Murder, and justice?

Media

Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: Murder, and justice?
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume XXV (No. 7) July 1949
Year: 1949
Rights
Fulltext: be called for if oil is found in paying quantities, for wells, pipelines, and refineries. It is well to remember, in this connection, that the Mexican Government, which, under President Lazaro Cardenas, in 1938, expropriated all the hold ings of foreign oil companies in that country, is now making strenuous efforts to re-attract foreign cap ital. At one time, Mexico ranked second to the United States in world oil production; today it ranks only sixth. In 1921 it produced 195,000,000 barrels of crude oil, but it produced only 58,000,000 barrels in 1948. It is true that the Mexican Government, at the time of the expropriation wanted to adjust the production to the national consumption. However, the Government now wishes to increase its oil ex ports to obtain much-needed dollars and bolster its currency, but. is having a hard time achieving this. Oil seeps have been known in various parts of the Philippines for many years. Early in the 1920’s, the Richmond Petroleum Company, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of California, drilled four wells in the Bondoc Peninsula area, and while oil in dications were found, oil was not found in paying quantities, and the work was abandoned. The Far East Oil Development Company (a Soriano enter prise) began drilling a year or so before the war and resumed the work after the war in a number of local ities, but no evaluation of the commercial possibilities has as yet been arrived at. Both the Richmond and rhe Soriano enterprises were undertaken under the provisions of the old Petroleum Law of 1920, and the interests of the latter are recognized under the new Law. If the Philippines were found to be rich in oil, as is, for instance, near-by Borneo, then, as in the case of a number of other countries in the world, the royalties paid to the Government might well put an end to all its financial difficulties. The Philippine Government has shown itself exceedingly wise in en larging the opportunities for private investment in this prospective industry. ’’THE dangers of violence that threaten us come not from the heads of individuals but from social circumstances. Murder is an embolus. The disease lies elsewhere. It is not a matter of episodic violence, but of a continuous violation of the principle of the dignity and value of'human life. Actually in our society respect for human life is only a professed, theo retical ideal. We must vigorously remove the obstacles that prevent it from becoming a reality.”—Frederic Wert ham, in “The Show of Violence”. The Manila Lions Club sent a memorandum to President Quirino recently urging the strict enforce ment of the law and the regulations Murder, covering the right to own and to carry and Justice fire-arms and to sell and buy such dead ly weapons. The memorandum was en dorsed by a number of other civic organizations in cluding the American Chamber of Commerce. Not alone the unending newspaper reports of shootings and killings, but the fact that such crimes are frequently carried out in broad daylight in full public view, makes the need for the strictest possible enforcement of the fire-arm regulations obvious to all. But more radical measures should be taken, es pecially with respect to speeding the disposition of murder, cases by the courts. Murder, and indeed all major crime, was com paratively rare in the Philippines before the war. The Filipinos were a notably peaceable and law- abid ing people. Conditions during the enemy occupation combined in every way to lower the sense of the dignity and value of human life. The Japanese, as a race, no toriously had no sense of this, and their continuous wholesale individual and mass executions and their frequent bloody punitive expeditions, the bitter guer rilla warfare against them, which often degenerated into fighting among the guerrillas themselves, and the general banditry which sprang up among the unhap py population when the enforcement of normal law and order became impossible, — all this plunged the Philippines into a welter of blood. The summary killing of informers and traitors in those days came to be justified in the popular mind, and, in a sense, every man came to regard himself as accuser and judge and executioner, if need be, of his neighbor. Death from exhaustion, illness, and starvation became so common as hardly to shock anyone any more. People died in the streets and passers-by walk ed around the corpses. Infants and young children died by the thousands. Then, with the liberation, came the massacres in which tens of thousands of helpless civilians were shot or bayonetted or burned alive by the ferocious enemy. This was followed by the extermination of several hundred thousand of Japanese by the Amer ican armed forces and the Filipino auxiliaries. The land was soaked in blood and everywhere was the stench of decaying flesh. The war over, fire-arms of all kinds, without number, issued by the American army or captured from the enemy, were left in the hands of the people. Government efforts to collect them have been largely futile. The lawless elements refuse to surrender them; the more law-abiding feel they need them for self-protection. Not only did banditry continue to be widespread, but an insurrectory movement, — that of the Hukbalahap, developed into what amounted almost to civil war which has not even now been completely sup pressed despite large-scale military engagements and much killing, including the killing of hundreds of non combattants. In one way or another, millions have died in the Philippines since the fateful year, 1941, and in the minds of many life has become cheap. Many of the men who killed others during the terrible years of the war, either legitimately or otherwise and with or without justification, now live among us, largely in distinguishable from each other or from the rest, and some of them keep on killing. There are many possible motives for murder. It is preeminantly a passional crime and thus subject to mitigation in punishment. But murder nowadays in many cases is almost without motive or utterly wanton. The killer says: I wanted something he had, I killed him. He stood in my way, I killed him. He resisted me, I killed him. He was afraid of me, I killed him. He annoyed me, I killed him. So does the most worthless wretch build up his ego and the weakling gain a sense of power and do mination. I, the merciless and the invincible; I and my gun. Oppose me, — look at me sidelong, and die. In the end he kills indifferently, with only a faint bloodlust, and every man he meets becomes a poten tial victim. Such criminals are like vicious beasts. Nothing can be done with them; they can only be exterminat ed. The war brought us great wreckage of material