THE OTHER SOCIETY

October 22, 2015

Mom and I are now doing parallel tv marathons of the Korean drama Legendary Women, currently airing over GMA midnight primetime.  It’s a story of a group of four women who met each other and became friends (well, like a family) while in prison, two for a minor crime and two falsely accused and convicted.  When they came out, they pooled their talents and hearts together and became bakers, establishing a bakery which competes with the giant bread factory whose owner initially destroyed their persons.

Since it is a drama, some situations are of course larger-than-life and exaggerated, but for the most part one learns that even in Korea, the people are basically the same as here in the Philippines.  There are nice people, naive people, greedy and ambitious people, people who are misguided in their overestimation of themselves, and people who just live simply and realistically, giving their hearts in everything they do.

What struck me most though is the Prison system.  In most South Korean dramas I’ve seen, (unless the scene is a North Korean detention facility which is run like a military camp) I am amazed at the cleanliness, orderliness and humaneness of the whole penitentiary system.  Like in other countries’ penal societies, there are gangs and minions, fights between inmates and disorderly conduct.  But what I learned in the few semesters of Law school that I attended taught me that this is understandable situation, because there is no more depressing event for a human being than to be deprived of his/her freedom.  There is at least a million times more angst than in an ordinary teenager undergoing through all the hormonal changes of adolescence for a person who is deprived of the basic natural and constitutional right to be free.  Or else why would the singer shout at the top of his lungs that we are “BORN FREE...TO FOLLOW YOUR HEART”.

In high school we also learned that this Other Society has its laws, hierarchies and cultures that are quite distinct from the outside society, and no amount of police intervention could subvert the culture that is prevalent in any prison facility.  But what seems to differentiate the truly democratic systems from corrupt ones (like many of ours) is the application of the purpose, which, by the spirit of our laws is not actually penal (to punish) but to rehabilitate.  Prisoners are taught basic technical and vocational skills so when they go out and rejoin society, they will know how to support themselves and not be tempted to a lawless life again.

How I wish that our own Penal system is run democratically and fairly.  There would be no special treatments, convicts making all sorts of alibis just to be given royal accommodations while in prison, detention facilities that are not acting as fronts for illegal arms dealing, brothels and illegal drug tiangges, prison systems that truly rehabilitate the erring (whether rightly or wrongfully detained or not) person so that when they come back to society, they will become a positive contribution and not a levelled-up menace.