Make attempted murder & frustrated murder vs journalist non-bailable

ALAM Chairman Jerry S. Yap and ALAM President Berteni "Toto" Cataluña Causing talk to journalists of Calabarzon

Make attempted murder & 

frustrated murder vs journalist 

non-bailable

As one solution to stop the seemingly-unstoppable acts of killing journalist, Alab ng Mamamahayag (ALAM) will propose to punish any attempted murder or frustrated murder committed against journalists with reclusion perpetua.

If this is approved, it will remove the distinction among the stages of the commission of a crime of murder.  The same punishment shall be meted on the crime of murder against any journalist, even if it was only in the attempted stage.

Additionally, ALAM president Berteni "Toto" Cataluña Causing and ALAM chairman Jerry S. Yap, who is also the president of the National Press Club, will also push that the same punishment be meted in all other cases where an assassin is hired to kill.

ALAM believes that this will make the would-be killers think a hundred times before pursuing the contemplation to contract out the murder plot.

ALAM came up with this proposal after the press has been disheartened by the fact that freedom is still available for the person now charged for frustrated murder for shooting Daily Tribune reporter Fernan Angeles six times.

Charged for the frustrated slaying act is Faisal Sancopan.  Another cohort pinpointed by Fernan was also arrested and slated to be charged today (March 20, 2012). However, both can secure liberty by posting a bond of P200,000 for each of them.

The Philippine Constitution deprives the right to bail only for cases that are punishable with reclusion perpetua, life sentence or death.  

Murder is punishable with reclusion perpetua.  But frustrated murder can be punished only with reclusion temporal, or a maximum of 20 years imprisonment, a degree lower from reclusion perpetua.

Luckily, Angeles survived the assault but he is still in a precarious situation at the intensive care unit of the Pasig General Hospital.

"Our conscience never permits the assassin to get temporary freedom just because the victim is still alive.  What is detestable here is the act of plotting to kill through a hired gun, evoking a kind of culture that is not acceptable in any civil society," Causing said.

Yap followed through: 

"What is at the heart of the offense is the propensity to think about killing a journalist just because of criticisms that should have been taken as constructive no matter the bitterness.  What is supposed to be punished is the act of thinking about hiring a gunman to kill a journalist or any other person."

Causing opined that any perceive damage to reputation can be soothed by a clear conscience that the criticism is not true or not correct. "In addition, the subject of the critics can always come out and speak the truth to prevent the honor from going to waste.  Let words be confronted by words, not swords."

Since there Constitution requires a punishment of reclusion perpetua to deny the right to bail, the only solution is to upgrade the punishment for attempted or frustrated murder against a journalist or any act of hiring an assassin to kill anybody else.

If ALAM succeeds in its bid for congressional partylist seats, it will insist to amend the law on murder.