Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary has this to say about a particular word in the English language: “a disposition to be merciful and especially to moderate the severity of punishment due.”
The word is clemency.
Ah, what a beautiful word. If one were to associate it with a particular human person, that person could partake the beauty of the word. For instance, if one were to say that the President of the Philippines granted executive clemency to a convicted prisoner, the logical conclusion would be that the President has shown a merciful disposition toward that prisoner.
Given that the Philippines is touted as the only Christian nation in Asia, the President or any other Filipino citizen who performs an act of clemency may be perceived as a true Christian because mercy is one of the important teachings of Christianity.
Clemency, therefore, has the potential to paint an image of excellence for the Filipino in the spiritual area. This would be a great consolation, even if the country fails to show excellence in the political and economic areas of governance.
For one fleeting moment, and thanks to the President, the Filipino nation earned a high score in the spiritual area but not necessarily because of clemency. It was when the death penalty was abolished. That one drew the approval of the Catholic Church. Applause.
Whether the abolition of the death penalty proceeded from the noble intentions of a pure heart is something only the doer and his Maker know. The only certain thing about it was that, just like God’s rain that falls on both the righteous and the wicked, it spared the lives of both the innocent and the guilty.
Was it a strategic preparation for a forthcoming string of executive clemency decisions? “The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.” So the song goes.
If the office of the President instructed the Department of Justice and the bureaus under it to review the judicial cases of all poor, unknown prisoners to find out if they were really given fair trial before they were made to languish in jail, and the review resulted in identifying those who were wrongly imprisoned, and recommendations for their pardon were submitted to the President, and the President granted clemency, then the President would certainly have become the epitome of an Asian Christian, and all the rest of the Filipinos would have rejoiced because they, too, would have shared the President’s honorable image.
Lamentably, the Filipinos have not seen something like that happen. And the people may not have the opportunity to see it happen at all, not with the President that they have in 2009, because the President’s current tenure comes to an end in 2010.
What the Filipinos actually see instead is a long list of big-time, big-name, high-profile convicts for the crimes of plunder, rape, and brutal murder walking out of prison by virtue of Presidential clemency.
Perhaps these convicts have consistently demonstrated remorse and repentance for their crimes by means of humble, exemplary conduct during their term in prison, thus deserving recommendation for Presidential pardon.
But surely, there must be hundreds — or thousands perhaps? — of small-time, no-name, low-profile convicts who are equally, if not more, deserving of the same recommendation. Why have they escaped notice by the Department of Justice people? And why has not the President asked the same question?
It is not good to see that the disposition to mercy does not include the poor and underprivileged. These are the people Christian eyes ought to have preferably seen.
