Miriam bill makes grave robbery a distinct crime

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago wants to amend the Revised Penal Code to create a separate crime of robbery in cemeteries, graveyards or burial grounds.

“The law needs to be more specific when it comes to robbery and desecration of graves,” she said.

“The damage done by grave robbers is immeasurable as it not only dishonors the deceased, it also causes anguish to those who survived them,” she said.

Santiago has filed Senate Bill 1689 seeking to define grave robbery as the taking of all or part of a tomb, coffin, monument, gravestone, or all or part of a commemorative, decorative, or other cemetery-related article or committed in a cemetery, graveyard or burial ground.

The bill was originally filed in the 13th Congress.

Santiago also cited a US case where the court found that the gravamen of an action for desecration of a grave is the mental suffering caused by the disturbance of a loved one’s final resting place.

Also known as the Anti-Grave Robbers Act, Santiago’s bill aims to increase the penalty for robbing graves.

Grave robbers could face imprisonment of six years and one day to 12 years.

Santiago also said her bill seeks to empower law enforcement authorities to go after thieves who steal artifacts and corpses from ancestral graves and burial grounds of indigenous peoples to be sold to collectors, like the reported theft of skeletal remains in Mangyan burial caves last August.

“For a country that considers both All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day as national holidays, it is appropriate for our laws to reflect the Filipino’s deep-seated culture of reverence and respect for the departed,” she said.