“What is legal may not always be moral.”
Those were the words that kept echoing in my mind while I was heading back home from school. As my parents picked me up, It felt like it would be another ordinary evening for the three of us. My mother would ask how my day was and then proceed to talk about the shows she was watching on Netflix. My father would talk about the latest news in the world of basketball, particularly in the NBA.
This time, however, my father and I found ourselves in a conversation about laws, specifically about the essence of considering morals in law-making, to which my father said that not all matters that are legal these days are moral. At first I shrugged it off and went on to talk about other topics. By the time I got home, I was consumed by the question—Can matters become legal even if they are not moral?
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines legal as “conforming to or permitted by law or established rules” and “the quality or state of being legal.” Whereas moral is described as “of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior.” These two terms have been associated with each other several times as laws are usually based on what people think is right or wrong.
Surprisingly, there have been instances were laws allowed immoral acts to be legal. One of which is Penal Labor in the United States, which includes slavery or involuntary servitude. This aws allowed by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Section 1 of the Amendment says that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”, making it legal to enslave individuals as punishment. While it is limited to persons who are convicted of crime, it doesn’t fully remove the idea of slavery. Legal? Yes. Moral? Questionably.
Should morality be considered in making laws? Absolutely. Most of the laws passed by the Philippine government are more or less intended to acknowledge the needs of the Filipino people. As stated in Section 3, Article III of the Philippine Constitution, “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the laws”. We cannot deny that fact that the concept of morality will differ from person-to-person. There are around 110 million Filipinos around the globe, and all have their set of morals, we must strive to create laws that shall respect each of those and try to understand one another and compromise.
No matter the circumstance, laws should not violate the rights of its people. Philippine laws should take into consideration its effects on every single Filipino. This one of the reasons as to why the laws of the land are not overly specific and not overly broad—we should always aim to find a middle ground so that each sector of the society would benefit from the blessings of independence and democracy.
