PHILIPPINE

LAW REGISTER
Issue No. 2 | January 2017

STRONGMEN
A N D T H E R U L E O F L AW
 Editorial Team

Gian Carlo Velasco

Editor-in-Chief

Samantha King
Managing Editor

Kathleen Tantuico
Business Manager

Tatiana Avila ()
Art Director / Layout Artist

Karla Bernardo
Jeo Angelo Elamparo
Maria Veronica Manalo
Eugene Pedro
Melanie Pinlac
Board of Editors and Writers

Maximo Paulino T. Sison III
Atty. Ramon Quintin Allado
Atty. Odina Batnag
Atty. Jesus Nicardo Falcis III
Dr. Manuel Jose Oyson
Ana Alexandra Castro
Karmy Galope
Carlos Hernandez, Jr.
Allan Chester Nadate
Contributors

Prof. Dante Gatmaytan
Atty. Jilliane Joyce R. De Dumo
Faculty and Alumni Advisers
 CONTENTS

06 INTRODUCTION
07 STRONGMAN RULE
08 Idolizing Marcos
11 Fear
13 The Strongman Cometh

18 THE RIGHT TO DISSENT

19 Martial Law, the Press, and Du30
21 Here Come the Trolls

23 THE ORGANIZED LEFT, SEXUALITY, AND RELIGION

24 All the Presidents Men
27 Addressing Machismo, Empowering Women
29 Reducing Suicide Ideation and Risk in the LGBT Community
31 When the Pot Calls the Kettle Black, How can theKettle Fight Back?
33 A New Era of Philippine Church and State Relations
undertheDuterte Presidency

38 THE RIGHT TO LIFE

39 Probing the Human Rights Violated by the Rise
inExtrajudicial Killings
41 The Assault on the Rule ofLaw and the Descent intoDespotism
43 Defending the Drug War
47 The Death Penalty andtheValue of Human Life

HUMAN INTEREST
15 A Call to Arms
35 Honor and Excellence in Sports
48 Reflections on Philippine Forensic Linguistics

