Chapter Seven VICTIMOLOGY Victomology may be defined as a branch of the study of criminology which deals with the study

of an individual who somehow, one way or the other, has contributed to the commission of a crime or offense making himself a party in crime and at the same time a crime victim of his own volition. Law seeks justice, which is exactly what we want it to do, but in seeking justice, it must often sacrifice logic and precision. This is where the difficulty comes into play, for if we do not recognize law as a quest for justice, we cannot understand why it is that law grows and changes as people's concept of justice changes and as the socioeconomic world changes. Each individual's concept of justice varies in terms of personality, personal circumstances, family background, education, and social and economic position in the society. Hence, those who have more in life have different meaning of justice to those who have less in life, and most particularly to the complainant and the accused. In Scotland Yard, a study of "victimology" or crime target, or what makes a person a victim of crime was made. This study reveals that a person becomes a victim of crime unknowingly or unconsciously due to his own action or fault. He somehow contributes to the commission of crime out of his own making. In some instances, the victim of fraud could have learned the truth by examining data or making further inquiries. In a given case, the victim may have failed to do so because he did not have sufficient knowledge to ask or search further, was in too much of a hurry, or was just careless. What is the effect of such fault on the part of the victim? The law recognizes that people do not live according to the rules at all times, and that in many cases the victim will negligently rely on the false statements of the wrongdoer. Such courts therefore, allow the victim some degree of carelessness. In this way, it is made more difficult for the wrongdoer to escape liability and thus fraud is discouraged. At the same time, the courts do not want to approve the contributory negligence of the victim and therefore find that under the circumstances the victim is justified in relying on the statements of the wrongdoer. In other cases where the victim was too careless, the court will hold that reliance was not justified. In this regard, psychological understanding of the criminal act would be incomplete without reference to the role of the victim. Were it not for the careless participation of the victim, the crime would not have been committed. Like for instance mutual surrendering. The victim has an opportunity and in the desire to surrender when

a swindler tells him that he can double his money quickly by means of card games. The victim does not know that he is being swindled with consent. This topic victimology, in effect, is coterminous with the study of criminology. A basic understanding of victimology in relation to criminology can help prevent one from becoming a victim of crime. The following are some of the factors of victimization: 1. Our Materialistic Culture

In this era of Materialism, money has always been looked upon as the supreme goal of life to many people. Money and the things money can buy seem to be the strongest motivation for the existence and the efforts of the individuals. In the fields of politics, business, education, international affairs, as well as in the profession, the love for money seems to be the overpowering consideration in the actions and doings of those "who are engaged in it. Ethics and social affairs have been relegated to the background, and the material consideration has become the topmost objective. As a result of this baneful philosophy, it matters not how money is obtained, whether legally or illegally, whether fair or foul, or whether the rules of the game were followed or not. The status symbol of success in life has become the luxurious mansion, the flashy car, the expensive haberdashery, the tours abroad and the fat bank book. Adherents to the materialistic philosophy believe that very few persons are truly honest, and that everyone has his price and can be bought. They believe that money conquers all. With the exaltation of money as the supreme value of life, hatred andscorn has been sown, murders have been consummated, frauds, swindling and malversation of government funds and property perpetrated, malfeasance in public office abetted, and the old and youth corrupted. Thus materialism has taken the place of idealism. The God of Mammon, the place of the True God. As Nathaniel Hawthorne had said, "It is not money, but the love of money the excessive, selfish, covetous love of money, that is the root of all evil." 2. Our Sex Values

