Weeding Out an Anachronism

With social media demigod-cum-tour guide Carlos Celdran having been convicted for violating Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines titled "offending religious feelings," and having been sentenced to a jail term ranging from two months to a year, there has been a lot of talk on the social media-sphere, talk about what horrible people the local clergy are, talk about whether or not Celdran deserved it, and talk about how ridiculous and antiquated the law is.

I'm particularly interested in the last bit, because it reflects an overall trend in criminal law nowadays, what with discussions on the de-criminalization of libel also making waves lately. People can post diatribe after diatribe against the church for pursuing its case against Celdran (whatever their pretensions to the contrary) but at the end of the day, the law was there for them to invoke.

For me the bottom line is this: the RPC is in dire need of a thorough overhaul. The reasons why could cover an entire series of blog posts, or even a book, but I'm nowhere near scholarly enough to devote the energy needed for that sort of enterprise.

Now, the option is definitely on the table to have the provision of the law declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and there seems to be every indication that this is the tack Celdran's lawyer, Marlon Manuel, intends to take.

My idea, which may be a little more radical (though I know I'm not alone), is that Celdran should do the time.

My theory is that there are few things that could more effectively hit home the absurdity of the notion of doing prison time for an offense that 1) can easily be settled by mediation and 2) may well have been overtaken by no less than the Constitution, than the image of someone actually doing the time. Celdran's picture in a Manila jail cell, wearing his Jose Rizal outfit and a wry smile, is virtually iconic in social media circles and one could argue it stirred up so much outrage that it helped the Reproductive Health Bill become the Reproductive Health Law. If such an image could help create a law, then it's reasonable to believe that a whole string of such images could help tear a provision of law out of the statute books to which it no longer belongs. If Celdran dropped his appeal and served his prison sentence it would be legally correct (as the law is valid until found unconstitutional), but morally abhorrent.

The media coverage of Celdran's trip to New Bilibid alone would be a circus, and in the age of social media and the internet he would probably be the first celebrity since Robin Padilla to have protracted media exposure while in prison. Padilla shot a movie during his abbreviated sentence in Bilibid (for illegal possession of firearms) back in the 1990s; Celdran's supporters would probably hold both an actual and online vigil and a social-media based countdown of his term. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Celdran got his own year-long reality show while on the inside. He could share Filipino culture with the prisoners and be one of the boys, assuming he doesn't become anyone's "wife" while he's there.

But then, if he suffered while in our notoriously hellish, septic prison system, the effect on the public psyche would be all the more profound. All the time he'd be in there, without even opening his mouth he would be declaring to the world: "I'm in here because someone insisted on implementing an archaic law that punishes hurting people's feeling with a prison sentence." That's the kind of imagery that would stick to the public consciousness for a long time. What better way, after all, to show the excess of the penalty than by actually enduring it?

If that doesn't get this batch of legislators scrambling to revisit the RPC and all of its forgotten antiquities (e.g. "dueling") then at least it will be on the minds of the next batch of legislators after this year's elections. If absolutely nothing else, Celdran could most likely get a presidential pardon.

Maybe, if the attempts to invalidate portions of the Cybercrime Law don't pan out, indignant citizens whose internet posts fall within the purview of the law can march to prison for "cyberlibel" as well, as prisoners of conscience. Just a thought.