FEATURED ARTICLE
51 The Rule of Law in the Philippines

53 REFERENCES

The Death Penalty and the Value of Human Life
Allan Chester Nadate
O
n the date of his execution in
1999, convicted rapist Leo
Echegaray had the following
words to say: Pilipino, pinatay
ng kapwa Pilipino.1
After the Supreme Court affirmed
his conviction2 and denied staying his
lethal injection, 3 after then-President
Joseph Estrada ordered the removal of
a hotline to his office to obviate any
expectation of a reprieve, and after
the Congress rejected amendments to
the law on the death penalty,4 these
words constituted the final protest of
Echegaray against the State.
Two decades later, it acquires a
disturbing resonance for the nation
that once adjudged him of forfeit[ing]
his place in human society.5 The
Duterte Administration has welcomed
the reinstitution of the death penalty,6
with the President himself asking
lawmakers for its revival and with
several Senators and Representatives
quickly extending their support.7
This position is not unexpected,
considering the tough stance of
the President against criminality
and substance abuse. With his
war on drugs headlining local and
international media; with his belief
that violent crimes are mostly drug-
related;8 and with his credo that the
death penalty amounts to a fair or
just retribution, 9 the possibility of
the death sentence returning to court
fallos is becoming less and less remote.
That the first bill filed in the Lower
House proposes the reimposition of
the death penalty for drug traffickers
further speaks of the willingness of
the State to trigger the constitutional
PHILIPPINE LAW REGISTER
prescription allowing the same,10 criminality is also a health concern
and in so doing, open the gallows to and a public issue.
hang at least 50 drug lords and other
Thus, the controversy is not
convicts [] every month.11
merely concerned with the timeliness
This resurgence, however, is of reviving the death penalty today,
problematic in several respects. but also with the overall validity of the
assumption that the State is capable
First, the Philippines obligated
of appraising the real value of human
itself internationally to do away with
life to the point that its apparatuses
the death penalty on the idea that
can even determine when the latter
its abolition contributes to [the]
no longer has any. The self-arrogated
enhancement of human dignity and
power to decide who should live and
[the] progressive development of
who should die has never been just a
human rights. 12
question of legality; it has also been
Second, its efficacy in deterring one of legitimacy.17 The ethical aspect,
crime has not been proven. More than in other words, cannot so easily be
1,200 inmates were languishing on brushed aside.
the death row prior to its suspension
Unique and sibylline, defying its
in 2006, negating the argument that
very implausibility, the life of each
it dissuaded many from committing
human being constitutes a story, a
a crime.13
narrative, characterized by victories
Beyond these reasons, however, and setbacks that no one else but
lies the central question of whether the him or her as the direct participant
monopoly of legality14 of the State can truly, fully appreciate. Without
through the democratic and republican question, the law is still the law,
order it espouses can destroy what despite its harshness; but, despite
Justice Jose Laurel denominated as a its mystery, a life is still a life too,
particle of sovereignty.15 imbued with limitless potential,
infinite in its finitude, its complex
The circumstances of today nature too elusive, too profound for
p r e s e n t t h e p e o p l e w i t h t h e the reductionist grasp of any case, any
opportunity to examine the worth of
statute, or any commentary.
a persons life, that is to say, whether
or not anyone can be so criminal or Faced with the statements of
vile so as to deserve being stripped Duterte and the volte-face of the
off of his or her inherent value country from its self-proclaimed
as a human being.16 The question Christianity, therefore, the last words
requires the study not only of the of Echegaray return to flash like
various instruments of human rights the proverbial writing on the wall,
legislation, but also of the insights of signaling perhaps the end of a more
medical doctors and social scientists, enlightened age in the history of the
since aside from being a legal problem, nation.
Issue No. 2 47
 PHILIPPINE LAW REGISTER
kinamusta ang kalagayan nila. Anong kailangan mo? Paano
mo mapapabuti ang gusto mong gawin? Sino ba naman yung
anak na hindi matutuwa sa ganoon? Major Filemon Tan of
the Western Mindanao Command based in Zamboanga City
told me.).
13. J.S. Mill, Representative government (1861), at http://
www.gutenberg.org/files/5669/5669-h/5669-h.htm (A good
despotism is an altogether false ideal, which practically [except as
a means to some temporary purpose] becomes the most senseless
and dangerous of chimeras. Evil for evil, a good despotism, in a
country at all advanced in civilization, is more noxious than a bad
one, for it is far more relaxing and enervating to the thoughts,
feelings, and energies of the people.).
14. M. Ramos, Junkies are not humans, Phil. Daily Inquirer
(Aug. 28, 2016), at http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/810395/junkies-
are-not-humans.
Shoot to Kill II: The Assault on the Rule of Law
andthe Descent into Despotism
1. Brigada: Ano ang Oplan Tokhang, GMA News Online (July
12, 2016), at www.gmanetwork.com/news/video/376781.
2. Kristine Daguno-Bersamina, Duterte declares state of
lawnessness after Davao Blast, Phil. Star (Sept. 3, 2016), at
www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/09/03/162005.
3. III Politics, xv, 5, quoted in John Dickenson, Administrative
Justice and the Supremacy of Law in the United States
(1927).
4. EWHC KB J98, 95 E.R. 807 (1765).
5. Attributed to Edmunde Burke in Bartletts Familiar Quotations
(1968).
6. Karen Lima & Manuel Mogato, Philippines Duterte likens
himself to Hitler, wants to kill millions of drug users, Reuters
(Oct. 1, 2016), at www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-
duterte-hitler.
The Death Penalty and the Value of Human Life
1. A Filipino, killed by fellow Filipinos. Leo de Castro,
Bitay Death by Lethal Injection, 13 KASAMA (Solidarity
Philippines Australia Network) (1999), at http://cpcabrisbane.
org/Kasama/1999/V13n1/Bitay.htm.
2. People v. Echegaray, G.R. No. 117472, 257 SCRA 561, June 25,
1996, affd 267 SCRA 682, Feb. 7, 1997.
3. Echegaray v. Secretary of Justice, G.R. No. 132601, 301 SCRA
96, June 25, 1996.
4. Mike Cohen and Reuters, Philippines executes first prisoner
in 23 years, CNN (Feb. 5, 1999), at http://edition.cnn.com/
WORLD/asiapcf/9902/05/philippines.execution.02.
5. People v. Echegaray, G.R. No. 117472, 257 SCRA 561, 564,
June 25, 1996.
6. See Gil C. Cabacungan, Duterte: Death penalty for heinous
crimes in case theres no God, Phil. Daily Inquirer (Sept.
56 Issue No. 2
26, 2016), at http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/819219/duterte-death-
penalty-for-heinous-crimes-in-case-theres-no-god ([President
Duterte] sought for a return of the death penalty because that
would be the only way to win justice for the victims of heinous
crimes.).
7. Christine O. Avendao, Death penalty bills to come alive in
new Senate, Phil. Daily Inquirer (June 29, 2016), at http://
newsinfo.inquirer.net/793019/death-penalty-bills-to-come-
alive-in-new-senate; Pacquiao files bill on death penalty for
drug-related crimes, ABS-CBN News (October 13, 2016), at
http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/13/16/pacquiao-files-bill-on-
death-penalty-for-drug-related-crimes.
8. Clare Baldwin & Andrew R.C. Marshall, As death toll rises,
Duterte deploys dubious data in war on drugs, Reuters (Oct.
18, 2016), at http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/
philippines-duterte-data.
9. Duterte: Death penalty not to deter crime but for retribution,
GMA News Online (June 22, 2016), at http://www.gmanetwork.
com/news/story/570960/news/nation/duterte-death-penalty-not-
to-deter-crime-but-for-retribution.
10. Const. art. III, 19(1).
11. Jess Diaz, Duterte eyeing 50 executions every month lawmaker,
Phil. Star (June 10, 2016), at http://www.philstar.com/
headlines/2016/06/10/1591456/duterte-eyeing-50-executions-
every-month-lawmaker.
12. Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death
penalty, G.A. res. 44/128, annex, 44 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No.
49) at 207, U.N. Doc. A/44/49 (1989).
13. Sarah Toms, Philippines stops death penalty, BBC News (June
24, 2006), at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5112696.
stm.
14. Carl Schmitt, Legality and Legitimacy 19 (1932) (Jeffrey
Seitzer, trans.) (Duke University Press 2004).
15. Moya v. del Fierro, G.R. No. 46863, 69 Phil. 199, 204, Nov.
18, 1939.
16. Tony Castleman, The role of human recognition in development,
44 Oxford Developmental Studies 135, 135 (2016).
17. Although not absolutely banning it, both the Constitution and
the Church indubitably abhor the death penalty. Both are pro-
people and pro-life. Both clearly recognize the primacy of human
life over and above even the state which man created precisely
to protect, cherish and defend him. Echegaray v. Secretary of
Justice, G.R. No. 132601, 301 SCRA 96, 150, Jan. 19, 1999
(Panganiban, J., separate opinion).
The Rule of Law in the Philippines
1. Report of the Secretary-General on the rule of law and transitional
justice in conflict and post-conflict societies (S/2004/616),
para.6.
2. Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process
(1922).