Nowadays, a sexy woman is considered by a lot of people; a very attractive human being. Many people look upon her as an object and the personification of beauty. She is admired, sought after and adored. Consequently, anything connected with sex has become desirable, popular and socially approved. Because of this perverted concept, there exists in our midst today, a sex conscious and j sex stimulating environment, which permeates in almost all levels of our society. Sex today is becoming the popular theme in movies, dramas, stage presentation, radio, television programs, business advertisements and printed materials. Sex

has become an accepted subject in anecdotes, stories, dialogues and wise cracks. The wide use and distribution of pornography is well known in some schools and colleges. The use of sex in conversation, even among the cultured and the educated has become the approved symbol of manliness and dating. As a result of this situation, the modem man has been stimulated to crave for sex satisfaction more than ever before. But because the proper use of sex is regulated by law and morals, people who could not satisfy their urge legally, satisfy it illegally, hence, the current increase of sexual immorality. Police records show that there is tremendous increase of sex offenses and abuses against chastity committed by both juveniles and adults. That fortification among unmarried population is rampant in hotels and motels, and that necking and petting are too common among the college populace. Criminal abortions are taking place everywhere and the use of condoms and contraceptives is becoming popular. Prostitution and white slave traffic continue to exist and its main patrons are mostly young and even married men. Sex perversions by both sexes continue to plague both the cultured and the uncultured population. 3. Decay of Discipline

There is a consensus that today a general decay of discipline exists in this country, both in the individual and national levels. Evidence of undisciplined and a rebellion to ethical rules are very noticeable in private as well as in the public places. Hostility to laws, customs and traditions are very patent and a local disregard of good manners and right conduct is fast being accepted. The perverted concept of liberty that "a person may do whatever he pleases" and the mistaken notion of democracy that "the least of the government is the best," are contributing immensely to the breakdown of discipline. The youth of today seem to revolt against anything that restrains the expression of their ego and their emotions. So much so that restrictive legislations for public officials and employees and the constituent members of the society have been passed to regulate the personal conduct of people in public as well as in private places. 4. Public Morality

The state of public morality of a nation is reflected usually in what the people approve or disapprove. When the people fail to condemn a morally reprehensive act, they indirectly approve the act. When society fails to protest against a bad situation, then it condones the situation. When it fails to correct a mistake, it indirectly perpetuates the mistake. In our society today, there are many evil acts where the people do not seem to react with moral indignation. They do not rebel against the bad practice, but instead seem to conform and approve silently of it. The problem of graft and corruption would not be as persistent as it is if only the people would show a collective indignation to both the

giver and the receiver. People who accumulate wealth thru shady practices are not discouraged in their way because the public admire them for being smart and high society admits their company because they are rich. High government officials who keep paramours and parade them in public are not at all ashamed because the public concedes it as a necessary evil. The corrupt politician is still sought as a guest speaker in many school convocations and social functions. Thus, the loss of moral indignation is the first step to criminal condonation. What the people indirectly tolerate or consent is the true measure of what they really deserve to get. We live in a delinquent environment; no wonder we have too much juvenile delinquency, because we have too much adult delinquency, J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI once said the juvenile delinquency is a misnomerinstead it should be parental delinquency. George Bernard Shaw once said that in the old days he used to admire how children obey their parents; today he is amazed how parents obey their children.

One Good Example of Victomology where the family ofal 2-year old victim of rape has contributed to the commission of incestuous rape.
"Life in the raw" "JEALOUSLY, rage, rape, incest, adultery, drugs, lies and more sex. Sociologists can discover life in the raw in a neighborhood in San Francisco del Monte, where Leo Echegaray grew up, married, raised a family and raped a girl who is either his daughter or stepdaughter. That part has been one of the grounds raised by Leo's counsel in an earlier motion for reconsideration before the Supreme Court. The victim's paternity remains unsettled to Leo's final hours. It obviously did not factor into the high court's decision affirming Leo's conviction of child rape. The Echegarays and the Riveras, the family of his former common-law wife, are neighbors. Rosalie Rivera told Ibon Features that as a child she was battered by her three older brothers. All three are ex-convicts. One of them, she claims molested her baby daughter, who was later also Leo's victim. Leo himself was arrested and jailed for almost a year for illegal possession of drugs. Rosalie's mother, Asuncion Rivera, is allegedly well-known in the neighborhood as a drug-pusher. Under direct examination by Echegaray's counsel, Rosalie testified that when she was 13 years old, her mother, Asuncion Rivera, prompted her to sexually service her mother's live-in-partner, Conrado Alfonso. He was Asuncion's third lover. But her mother, she said, would certainly deny her incestuous relationship with Alfonso. She even dared Rosalie to file rape charges against her stepfather.