things. The human wreckage includes the impoverish ed, the crippled, the ill, and also the morally wrecked 278 men, — thore who have lost all sense of rectitude and honor and have become hopelessly corrupt; thieves and robbers and bandits and kidnappers; and the al most passionless killers. There is no salvaging of the latter, especially. The police, the courts, the execu tioner can only deal summarily with them. Instructions to that effect should go out from the Central Government. The traditional law’s de lays should not be permitted to obstruct swift justice, especially in those cases where killers are caught redhanded and there can be no doubt of their guilt. There should be no foolish sentimentality, no truck ling to “influence,” no leniency. Judicial mercjr is misplaced in the case of those who themselves showed no mercy in the shooting down of their victims. A lawyer told us that a man came into his office some time ago who had been sentenced to from three to seventeen years’ imprisonment for murder. Now, after three years, he was out. And he was packing a .45! How was it that this man was given a license to carry a gun? Why was he loose at all? The news papers recently reported after a shooting affray be tween two notorious Tondo gangsters, that both men were licensed to carry guns! Such a state of affairs amounts to official complicity in murder. The country needs a clean-up not only of crimi nals but in the official agencies whose function it is to deal with criminals. And it should begin at the top and go down to the bottom of the whole hierarchy. The 4-H Clubs A Suggestion for the Philippines since its inception We, in the Philippines, who are vitally concerned in the improvement of the conditions under which the younger generation is being brought up throughout our rural areas, should take an interest in a remarkable youth organization in the United States which, __ in 1914, has helped to develop, physically, mentally, and morally, over 10,000,000 young citizens, and has also increased farm incomes, raised standards of living, and added greatly to the satisfactions of country life. We refer to the 4-H Clubs, for rural boys and girls between the ages of 10 and 20. The insignia of the clubs is a four-leafed clover with an H in each leaf, standing for head, heart, hands, and health. The movement has spread not only throughout the United States but to Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico, and is also being developed in many foreign countries. It appears to be well suited to Philippine conditions and needs, too. The 4-H Club work is a part of the national agricultural extension system organized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in cooperation with State colleges of agriculture and the county extension or ganizations under the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 and other acts of Congress and of the State legislatures. The Clubs are usually organized and conducted under the immediate supervision of county extension agents cooperatively employed by the Department, the colleges, and the county governments. Clergymen, teachers, and other professional men and women, to gether with outstanding farmers and homemakers play an important part as local leaders in the devel opment of the work which now, in the United States alone, reaches some 2,000,000 rural young people each year. A club member does a piece of work each year which demonstrates or teaches “the better way in homemaking or agriculture” in somewhat the same manner as the school and home “projects” presently conducted in the Philippines by the public schools. The main difference appears to be that the Amer ican movement stresses the club idea as well as the individual effort. And each individual project is giv en more importance than it is here through the fact that each member keeps a record of costs, labor, and results; explains the work to others; takes part in an annual exhibit, and writes a final report which sum marizes the years’ work and often recounts the changed attitudes experienced through the activity undertaken. According to a guidebook published for local leaders by the Department of Agriculture, the 4-H Club work provides opportunities for voluntary part icipation in programs, built on needs and interests, through which rural boys and girls are — 1. Developing talents for greater usefulness. 2. Joining with friends for work, fun, and fellowship. 3. Learning to live in a changing world. 4. Choosing a way to earn a living. 6. Producing food and other products for home and market. 6. Creating better homes for better living. 7. Conserving nature’s resources for security and hap piness. 8. Building health for a strong America. 9. Sharing responsibilities for community improvement. The Smith-Lever Act declared the purpose under lying Federal aid to the Extension Service to be: “...to aid in diffusing among the people of the United States useful and practical information on subjects relating to agriculture and home economics and to encourage the ap plication of the same... That cooperative agricultural ex tension work shall consist of the giving of instruction and practical demonstrations in agriculture and home economics to persons not attending or resident in said colleges... and imparting to such persons information on said subjects through field demonstrations, publications, and otherwise.’’ The distinctive educational objectives of the 4-H Clubs are to help rural boys and girls develop desir able ideals and standards for farming, homemaking, community life, and citizenship; to afford them tech nical instruction; to give them an opportunity to learn by doing; to teach them the value of research and develop a scientific attitude toward their prob lems; to train them in cooperative action; to develop in them habits of healthful living; to provide them direction in the intelligent use of leisure; to arouse in them worthy ambitions and a desire to continue to learn; to teach them and to demonstrate methods designed to improve practices in agriculture and homemaking. The aim is to increase their sense of responsibility; to give them a view of agriculture as a basic industry and of homemaking as a worthy occupation; to increase their accomplishments and, through associated effort, better assist in the solving of rural problems; all so they may live fuller and richer and more useful lives. Club activities include team demonstrations; work in judging; special club days; dramatics, page ants, and music; tours and nature hikes; camps; ex hibits; club events at state agricultural colleges; spe cial ceremonies, etc. Some of the projects involve gardening and the raising of various crops, the feeding and handling of young farm animals, farm-machinery maintenance, home-ground development, home-improvement, home sanitation, planting of flowers, shrubs, and trees, problems in soil-conservation, problems in forestry, 280