MANILA, Philippines — Senator Grace Poe on Thursday sought repeal of an “antiquated” penal law that permits the murder of a spouse caught in extramarital affairs.
Poe’s Senate Bill No. 1410 sought to abolish Article 247 of the Revised Penal Code, which gives legally married person the license to kill his or her spouse or underaged daughter caught having sex with another person.
Article 247 states that “(a)ny legally married person who, having surprised his spouse in the act of committing sexual intercourse with another person, shall kill any of them or both of them in the act or immediately thereafter, or shall inflict upon them any serious physical injury, shall suffer the penalty of destierro.”
The current law limits the penalty to this act of killing or inflicting injury to destierro or mere banishment.
These rules were also applicable, under the same circumstances, to parents with respect to their daughters under 18 years of age, and their seducers, while the daughters are living with their parents,” the law added.
“Killing is killing”
But Poe said the obsolete provisions of this law a gave married person or the accused protection from punishment and defense from retaliation from the victim’s family members.
“In this day and age, there must no longer be room for laws that discriminate against women and girls. Honor killing is a practice that has been widely condemned as it runs roughshod over due process and the basic tenets of human rights,” she said in her ill’s explanatory note.
“Killing is killing. People should not be allowed to take the law into their own hands,” she added in filing the bill, which coincided with the celebration of Women’s Month.
Poe underscored the need to repeal the specific provision in the Penal Code as it also legitimizes violence against children.
“Why should we allow unfair double standards prejudicial to women to perpetuate, as well as the antiquated notion that daughters are mere properties of their parents?” Poe asked.
“Huwag natin palusutin sa batas ang anumang pagyurak sa katauhan at karapatan ng ating mga kababaihan at kabataan,” she said.
The senator said the measure was also meant to promote a more progressive view of family life, in which marital and familial ties are not regarded as a privilege to commit violence.
Criminal offenses such as sexual infidelity and seduction were already duly tackled in other articles of the Revised Penal Code and the Family Code, she added.
Poe also said she filed the bill in keeping with international commitments to repeal discriminatory laws against women and children under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and Convention of the Rights of the Child.