Excesses in Rep. Dumarpa’s bill

Excesses in Rep. Dumarpa’s bill

HOUSE Bill No. HB000948, “An Act Prohibiting Religious or Racial Profiling Against Indigenous Cultural Communities” or (short title) the “Anti-Religious and Racial Profiling Act of 2007” is commendable for seeking to wean law enforcers from the lazy way in the work of fighting criminals, especially terrorists.

It “prohibits acts that are commonly described as religious or racial profiling against Filipinos who are considered minorities by virtue of their cultural or religious background.”

It was filed by Congresswoman Faysah Maniri-Racman Dumarpa (1st District, Lanao del Sur) on July 10, 2007.

Profiling is basically a police and criminology term. It follows the basic sociological science method of making sense of the complexities of human society by breaking down members of a population into groups that share common characteristics.

Offensively, the generally held police agencies’ profile of lawbreakers in the United States described them as mostly non-white and black.

As a result of this profiling, there was an increase of police brutality against American blacks and unconscionable mistaken-identity killings of innocent blacks by law enforcers. Sometimes the perpetrators were black policemen themselves.

In US states where the Latino and Asian populations increased, and where gangs representing segments of these two demographic groups earned notoriety, the usual suspects that policemen immediately visualized came to include Hispanics and Asians (including Filipinos).

HR groups protest

Because of the high-profile mistaken arrests and shooting, human rights groups and churches protested. District attorneys instructed the law-enforcement and police departments to be more careful and to be more smart in applying their criminal profiling “manuals.” (In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or NAACP have proved that in many places in America, and in the national average, more crimes are committed by whites than by blacks and the other non-whites.

Profiling then became a bad word.

Policemen and other law-enforcement agents became more cautious in acting on their profiles of most likely carnappers, kidnappers, armed robbers, thieves, drug dealers and rapists—behaving more politely when they stopped, questioned and searched people of color.

But a lot of things changed in the States—and in the Philippines—after 9/11.

Anti-towelhead bias

After 9/11, policemen seemed to have reverted to the old crude ways, but this time bias is toward people who looked like the common Hollywood-movie Muslims (or “towelheads” like Osama bin Laden). The trouble is that the “towelhead” image in a policeman’s mind does not distinguish between a Sikh who wears a turban and Arabs (many of whom don’t wear any headgear at all).

Now US immigration check strictly checks Muslim-named aliens arriving not just from Arab countries but also India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and other countries where the terrorists are known to have a foothold or some kind of branch.

That kind of religious and racial (Arabic-looking) profiling is also being practiced in the Philippines. It’s very hard to say the police must not use racial or religious profiling when evidence and internationally verified intelligence data show that the vast majority of those who are known to be Jemaah Islamiah and al-Qaeda connected suspects are Muslims by religion and Arab or Middle Eastern by race or origin.

The thing for law enforcers to do is to be more studious and scientific about the way they wage their war against terrorists. They must not be superficially guided only by the “general profile.” After all there are also “Balik Islam” types of terrorists from all countries who are sporting Christian names. And there are also Arab Christians whose names seem to sound like those of Muslim Arabs.

The unpleasant experiences in the USA of law-abiding Muslims, and even non-Muslim US citizens mistaken for Muslims by the authorities, are the things Rep. Dumarpa’s bill wish to stop from happening here in the Philippines. The bill lays down heavy punishments for miscreant law enforcers.

But like every effort to impose virtuous action by law, this one too has its excesses and unintended consequences.

Making jokes a crime

Because it will make it criminal for anyone to imitate other people’s manner of speaking, accent or intonation, the unrivalled hilarity of Willie Nep’s impressions of Presidents Marcos, Aquino, Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo will no longer be possible. And recalling Mr. Seeryo Apoostol’s repeatedly addressing a female at the Estrada-impeachment trial as “Madam Wetness” will be considered not only an insult to my fellow Visayan Filipinos but also a crime under Rep. Dumarpa’s law.

And “Mongolian Barbecue,” that TV comedy that was a hit for a decade since the start of the Aquino administration, would no longer be possible.

I don’t at all like all those tasteless skits making fun of gays and exaggerating the mannerisms of their more scandalous archetypes. But I wouldn’t welcome a law passed to ban them.

Ms. Dumarpa and her coauthors should rid their bill of anything that abridges freedom of expression and the freedom to laugh about anything and anybody. Libel and slander laws should suffice.

The “Anti-Religious and Racial Profiling Act of 2007” should focus only on law-enforcement people who lazily and stupidly depend on general profiles and violate the human rights of the innocent.