Page 155 - May 2018 - December 2018 Issue

Liability from
Filipinos observe All Soul’s Day every year.
During this time, most people go back to their
provinces or hometowns to join their family in
honoring their departed loved ones. The traffic
caused in major thoroughfares, throngs of
crowds buying flowers and candles, and
mini-reunions held in cemeteries show how
much our culture has ingrained in us the
importance of paying our respect to relatives
and friends who have passed before us.
Despite this, there are disgraceful individuals
who resort to robbing jewelry, personal
belongings, and articles left in coffins, or
desecrating tombs, monuments or gravestones.
The late Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who
introduced Senate Bill No. 1689 to the Upper
House in 2010, said that the damage done by
grave robbery “goes beyond the measurable as
it not only dishonors the deceased, it also causes
anguish to those who survived them.” Also, she
intended for the proposed law to empower the
police to go after thieves who steal artifacts and
corpses from ancestral graves and burial
grounds of indigenous peoples to be sold to
collectors, like the reported theft of skeletal
remains in the Mangyan burial caves.
Originally filed in the 13th Congress, the Bill
seeks to amend the Revised Penal Code by
inserting Article 302-A, which defines the
circumstances involving grave robbery as:
…”when the robbery consists in the taking of all
or part of a tomb, coffin, monument, gravestone,
or all or part of a commemorative, decorative, or
other cemetery-related article or committed in a
cemetery, graveyard or burial ground; the culprit
shall suffer the penalty next higher in degree
than that prescribed in the said articles.” Under
the proposed measure, grave robbers face
imprisonment of six years and one day to twelve
Beyond the Grave
By Skyla Mae L. Zafe, Legal Services
years while the maximum penalty imposed shall
be 20 years and one day to 40 years.
In January of 2013, the Committee on Justice and
Human Rights, chaired by Sen. Francis “Chiz”
Escudero, recommended the Bill’s approval. The
Bill went on to be approved on its Third Reading,
with all 14 Senators voting in its favor. Its identical
or companion Bill, HB No. 6606, is still pending in
the Lower House.
Currently, we still do not have a specific law which
penalize grave robbers and thieves of cemetery
articles. As a society that has always paid respect
to the dead, it is essential that such type of theft
be addressed. As Sen. Defensor-Santiago said, “…
for a country that considers both All Saints’ Day
and All Souls’ Day as national holidays, it is
appropriate for our laws to reflect the Filipino’s
deep-seated culture of reverence and respect for
the departed.”
Sources:
Solons Seek Penalty for Robbery of Cemetery
Articles by Rowena B. Bundang
<http://www.congress.gov.ph/press/details.php?pr
essid=6552&key=grave%20robbers>
Bills penalizing graveyard offenses resurrected
by Leila B. Salaverria
<https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/299964/bills-penaliz
ing-graveyard-offenses-resurrected>
Senate Bill No. 1689 (15th Congress) or An Act
Amending The Revised Penal Code Penalizing
The Robbery Of Cemetery Articles
House Bill No. 6606 (15th Congress) or An Act
Amending The Revised Penal Code Penalizing
The Robbery Of Cemetery Articles
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