'Repeal law allowing husbands, parents to murder wives and daughters caught having sex'

MANILA, Philippines - A lawmaker wants to repeal Article 247 of the Revised Penal Code allowing husbands and parents to kill their wives and daughters caught having sex with another man. 

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said it is incomprehensible why a law allowing a husband and parent to kill an offending wife and disobedient daughter remains in the statute books.

“Instead of imprisonment, the killer is merely penalized with destierro or prohibited from entering a place designated by the court, surely a ‘non penalty’ considering the seriousness of the crime,” he said.

Article 247 of the Revised Penal Code states: “Any legally married person who, having surprised his spouse in the act of committing sexual intercourse with another person, shall kill any of them or both of them in the act or immediately thereafter, or shall inflict upon them any serious physical injury, shall suffer the penalty of destierro.

“If he shall inflict upon them physical injuries of any other kind, he shall be exempt from punishment. These rules shall be applicable, under the same circumstances, to parents with respect to their daughters under 18 years of age, and their seducer, while the daughters are living with their parents.”

Colmenares said despite the abolition of the death penalty, there exists a law allowing the killing of wives committing infidelity and daughters disobeying parents.

“The fact that the law merely focuses on the daughter, not the son, only shows the discriminatory and feudal frame of mind of the authors of this obscurantist law,” he said.

Colmenares said Article 247 vaguely provides that the offending wife or daughter could be killed not only during sexual intercourse, but also “immediately after” sexual intercourse. “While adultery and concubinage is punished with imprisonment under our criminal laws, Article 247 transforms the same act into a criminal offense punishable by death merely because the sexual act was seen by the parent or the spouse,” he said. 

“Some may argue that the passion, obfuscation and the insult is suffered by the parent or the spouse. However, insult or passion must never be a license to kill.”

Colmenares said Article 247 is in reality “a de facto state-sponsored death penalty against an unfaithful or the disobedient” and therefore inconsistent with the statute suspending the death sentence.

“But what makes it unacceptable is because it perpetuates the use of state power through criminal laws to define and re-define relationships, where the state engages in legal discourse to control how much love is available for whom and what reactions there should be when embroiled in such situations,” he said.

Colmenares said his bill has no intention of encouraging acts of infidelity, not only because these acts remain punishable under the law and subject to civil liability.

“Rather, the bill seeks to discourage murder, especially the murder of a daughter by a parent or the murder of a spouse by the other,” he said.

“By repealing the Article, the state is not only encouraging parents and spouses to resolve intra-family problems in a non-violent manner but also eliminate this discriminatory and unjust law and gradually move forward its efforts to reforming our criminal laws.”

Enacted in 1930, the Revised Penal Code is based on the 19th century-era Spanish Penal Code. 

‘Anti-Corporal Bill would not run after parents’

Advocates of the Anti-Corporal Punishment Bill said yesterday the proposed law is not meant to run after parents who practice punishments and utter hurtful words to discipline their children.

Bagong Henerasyon Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy said that the bill intends to “intervene” in situations where corporal punishment is being practiced.

“It’s a bill that seeks to rescue them to help both the children and their parents,” she said. Tarlac Rep. Susan Yap, the bill’s author, said discipline has always been synonymous with punishment in the Philippines.

“If they (children) learn violence, they will pick it up in later years,” she said.

Dy, House of Representatives committee on women and children vice chair, said the bill seeks to require social workers to explain to parents the proper way of disciplining children. “Positive discipline is also a form of discipline,” she said. The bill defines positive discipline as “an approach to parenting that teaches children and guides their behavior, while respecting their rights to healthy development, protection from violence and participation in their learning.”

The House approved the bill during the 14th Congress, but the Senate was not able to do so.

The Child Rights Network, comprised of different children’s rights advocacy groups, is calling on the government to certify the bill as urgent.

Wilma Baaga of the group Save the Children said there has been no strong opposition to the bill. 

In stressing the need for the bill’s passage, she cited a study conducted by her group, which showed that 85 percent of children have experienced corporal punishment in the home, with spanking being the most common practice.

Corporal punishment does not only include physical punishment but also hurtful words uttered by parents to their children, according to Hope Tura, co-convener of the Child Rights Network. – Paolo Romero, Reinir Padua