The Difference between Homicide and Murder

There’s always mention of these two in a Pinoy pop - culture, especially infamous crime investigation reality shows like SOCO. You hear an attorney in Manila pronounce how the suspect will be charged with either homicide or murder for a certain killing but never really understand which kind of killing constitutes a murder and which kind a homicide. If you are looking back on said episode, take a closer look at the suspect’s…

Intent

One of the biggest factors that separate murder from homicide is intent. You know how, in movies, people whose lives are threatened by a killer maniac have that innate right to kill for the sake of protecting his own? Even as an audience, we want to see the killer be killed by the hero-victim.

We see the difference of intent in this situation: in one end, the killer’s intent is to purely kill and on the other, the hero-victim’s intent is to protect his life even if that should mean that he has to take a life to preserve his.

So how do we quantify intent?

Premeditation

Evident premeditation, to be precise. This means that the killer, prior to killing, has made the decision to kill. As with the term premeditation, the killing has been thought about in advanced such that there has been enough time for him to think about his actions and maybe re-think about actually going through killing the victim and still does so.

It’s the difference between walking in on your spouse with someone else in bed, then killing the spouse afterwards and knowing your spouse is seeing someone else and meticulously planning how you’ll dispose of the spouse so much that you’d try to make it “look like an accident” even. The prior can be categorized as a crime of passion, but that’s a different story.

Punishment

They also greatly differ in penalty with murder being a higher form of crime than homicide. Homicide is, according to the revised penal code, punishable by reclusion temporal or a minimum of 12 years and 1 day up to a maximum of 20 years. Murder on the other hand is punishable by “reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death” meaning that it shall be forcibly sentence that the perpetrator serve the full 20 years or a life sentence (“to death”; reclusion perpetua).

The next time SOCO or Imbestigador comes on TV, you’ll know how murder and homicide differ as well as reclusion temporal and perpetua. Here’s a challenge: look closely at the judges’ rulings—do you think that they are just when it comes to murder and homicide trials?

Status and Satire: When is it Libelous?

In the recent dawn of the Cyber Crime Law in the Philippines, there was an outrage on the right to speech and how opinions are an innate right and the same goes for the ability to voice them out. I, myself, felt fears that if I let slip an unsavory opinion about a political figure or celebrity, I could do some jail time for Cyber Libel. Then a friend of mine who’s a lawyer in Manila defined libel for me, from which I learned 2 things: an opinion, even if negative in nature, does not constitute libel, and my misinformation was the source of my fears.

Let’s take one very popular post that flooded over the internet, the one about the MRT-3 giving very poor service as characterized in this photo:

Click here for the full post with necessary justification.

Why is this not libelous? Well, for one, it isn’t satirical too, but for starters, libel has to submit to 4 conditions. To be libelous, a statement 1) has be an allegation of a discreditable act, 2) has been published, 3) identifies the/a person, and 4) has the intent to malign—all of which must be met with the 4^th one being the burden that the appellant has to prove.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines satire as “using humor to show that someone or something is foolish, weak, bad, etc.”. this is characterized in popular media (the internet, primarily) through news reports that are not real, funny, and sarcastic in nature. Take the absurd (but nonetheless funny) news about Kris Aquino’s interview with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 cast Andrew Garfield. After what the social media has dubbed as an “unprofessional” interview, a satirical news report about the movie being cancelled was published, saying that the director saw that the movie will lose revenue in the Philippines and that the stars found that there should have been more product placement within the movie to make it an actual hit.

The thing with satire is that it is an informed opinion in the form of exacerbated comedy. It can sometimes be allegorical but most of the time, there is intelligent criticism within the satire and it is for the consumption of an intended audience. It’s like a Sunday column with the difference that it is a work of fiction. Further, to make satire, one has to be responsible and vigilant that one has to have been informed well and is actually a good humor writer because reasons.

So yeah, if you’re only out to give an informed critique on the current standing of the government, then by all means, be sardonic and sarcastic about it on social media (but make it good). If you, however, feel the need to share your thoughts on a political figure being unable to do his/her job well because he/she is too engrossed and busy with multiple partners, laundering money, and is homosexual, then be warned, malicious words burn you back.