Midnight Express

History repeats itself.

A Filipina convicted of drug smuggling was executed in China today. I suppose there's shock and outrage over this but that would be meaningless. She broke the law so she was executed. End of story.

The Vice-President tried to fly to China to grab the headlines negotiate on her behalf but was denied. I doubt grovelling to the Chinese ever solves anything especially when we're in no position to bargain in the first place. The President himself wrote a letter to China asking them to commute her death sentence into life imprisonment. On what grounds, I wonder? Did the President honestly believe the Chinese, who execute people faster than you can say "Tiananmen", wouldn't execute this ONE woman simply because he asked them not to? It's kind of insulting when you think about it; telling the President of another country to commute a sentence and instead keep her imprisoned (at their expense I bet) for life just because.

You see, it's because we ought to feel sorry for the poor woman. It's not her fault! It's the poverty and desperation. She was just trying to provide for her family! Nope. Sorry. That's not the way it works.

The phrase "rule of law" gets tossed around too much these days usually by supposedly smart people. Not many people have seen the "rule of law". Many doubt such a thing exists. It's like a unicorn; a mythical creature of legends. I've seen it a few times, twice or thrice, I think. We're told it exists. It's kind of like faith, you know? You can't see air but you can breath it in, right?

China seems to follow the rule of law. The Filipina broke the law and faced the penalty. Perhaps the outrage is because, having so little experience of it, it's just such a difficult concept to grasp for us Filipinos. But don't worry, I'm here to help. The rule of law simply means nobody is above the law. You do the crime, you do the time. No special treatment. It's truly a shame a communist cesspool like China does it better than THE FIRST DEMOCRACY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, THE ONLY CHRISTIAN NATION IN ASIA! PINOYPRIDE!!111

Rule of law? Explain that to Erap...