EDITORIAL - The wages of secrecy

An administration that has not made secrecy its hallmark in governance would have an easier time defending the commutation of the sentence of Claudio Teehankee Jr. Never mind if the man convicted of the fatal drive-by shooting of Maureen Hultman and her friend Roland Chapman is the brother of a former undersecretary of justice who now represents the country in the World Trade Organization. Never mind if his sister used to work at Malacañang under this administration.

Under the law, every convict is entitled to presidential clemency and a commutation of sentence on good behavior after serving a minimum period of the penalty, unless the sentence specifically states that the convict can never be entitled to such humanitarian acts. Along with the development of the concept of universal human rights in the past decades, the thrust of penal systems in the free world has shifted from punishment to rehabilitation. The underlying idea is that human beings are capable of changing for the better, and a stay in prison is supposed to facilitate the change. This idea is used as an argument by those who are against capital punishment – a penalty which guarantees that a convict will never see his sentence commuted.

The Department of Justice emphasizes that all requirements that could make Teehankee, a son and namesake of a former chief justice, eligible for commutation of his sentence have been met, and he can soon walk free after proper counseling. This humanitarian act could have been easier to sell to the public if Malacañang had been forthright about it.

Instead it now looks as if the Palace, already notorious for imposing a code of silence on executive officials and trying to pull a fast one on a memorandum of agreement with Muslim separatist rebels, had tried to keep Teehankee’s release under wraps. Why? When you behave like a crook with deep, dark secrets, every move you make – including a legitimate act of mercy – becomes suspect.