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Friday, June 30, 2006
Malilong: Changing one’s mind on the death penalty
By Frank Malilong Jr.
The Other Side
Rep. Antonio Cuenco voted for the Death Penalty Law and has bemoaned its abolition. Rep. Eduardo Gullas voted against it and, not surprisingly, strongly supported its repeal.
“The question of capital punishment,” said Clarence Darrow more than 80 years ago, “has been the subject of endless discussion and will probably never be settled so long as men believe in punishment.”
The Supreme Court quoted Darrow’s prediction in its decision in the Leo Echegaray rape case. “In our clime and time when heinous crimes continue to be unchecked, the debate on the legal and moral predicates of capital punishment has been regrettably blurred by emotionalism because of the unfaltering faith of the pro and anti-death partisans on the right and righteousness of their postulates,” the Court said.
I do not know how the other Cebu congressmen voted on Republic Act No. 7659 and on the law that repealed it. I just hope that they were as consistent as Cuenco and Gullas.
Eddiegul has always been pro-life. He was one of the first to denounce the summary execution of petty criminals by suspected vigilante squads in Cebu City. When I wrote here that many people actually supported the idea of permanently eliminating the criminals, he called me up and argued passionately why no one should be allowed to play God with the lives of other people. No, not even the government, as his vote on the Death Penalty Law would show.
You admire people for their convictions even if they are different from yours. What is disgusting are those who change their stand at the mere drop of a hat. They are opportunists.
When Echegaray’s petition to stay his date with the lethal injection chamber was deliberated upon by the Supreme Court, 113 congressmen, led by Rep. Roilo Golez of Parañaque, signed Resolution No. 629 “expressing the sense of the House of Representatives to reject any move to review” the death penalty law. In addition, the resolution urged then president Erap Estrada to “exhaust all means under the law to immediately implement” the law.
The composition of the House hasn’t changed much since then. So where were the 113 honorable men and women when Congress overwhelmingly voted to kill a law that, only seven years ago, it wanted implemented immediately?
Changing one’s mind isn’t disgraceful per se. It is the reason for doing so that is (disgraceful). Those who voted to erase the law that they themselves had put in the statute books because their conscience told them so are not to be faulted. But come on, 113 or so congressmen having bouts with their conscience all at the same time?
The more likely explanation is that they voted to abolish the death penalty because it is no longer the “in” thing that it was in 1993 when they agreed to impose it.
What matters is what the public wants. Poor Leo Echegaray. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
(fmmalilong@yahoo.com)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 30, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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