Blood Money

Since this is all everyone talks about, here goes.

Earlier this month, some rich prick was driving his sports car on the wrong side of the road and hit a fish vendor who was on his motorcycle. The perpetrator was driving so fast that, by some accounts, the victim flew straight through the air. As expected from the sick, cruel, and rotten spirit of our society, pictures of the poor victim's mangled body was uploaded onto the internet for the social media hyenas to gawk at. The family of the victims opted to settle the case and received what one would assume to be a very generous payday. No case was filed before the courts.

This needs to be explained.

When a crime is committed, it is committed not just against a private party but also the state. Criminal cases have a civil aspect and a criminal aspect. The private victims may opt to settle the civil liability but, in theory, the state must continue to prosecute the criminal aspect to punish the offender. In practice, prosecutors typically drop the case when the private complainant settles. Sometimes, the reason is understandable: it is difficult to prosecute when the victims are no longer interested in cooperating. Sometimes, not so.

To put it plainly, he got away with killing a man by paying off the widow. Life is cheap; people are just walking peso amounts. Does this offend you? If it does, then there may be hope for you. But don't blame the victim's family though. Litigation can take years or even decades. You'd be lucky to see a good sum at the end of the whole process given the fees and expenses. It totally makes sense to accept the huge sum immediately. The poor simply cannot afford the process. The kids can't wait for that college money. But yes, the whole thing is a complete and utter disgrace and an example of how low we've come. Might as well just suck it up, swallow your sorrow, take the blood money and call it justice.

"Justice" is literally a luxury in this country.

Oh, you thought I'd write about that incident where some rich kid shot a nurse in the leg? No, that's small time. The nurse didn't even die. Everyone talks about how that incident with the kid is some kind of "rich versus poor" story but what about this? Tell me, why are the people more outraged about the rich kid's "special treatment" than the one about the reckless driver? A guy kills a man and not a peep.

Where was the outrage?