The vagrancy law: It all started with the Black Death in England

(First of two parts)

The case of four young women who cried foul after being arrested by police on suspicion of prostitution has generated much debate over a law -- now almost a century old -- that critics say, has lagged behind the times.

The women claimed they were dancing inside Padi's Point in Quezon City's entertainment strip when policemen dragged them out.

Police booked the four for vagrancy, triggering an angry word war between National Capital Regional Police Office director Chief Superintendent Edgardo Aglipay and Quezon City Rep. Michael Defensor, who came to the women's defense.

Sen. Raul Roco, echoing many legal scholars, said vagrancy is a "victimless crime" -- one that does not directly injure anyone so that no one complains about it.

Vagrancy laws in the country are based on archaic criminal laws. American colonizers introduced vagrancy laws in 1903, when the Philippine Commission passed Act. No. 519.

But the Americans were not original, for their own vagrancy laws date back to Medieval England. At a time when Black Death exacted a heavy toll on England's laborers, forcing them to wander from place to place to escape the plague, the English Parliament passed the Act of 1414 to prevent worker migration by giving magistrates summary power to punish vagrants.

It sought to bind workers to their jobs for the preservation of society on the basis that any person fit to work but unable to support himself becomes a parasite, an enemy of society. Vagrants were considered potential criminals. Laws were passed to prevent crimes they were likely to commit.

But soon, England's feudal system collapsed and gave way to industrialization. By the first half of the 19th century, "the roads of England were crowded with "masterless" men and their families, who had lost their former employment through a variety of causes, but had no means of livelihood and had taken a vagrant life."

Thus, subsequent laws were passed to curb growing vagrancy. The American colonial government followed Mother England's example. Americans attached criminality to status alone, while the originators of vagrancy laws put emphasis on the conduct of vagrants.

While in England, being a prostitute per se was not a crime, unless -- per the English Vagrancy Law of 1824 -- she presented herself in public places "in a riotous or indecent manner" -- it was different in the colonies. In England, merely roaming or loitering is not a crime. In the colonies, it was. This legislative defect was carried over to the Philippines by the Philippine Commission.

The predecessors of our American colonizers, the Spaniards, who ruled for over 300 years, did not penalize vagrancy. The Penal Code of Spain of 1870, in force in the country up to Dec. 31, 1931, did not contain any provisions against vagrants.

It is said that our first vagrancy law was primarily intended to prevent the influx of Americans either unemployed or had no business coming to the Philippines.

But when the Revised Penal Code was passed during the Commonwealth, but for a few revisions -- it largely retained the vagrancy provisions of Act No. 519, no matter how alien our milieu is to the Anglo-American system.

"Indeed, it is puzzling to see.... vagrancy, a concept so alien and repugnant to our tradition,.... in our statute books, for.... our ancestors were the adventurous, seafaring Malays," noted the Philippine Law Journal of the University of the Philippines in 1982. "The wanderlust trait is innate in our blood."

(Tomorrow: A law prone to abuse)