be so because the future of the country is too high a price to gamble away for these dubious machines. 

New Faces, Old Problems

The difficult days of new local officials have started. By tradition, their first 100 days are expected to showcase the changes that are bound to happen under the new administration. Solutions for the most pressing problems, or at least the efforts at finding them, must be evident if the newly installed administration is to get the support of its constituents during its term.

The problems left behind by past administrations are usually intractable. They are real problems which may involve the machinery of the government or the lives of the people whom the elected officials have sworn to serve. They are not a product of simple miscalculations or indiscretion in the use of public power. For most part, they are about lack of resources and the failure of governance in the face of grave societal problems such as environmental degradation, poverty, violence, deep-seated apathy and the distrust among people.  

New officials will soon feel the crippling helplessness that others before them have felt. The dysfunctions of government and the temptation to give up at finding solutions seem inevitable as the tasks needed to address even the most basic social problems continue to pile up with the passing of time.

While finding solutions to these concerns is extremely difficult, the efforts needed to resolve them are not insurmountable. Of course, such task will demand not only resources but the best of talents as well. Resources and talents are exhaustible materials; unfortunately, they are sometimes both lacking in our local government units.   

Experience shows that the national government does not devote sufficient resources for any local concerns. Sometimes, autonomy and devolution tend to worsen the stagnation and paralysis of many poor municipalities and provinces. Most of the time, local government units have to secure loans from private and public financial institutions to carry out their development programs. Also, partnership with private companies becomes convenient leeway to build new infrastructures and acquire equipment and facilities to deliver social services to the people. Because of this, many local government units have started to become excessively entangled with the complexity and problems brought by privatization of public functions and the liberalization of public policies.

            Local governments should be encouraged to link with educational institutions to address their shortage of creative human resources. The synergy that this partnership creates will work well for both of them. On one hand, this will help local govenments find the needed skills and talents to resolve many of their concerns. On the other hand, this partnership can enrich the academics as they will have the chance to test their knowledge and theories through practice.