Repeal this law

There seems to be no turning back for the players in the drama that started in a restaurant on Timog Avenue in Quezon City. Each day the story takes on a new dimension, and now threatens to drag the Philippine National Police into a confrontation with Congress. At the center of the controversy is Quezon City Rep. Michael Defensor, who is facing graft charges for allegedly interfering in the arrest of four women suspected of prostitution. The women were freed after pleading guilty to vagrancy.

Defensor says he was merely helping his constituents, who had pleaded guilty to a felony without the benefit of a legal counsel. The "vagrants" later appeared at a press conference and accused a ranking police official of asking for sex with a sister of one of the women. The other day, the police responded by presenting a confessed pimp who claimed Defensor regularly paid women including the four for sex. Defensor accused the PNP of producing a fake witness to destroy him.

The PNP need not have gone to all this trouble and Defensor need not have interceded for the women if the police had a stronger case against the four. But because the cops could not prove prostitution, the girls were booked for violating the anti-vagrancy law. This antiquated provision in the Revised Penal Code has long cried out for repeal. The law traces its roots to the time of the bubonic plague in Europe, when vagrancy was punished to discourage migration of people without visible means of support. Such wanderers were seen as potential criminals.

The English brought the law against vagrancy to what became the United States. In turn, US colonizers introduced the law to the Philippines in 1903, reportedly in an effort to prevent the influx of jobless Americans to the islands. During the Commonwealth period, the anti-vagrancy law was retained in the Revised Penal Code.

This is a law that penalizes loitering by persons without visible means of support -- not only suspected prostitutes but also students, out-of-school youths and beggars. It is preferable to have lazy and incompetent public officials arrested, but there is no law against sleeping on the job. In lieu of this, the legislature can focus on repealing the law against vagrancy, a statute whose only possible use in the 21st century is for harassment and extortion.