When second chance is undeserving...

Besides the fact that I was only five years old when the incident happened, I never knew of the case until the media hype took its claws on it again.

I actually wanted to write about it since it caught the headlines again, but I thought better. I didn't know anything about the case, the persons involved, and the incident. If I wrote something then, I'll be damned if a fish doesn't talk about flying.

That is why I took the liberty of reading about it. Although I am pretty sure that what I've read is the much more concise material, I take pride in saying that I got the gist of it. I may not have understood every single legal aspect of it, but I sure believe that the clemency awarded was, for lack of a better term, an abuse of power.

In 1995, Claudio Teehankee Jr was convicted of three crimes. Although without premeditation, which was used abusively in his favor, he killed--deliberately. Not only did he kill willingly, but also unwittingly. He took two lives at point blank range, and had Jussi Leino gave up the struggle for his life, it would have been three lives claimed in no more than five minutes. I doubt if Teehankee Jr even blinked every time he pulled the trigger that fateful morning of 1991.

According to one of my former professor's (also a lawyer) mathematics, Teehankee Jr served a total of 17 years in prison. You can find the whole article here: http://www.marichulambino.wordpress.com/

Teehnakee Jr was convicted of three heinous crimes: homicide for the killing of Ronald Chapman, murder for the killing of Maureen Hultman, and frustrated murder for the almost fatal shooting of Jussi Leino. Three heinous crimes, ladies and gentlemen, and Teehankee Jr served only a mere 17 years in prison.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has the jurisdiction to award executive clemency, said the constitution. It is in her discretion to give pardon to criminals whom she thought have showed remorse of the crime they have committed.

In a recent interview with Vivian Hultman, sister of the killed Maureen Hultman, she said that Teehankee Jr never admitted to and said sorry for the unjust killing of her sister.

If Teehankee Jr never owned to the crime he was proven to have committed beyond reasonable doubt, how could he have shown remorse? If he never said sorry for claiming two innocent lives and almost claiming a third one, how could he have possibly cleared his conscience of the heinous act?

"Let us give the man another chance." This is what most people say. Well, most people who defend the otherwise questionable decision of PGMA to grant executive clemency to such a high-profile criminal.

If we want to give a chance to every single heinous criminal, why don't we just open the gates of prison cells and let loose all of them with the highest hopes that they are going to make good use of that said "chance" without rethinking that we have flooded the world with unwitting killers and what-nots.

There should always be a room for another chance, yes. That is if Teehankee Jr really served his sentence. According to reports from various media, he lived luxuriously while in prison. He had his own room complete with a flat screen television set, refrigerator, and a king size bed.

While twenty prisoners (conservative estimate) each cell make for two double-deck beds, Teehankee Jr can do a couple of cartwheel turns on his bed; he had nothing to fuss about in his so-called prison cell. In a prison facility that can only accommodate a thousand but actually houses double that number, they could still let Teehankee Jr have his own suite. While other prisoners exchange boils and respiratory diseases every other day, Teehankee Jr is sitting pretty in his palace, probably even smoking a cigar while watching his favorite television programs, or maybe taking a sip from his canned beer soothingly cold enough, thanks to his personal refrigerator.

Teehankee Jr claimed two innocent lives and permanently damaged another. It was cold blooded murder. The victims were defenseless; they did not provoke a confrontation, and they begged for their lives. Chapman, before succumbing to the gun shot wounds, even asked Teehankee Jr why. The latter had no answer.

Until after his release, that was the biggest question for Teehankee Jr: WHY?

Until he owns to his crime and answers that question, I will continue to believe that there had been no remorse of that fateful morning that destroyed three innocent lives and shattered the lives of their friends and families in the process.

The pardon awarded was not deserving and an outright abuse of power in favor of the mighty and at the expense of the weak. There is nothing more blatant in abusing power than this manifested bias for the powers-that-be.

This just proves that no matter how much we die of claiming that we have liberated ourselves from oppressors, at the end of the day, the primitive reinforcement of status quo always wins over the progressive march for change.

At the end of the day, we always yield to the very same oppressors who strip us off our right to the system that we should all enjoy--justice.