Child’s Play?

   “The kidnapping of a child, whatever may have been the reasons inducing thereto, is a crime of unusual gravity, of great perversity on the part of the person who commits it. Whether it be to cause him injury, and even if it were to do him good, it is always a step which attacks the holiest and most intimate affections and the most sacred rights. The law has at all times and in every country looked upon it with just severity. In Spain, kidnapping of children has been resorted in order to obtain ransom from the afflicted parents, or to employ the child as object of vile passions or to make it a puppet player, or the like, or for the purpose of imploring public charity…” [jurists Pacheco and Viada cited by the Supreme Court in People vs. Quirino Peralta, 8 Phil. 200, quoted and cited in Justice Ramon Aquino, Revised Penal Code (annotated)]

                The hostage-taking incident yesterday  is covered by the following provision. (in this provision, it is enough that any one of the circumstances enumerated, attended the act):                        

         “Art. 267. Revised Penal Code. Kidnapping and serious illegal detention. — Any private individual who shall kidnap or detain another, or in any other manner deprive him of his liberty, shall suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua to death: 1. If the kidnapping or detention shall have lasted more than five days. 2. If it shall have been committed simulating public authority. 3. If any serious physical injuries shall have been inflicted upon the person kidnapped or detained; or if threats to kill him shall have been made. 4. If the person kidnapped or detained shall be a minor, female or a public officer.The penalty shall be death where the kidnapping or detention was committed for the purpose of extorting ransom from the victim or any other person, even if none of the circumstances above-mentioned were present in the commission of the offense.”       

        “In People vs. Akiran, 18 SCRA 239, it was held that even if the purpose of the kidnapping was to compel payment of the hospitalization expenses of the brother of one of the accused, the offense is still kidnapping for ransom.” (Aquino, supra, p.1333).

                “The element of restraint is present as to constitute kidnapping were a boy of tender age was taken from his home and placed under the control of the accused with the instruction not to leave until the return of the accused. The fact that the boy was allowed to play in the house where he was detained is immaterial, since he was practically a captive in the sense that he could not leave because he did not know the way back home and because of his fear to violate the instruction.” (People vs. Acosta and Bravo, 107 Phil. 360, cited and quoted in Aquino, supra, p. 1343).                 

           This being the election season, many politicians took advantage of the occasion by blaming their opponents for the dire poverty of our countrymen and the sorry state of our educational system.   In many cases, the hostage-taker was lionized as a hero.   Even by the parents of the victims themselves. (and i think only because their kids escaped unscathed; would they be as forgiving and understanding if those grenades exploded? But that is the point: the crime was consummated the moment those children and teachers were detained, at gunpoint, with grenades.)                                     

                (On the other hand, there ought to be a law against senators and candidates, celebrities, all those not authorized, entering the staging area (the scene of the on-going crime) and “negotiating” with the hostage-taker, no matter how “experienced” the may think they are. They endanger not only themselves but the hostages and the people around them.)                            

             I know. Your heart goes out for the hostage-taker. People are soft on him,  he is a victim of circumstance, it was the grinding poverty that drove him to detain the children.                             

               But he had choices that day; he could have chosen not to detain those children; he could have chosen not to point guns at them; he could have chosen to direct his anger not at innocent civilians but at those responsible for the lack of choices that grip many of our countrymen day by day.                             

               Those children that day did not have choices.                                                       

            He will do it again if given the chance. Others would.                                      

              I suggest it would be more productive to join movements that work for fundamental changes, rather than kidnap children and expose them to gunfire and shrapnel.