Rosalie said she never complained about the sex because she was an obedient child. But she did run away from home many times only to return nd submit herself over and over to the advances of Alfonso. She got pregnant by her stepfather. Echegaray, who started living in with Rosalie in 1985, agreed to give his name to the child and provide for her needs. In gratitude. Alfonso allegedly gave the 40-square meter lot where he and Asuncion had been staying. By this time, Alfonso had abandoned Asuncion. But close to the eve of Echegaray's execution. Rosalie told the INQUIRER a different story. She said she lied about the daughter with Alfonso. At the time of her court appearance, she was still supporting Leo's protestations of innocence as she worried, she said, that his being in jail would deprive her family of a breadwinner. To reduce the gravity of Leo's offense, she even testified that the victim was not Leo's daughter. Is she or isn't she? Only Rosalie knows for sure. Leo and Rosalie parted after he tried to douse her with alcohol during one of his jealous fits. Rosalie charged him with attempted homicide. They have either three or five children, depending on whether one talks to the Echegarays or to the Riveras. Though Rosalie has five children, including the victim, Leo's family claims only three are by him. They claim that the eldest, the victim, who's now 15, was sired by a man from Pangasinan. They allege that the victim was already 2 years old when Rosalie and Leo began living together in 1985. Leo's family says Rosalie was married to the victim's real father before shacking up with Leo. With Leo, Rosalie had two sons and a daughter now aged 10, 8 and 4. But the Echegarays point to the 6-year-old son of Rosalie. The father is not Leo but a member of a band, the Echegarays say. Rosalie, they add, is now living with another man and has a one-year-old daughter by him and is pregnant with another. Rosalie has since taken the side of her daughter, the victim. Who knows why she switched sides. What is clear is that Rosalie is street smart. She has to be to survive the squalor of her life. She has also returned to live with her mother Asuncion where once she had accused her of inventing the rape charge against Leo so she could get back the land Alfonso allegedly turned over to him. Even before the land dispute, relations between Leo and his mother-in-law had been turbulent. Rosalie claimed that her mother, who by then no longer had a lover, was jealous of the attention Leo showered on her. Now Rosalie and Asuncion are together under one roof and solidly behind the victim. They want Leo to die to get it over with and get on with their life.

But the victim herself has not quite forgiven Rosalie. She chose to live, after spending three months at the Department of Social Welfare and Development, with the family of the barangay captain of San Antonio in San Francisco del Monte." The victim has the makings of her mother another Rosalie. Source: Editorial, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Monday, January 4, 1999. Victimology and Damages It has been said that, "if there is a complainant, there must be a defendant." Thus, there could never be a victim if there is no criminal, except in what is known as"victimless crime." And the only thing that does away with criminality is dicriminalizatlon, otherwise known as "logomacy," a statement that we have no crime if we had no criminal law, and that we could eliminate all crimes merely by abolishing all criminal laws. Then if it would be that way, people will follow their own desires at the expense of another, and the philosophy of "Come What May" will be the name of the game to everyone. But as a rational human being, we cannot do away the so called "social control," as the process to make its members play their roles as expected of them in a peaceful and stable society. In this topic victimology, once again, we make man as the focal point of interest, the subject of victimization. All acts and omissions punishable by law concerned about man, as a human being, and not to any juridical persons whose existence is by operation of law. Man as a human being, has a juridical capacity and capacity to act. He is normally entitled to the following civil damages, if warranted: 1. Moral Damages, or compensation awarded to a persons physical suffering, mental anguish, fright, serious anxiety, besmirched reputation, wounded feelings, moral shock, social humiliation, and similar injury; 2. Actual or compensatory damages, or the compensation awarded to a person for such pecuniary loss suffered by him as he has duly proved: 3. Moral damages, or the compensation awarded to a person's physical suffering, Nominal damages or amount awarded to a person in order that his right, which had been violated or invaded, may be mendicated or recognized; 4. Temperate or moderate damages, or the compensation which is more than nominal but less than compensatory damages, awarded to a person when the court finds that he has suffered some pecuniary loss, but its amount cannot, from the nature of the case, be proved with certainty;

