Justice in the Philippines

It was a rainy July 16 evening. I was working in one of the establishments of an uptown mall and my officemates and I did not want to go home yet because of the rain. Unknown to us, one of our workmates, Jackie, and her sister Joy, were abducted while waiting for their ride outside the mall.

The next day, Jackie and Joy's mother, Thelma, together with their father, came to the office, asking if we know where the sisters were. We joked that maybe the sisters eloped with their boyfriends. We had no idea what happened to them. We started panicking only when the day ended and still we did not hear from the sisters. Upon the instructions of our bosses, we called hospitals and police stations in Metro Cebu, hoping to get any report about the sisters. We did not get any information.

The next day, Joy's body was found. Until today, or 12 years after, Jackie's body is still missing. For 12 years, the sisters' family had to deal with the brutal way Joy was killed. For 12 years, the sisters' family had to deal with Jackie's still missing body. And now, the sisters' family has to deal with the fact that one of those responsible for the crime may be transferred to Spain because of a treaty that our country has with Spain regarding imprisoned Spanish nationals.

Is this how justice works in the Philippines?

The Philippine government can enter into a treaty with any country to protect the interest of Filipinos. It is just weird that the country that we have entered into a treaty with on the matter of prisoners is Spain. Women's organizations headed by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women - Asia Pacific (CATW-AP) and World March of Women - Pilipinas cited a Department of Foreign Affairs report that there are only 128 OFWs in Spain and only seven are detained in prison. This number is so small compared to the Filipinos detained in other countries.

Why Spain? We don't know. Maybe the seven Filipinos detained in Spain are more important than the 1,600 detained in Malaysia, or the 734 detained in Japan, or the 554 in Qatar, the 406 in the United States, the 198 in Abu Dhabi, the 161 in Saudi Arabia or the 127 in Hong Kong, as per DFA records. Maybe the country is friendlier with Spain and the other countries are not open to a treaty of such nature.

There could be a lot of reasons for the existence of such a treaty with Spain. But we cannot stop the Chiong family and other people from thinking that the powers that be had a hand in this treaty. We cannot stop people from thinking that this treaty was forged not with the majority of the detained Filipinos in mind since there are only seven detained in Spain.

So this is justice in the Philippines.

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