Larry Henares on Duterte’s popularity and death penalty

Inquirer’s editorial “Losing grace” (Opinion, 4/28/16) ended thus: “Well, no. But every day we lose grace. We have a presidential contender who treats rape as a joke and won’t apologize for it. He remains acceptable—and actually enjoys wide, even delighted, support for all his misogynist views. It’s very telling of how women and girls are regarded in this proudly Christian nation.”

First of all it is not true that the presidential contender who treated rape as a joke did not apologize for it; he did so after a fashion, but was not forgiven by most people who were scandalized by it. It was not “his misogynist views” that got him acceptance and “wide, even delighted support” from the electorate.  It was his carefully cultivated reputation for being hard on criminals, especially rapists, drug pushers and murderers, that endeared him to the voters ahead of all the other candidates who are perceived to be traditional politicians (trapo), spineless and inutile. Apparently the voters did not mind Duterte’s bad jokes and foul mouth, as long as he can keep our women safe from rapists and our citizens free of criminals operating with impunity.

Secondly, I believe that Duterte is right in telling the Australian and American ambassadors to “shut up and stop interfering with our domestic affairs,” knowing that for a long time Australian low-types have been setting up seedy bars in the Philippines, where Filipino women are offered as door prizes and for auctions; that many Australians come to the Philippines as sex tourists and pedophiles; that Australian husbands murder their Filipino wives six times more frequently than they kill their Australian wives; that Australian whites descended from criminals exiled from London, and who subsequently committed genocide on the dark aborigines and the dodo birds.

Also, Duterte was told that the US ambassador to the Philippines, Philip Goldberg, is from the intelligence (read: spying) community of the US state department and who as ambassador to Bolivia, was thrown out of the country for financing the opposition and interfering in domestic affairs; he is also rumored to have visited the Iglesia ni Cristo to threaten them with a tax case in the United States if they supported Duterte’s candidacy. Duterte does not like him.

Thirdly, I have changed a lot from my days as a “bleeding heart” against the death penalty and concerned about the rehabilitation of criminals. I believe in justice; love you have to earn; mercy you have to beg for; but justice, you can demand as a matter of right!  Fiat justitia, ruat coelum! Let justice be done, though the heavens fall!  Upon this principle Rome built a civilization that lasted for a thousand years.

Finally, I believe that victims are more entitled to justice than criminals are. The former deserve “blood money” for restitution.  Prisons do not rehabilitate, they are schools that teach criminals to be worse criminals. Why should we waste public money on recidivists?

Restore the death penalty for grave crimes. Restore penalties that fit the crime: hanging, beheading, electrocution, garroting, firing squad, lethal injection.  Let criminals suffer the pain they inflict on their victims. Bury the criminals where their remains can enrich the soil for agriculture. Solve overpopulation.

—HILARION M. HENARES JR., Makati City