5. Liquidated damages, or that agreed upon by the parties to a contract, to be paid in case of breach thereof; and

6. Exemplary or corrective damages or that imposed by way of example or correction for the public good, in addition to the moral, temperate, liquidated or compensator}" damages. These civil damages enumerated above, are separate and distinct from the criminal liability of the author of the crime, which can be imposed by the court only after conviction in a criminal action or proceeding. The civil damages are not so absolute, that the awards are always subject to the merits of the case and physical evidence presented before the court. Nature of Damages Underlying the legal principle that a person who is criminally liable is also civilly liable is the view that from the standpoint of its effects a crime has dual character as an offense against the state because of the disturbance of the social order and (2) as an offense against the private person injured by the crime unless it invokes the crime, of treason, contempt, espionage and others wherein no civil liability arises on the part of the offender either because there are no damages to be compensated or there is no private person injured by the crime (Occena vs. Icamina22 Jan. '90). In the ultimate analysis, what gives rise to the civil liability is ready the obligation of everyone to repair or to make whole the damage caused to anther by reason of his act or omission, whether done intentionally or negligently or whether or not punishable by law. The Irony of Being a Victim Most often, the award to the victim of the crime committed is not compensation for what he had suffered. The irony is that, while he remains the ESS victim, the offender is benefited of the wrong done. The offender is the bereficiary of the government in terms of meal allowances, and security provided by the prison guard while in jail. While the possible, consequence of the death of the victim is the dislocation and disorganization of the surviving family who, unexpectedly lost its bread winner The government is and has been annually appropriating funds to feed and house orders out of tax payers' income, yet the government has never appropriated any single amount for the compensation of the victims and their dislocated and disorganized surviving families who. Most of them are tax payers. Let us assume there are 5,000 sentenced prisoners and detention prisoners, then multiply this by P 17.00 daily meal allowance per head, the Government is spending P31,625.000.00 squally for

the food alone of these prisoners 365 days a year. This does not include another million of Pesos for the salaries of the prison guards, facilities, and maintenance of hundreds of buildings, where the prisoners are housed all over the country. At a glance one can say that there is an urgent need of legislation to compensate victims of some crimes, particularly the so-called "heinous crimes if not at all of those acts and omissions punishable under the Revised Penal Code and Special Laws. If the government has been appropriating Million of Pesos annually for criminal offenders, why not "Victim Compensation, for at least those victims of heinous crimes? Victimless Crimes Out of 365 Articles of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, gambling of any kind and Art. 202 on vagrancy which are acts punishable, are considered as the only "victimless crimes." Games that may constitute gambling may include the following: a) Any game or scheme the result of which depends wholly or chiefly upon chance or hazard and wherein wagers consisting of money, articles of value, or representative of value are made; and b) Any other mechanical invention or contrivance to determine by chance the loser or winner of money or any object or representative of value. On the other hand, a vagrant is either of the following: a) One, having no apparent means of subsistence, who has the physical ability to work, neglects to apply himself or herself to some lawful calling; b) One found loitering about public or semi-public buildings or places, or tramping or wondering about the country or streets without visible means of support; c) Any idle or dissolute person who lodges in houses of ill-fame, ruffians or pimps and those who habitually associate with prostitutes; d) One, not included within any other articles of the Code, shall be found loitering in any inhabited or uninhabited place belonging to another without any lawful or justifiable purpose. Article 202 on Vagrancy is certainly against the poor, like scavengers, or people who are living out of trash and garbage of the society. A scavenger who has no lawful means of livelihood or subsistence except loitering about public or semi-public places or

buildings, or tramping or wondering about the country or streets, for the purpose of collecting recyclable trash and garbage in order to make a living out of it, could be considered and booked as vagrant. This is one kind of a law which punishes one who is poor and who has no lawful means of livelihood or subsistence, except of being a scavenger, hence he could be charged for "vagrancy," but at the same does not punish a prostitute who has also lawful means of livelihood, maybe as a regular employee during day time, and a prostitute during night time.