Batas Mauricio
I DON’T really know what to think about the pronouncements of Director General Ronald Dela Rosa, the chief of the Philippine National Police, in defense of the policemen who took part in the killing of two persons in Mandaluyong city before 2018 came in, in what is now being touted to be a “mistaken encounter”.
According to dela Rosa, he would rather have stupid policemen who are good-natured, than policemen who are intelligent but who have bad intentions. Ha? How’s that again, General Dela Rosa? Did you really say, it is far better for you that policemen are stupid rather than intelligent?
If we think about this more seriously, it is never okay, and the Filipino people will never need, stupid policemen, no matter how good natured they may appear to be, for the simple reason that, most often, stupid policemen are easily swayed into committing crimes.
On the other hand, if policemen are intelligent, including their chiefs, it would be a lot easier to teach them to be true and dedicated to their sworn duties.
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In this installment of our discussions on Republic Act 7438 in this column today, we can see that there is an obligation of policemen, soldiers and other law enforcement officers who arrest, invite for questioning, or are investigating anyone, to allow the arrested person to be able to confer right away with a lawyer.
This is pursuant to Section 2 (b) of RA 7438: “Any public officer or employee, or anyone acting under his order or his place, who arrests, detains or investigates any person for the commission of an offense shall inform the latter… of his rights to… have competent and independent counsel…who shall at all times be allowed to confer privately with the person arrested, detained or under custodial investigation…”
This means that the oftepeated phrase to people being arrested, “do your explaining at the police precinct”, is not legally acceptable, and constitutes a violation of the rights of an arrested person, which could be punished with up to ten years of imprisonment and with forfeiture of their right to be employed in other positions in government for life.
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One way of enticing our children to be interested in studying the Bible is narrating to them the concededly beautiful stories that are found in its verses, which usually drip with good moral values. There are many of these stories, if we only care to know them.
One example of an outstanding story from the Bible which we can re-tell our children is that of God’s coming to earth, in the form of man with flesh and blood, to receive, as He indeed received in His holy flesh, holy blood, and Holy Spirit, the penalty that man deserved for his sinfulness.
In the Bible, there are 18 parts to this story of God coming to earth which, I am sure, will be cherished by our kids. We will endeavor to outline the parts of this story in this column, in the hope that parents would come to understand each of them and therefore be capacitated to narrate them to their own children. Watch out for it!
E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com
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