The Ten Commandments and the Law

by Edgar Paul Reyes

A while back, controversy raged in the U.S. about a two-ton granite rock depicting the Biblical Decalogue inside the lobby of a state judicial building. A federal court judge ordered the monument removed, ruling that it constituted an “endorsement of (a) religion,” which violates the constitutional notion of the separation of church and state. The state’s chief Supreme Court justice refused to obey the order, saying the Ten Commandments are the moral foundation of American law.

The Philippines being a predominantly Christian country and a former colony of the U.S., I can’t help but wonder how the Ten Commandments are actually reflected in our own laws. There is little doubt that a large number of Filipinos will not object to the placement of the Ten Commandments in any government building in the Philippines, although an equally large number probably have great difficulty remembering, much less following, its edicts. Here are the Ten Commandments (the Catholic version, for there are at least three):

1. I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me. A law along the lines of the first commandment would be unconstitutional, as it would violate the freedom of choice of religion. Judge: “I hereby sentence the defendant to 10 years of hard labor for worshipping Buddha.” Theocratic states may have laws promoting one God, but in democratic Philippines, all are free to worship anyone they deem holy enough, like, say, Jose Rizal.

2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. “O, D’yos ko! Ano ba naman ito,” sang the Eraserheads in one of their irreverent songs and no one seemed to mind. Indeed, only the most conservative Christians in the Philippines would object to such Filipino expressions as “Susmaryosep!” and “D’yos ko!” And you won’t go to jail for that, either—nor probably in hell.

3. Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy. I have a strong personal objection to this because I sometimes work on weekends and I don’t want to be stoned to death for that, which is the appropriate punishment according to Numbers 15:32~36. Revised as a gentle suggestion (“Don’t work too hard”) the third commandment might work, but there is no law that penalizes people for doing what they want on weekends.

4. Honor your father and your mother. This is a good moral edict, although it is not universally practiced and is not found in our law books.

5. You shall not kill. It’s safe to say that no civilized society tolerates the killing of a human being (ironically, except in the name of God). Respect for human life is one of the moral fibers of modern laws; in the Philippines, a premeditated, cold-blooded murder will land you on death row. Don’t ask why, but Philippine lawmakers seem to think that the fifth commandment does not apply to the government.

6. You shall not commit adultery. This is always a good thing to say to other people. It certainly won’t pass into law, punishable by jail time, for the very simple reason that Congress can’t vote itself out of existence. Interestingly, according to many passages in the Bible, God expressly stated that the penalty for adultery is death (for example, Leviticus 20:10), yet when King David slept with Bathsheba, sent her husband to his death (another capital offense), and took her to be his wife, he wasn’t punished accordingly. (Apparently, even God makes exceptions.) In modern-day Philippines, adultery may be universally condemned but I don’t know anyone who was actually punished for it.

7. You shall not steal. Stealing is bad, so don’t steal—or you go to jail. Except if you’re a high-ranking official in the Bureau of Customs, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and other similar government institutions, in which case, you’re exempt.

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Don’t tell a lie—that’s one of the first things we tell our children. However, sociologists opine that lying in social settings is permissible and sometimes necessary to avoid unpleasant situations. At any rate, spreading false stories about your neighbor’s improprieties is probably not a crime, but lying in a court of law will get you into trouble and may put you in jail.

9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. I’m not sure, but this seems to apply only to male members of the human species. The reason may be that in pre-Feminism ancient times when the Old Testament was written, women did not have rights and were regarded as mere property. Coveting another man’s wife, in any era, is certainly bad for neighborly relations, although there is no law against it and even if there were, enforcement is practically impossible.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods. Once, I went to a friend’s house and tried my favorite CD on his five-speaker audio system and the sound was unlike anything I’ve heard of before that I just had to buy one myself. Was I guilty of covetousness? Well, yes, but so is everyone else, Christian or not. Wanting the latest gadget is the driving force of a free-market, capitalist society. The Christian Church itself has long embraced the capitalist philosophy, as it rejected communism, which it views as essentially atheistic in nature.

So are the Ten Commandments irrelevant in these modern times? Maybe not. Although a number of the Commandments are clearly incompatible with the ideas of democracy and capitalism, for many people, they provide a convenient set of moral codes upon which they can build their moral and religious education—provided they remember (and follow) them, of course.

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