The Day Justice Died

Surprise! Surprise! President Arroyo decided to commute to life imprisonment the death sentences of over a thousand death row convicts. Majority of the convicts are rapists, murderers and kidnappers. Her lame excuse was anchored on the virtue of forgiveness. Well, she has no business deciding who should be forgiven and who should be damned. Only the victims and their families have the right to decide when to forgive their tormentors who showed no mercy when they raped, murdered or kidnapped them or their beloved. Not even the self-righteous human rights activists have no right to preach the virtue of forgiveness because if the same thing had happened to them, they would clamor for the skinning of the dirtbag.
The bottom line is: these activists and self-serving politicians were not the ones gravely wronged, so they have no business interfering with how these dirtbags are handled by the judiciary. Their bias towards criminals coupled with lax law enforcement only embolden the scumbags to prey on hapless civilians.
I do not know what the President's motives were in extending such a humane gesture to the scum of society, but I doubt if it she was driven by a real sense of altruism. Or it could be something more sinister, i.e., to appease the bishops who have become critical of her rule.
When Leo Echegaray was executed, the scene where nuns wept for him and priests held masses for him while nobody comforted his victim was etched on my mind. Seeing men and women of the cloth shedding tears for an unremorseful soul was very troubling. Whose right is more important, the right of criminals or the right of their victims?