Drugs and death penalty

Australia is fuming over the impending execution by Indonesia of two Australian nationals convicted of drug smuggling. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he is revolted by the prospect of seeing his two compatriots put to death. Like Abbott, many other people, not just Australians, are revolted by intentional death as a form of punishment. Admittedly, however, there are still many others who can justify "lawful" execution.

Foremost among them, at least as far as the impending executions are concerned, is, of course, Indonesian President Joko Widodo. In reply to Abbott's plea for clemency for the two Australians, Widodo simply ticks off the thousands, perhaps even millions, of Indonesians who either died or had their lives ruined by illegal drugs, including those that may have been smuggled by the soon-to-be-executed Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Supporters of the two convicts are not only assailing the death penalty of Indonesia, they are also assailing its justice system, claiming the fact that the two convicts have already reforms was not given any consideration.

Proof that Chan and Sukumaran have reformed is reportedly the fact that they have become religious preachers and ministers.

Several years ago, a Filipino woman by the name of Flor Contemplacion was put to death in Singapore in connection with the death of her young ward. Unlike the Australians who are apparently restricting their protestations to angry words, Filipinos at the time fell just short of invading Singapore. There were demonstrations everywhere and a lot of Singaporean-flag burnings were reported.

In the end, however, Flor Contemplacion was still executed and there was simply nothing that the Filipinos could do about it.

The reason I am bringing up the case of Flor Contemplacion now is because today, as it was then, my position is that there is simply nothing we can do about the sovereign laws of a sovereign country. We can spit and curse and rant, but after all our energies and emotions have been spent, there is really nothing we can do short of actually going to war.

And since it is as foolhardy as it is farfetched to go to war over the sovereign implementation of sovereign laws of a sovereign country, even if it so happens that a compatriot of ours is at the receiving end of such laws, perhaps the best thing to do under the circumstances is just to grin and bear it. And if it is any consolation, we can always reassure ourselves that at least our country is in the same bracket as those that do not embrace execution as a just form of punishment.

But while I submit that I do not subscribe to capital punishment, I still maintain the position I took in the Flor Contemplacion case, which is to respect the right of any sovereign country to be free from any interference and pressure from other countries in the implementation of its sovereign countries. We may no longer have capital punishment but Indonesia has and we simply have no right to dictate on that country what we feel about this form of punishment.

The best way to look at it is to put ourselves in the shoes of Indonesia. What if we were like Indonesia? What if we had capital punishment, as indeed we used to, and are about to carry it out? What if every country in the world ganged up on us and demand that we not do what we have all the right to do under our sovereign laws? How do you think we would feel as Filipino citizens about this foreign interference?

From experience, I know our nationalistic pride will always prevail over our sense of right and wrong. And I do not have to look far to cite an example. The Flor Contemplacion incident is a case in point. Flor Contemplacion was duly represented, tried and convicted in accordance with the laws of Singapore. Yet Filipinos were up in protest not on the basis of whether she was guilty or not but because she was a Filipino and she was about to be executed.

So you see, no matter how much we abhor capital punishment, we can only effectively do something about it here in our own country. The Philippines used to be among those countries that had the death penalty in its laws. But this has since changed. Filipinos have finally succeeded in removing it from our laws. That does not mean we can impose our legal and moral preferences on others. Not even the Australians can.

No one can dictate on Indonesia how it chooses to live its national life. If you do not like Indonesia, do not go there. If you have to go there but do not want to be executed, do not commit any crimes in that country that is punishable by death. If you do not want any trouble, do not commit any crime at all. It is a tough life as it is being law-abiding, it is worse when you play around with the law and make the mistake it will not catch you.

Chan and Sukumaran apparently thought so. Otherwise, they would not have tried to take their chances plying their dirty trade in a country that imposes the death penalty. For I do not think they were unaware of the consequences if they got caught. And that, I think, is why Indonesia is not inclined to give them any clemency. Despite the obvious risks, and the clear destructive effects of what they were selling, they still went ahead. No wonder Indonesia is so unforgiving.