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The document discusses the differences between murder and homicide according to Philippine law. Murder is defined as killing another person with circumstances like treachery, superior strength, weapons, or cruelty. It is punishable by 20 to 40 years in prison. Homicide is unintentional killing and is punishable by 12 to 20 years in prison. Examples given include accidentally hitting and killing someone while driving. Both murder and homicide are considered non-bailable offenses. The document argues that killing should not be normalized and only God has the authority to take lives.

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Aerol Belza

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Murder or Homicide

According to Article 3 of the Civil Code: Ignorance of the Law excuses no one, and
that includes us. Killing is very wrong, even without a law we know in ourselves that
killing other people is immoral, to a religious person he knows that God himself
forbids killing as it was stated in the fifth commandment. Killing should not be
tolerated but some people do it anyways. In this essay, I would like to tackle the
similarities and differences between murder and homicide, to a normal citizen these
words only means, killing, and they are not entirely wrong. But, in the eyes of the law
murder and homicide are two separate cases, with separate penalties, and separate
meaning.

Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code defines murder as killing someone other than
a family member with any of the following circumstances: With treachery, taking
advantage of superior strength, with the aid of armed men, or employing means to
weaken the defense, or of means or persons to insure or afford impunity, in
consideration of a price, reward, or promise, with cruelty, by deliberately and
inhumanly augmenting the suffering of the victim, or outraging or scoffing at the
persons’ corpse. Murder is punishable by reclusión perpetua (20 to 40 years'
imprisonment). A murder is committed “with treachery”, it means there was a
betrayal of trust.

On the other hand, Homicide is unintentional killing, as define by the law, any
person not falling within the provisions of Article 246, shall kill another, without the
attendance of any of the circumstances enumerated in the next preceding article, shall
be deemed guilty of homicide and be punished by reclusion temporal. For example,
you are driving and you hit someone and that someone dies, that’s homicide, unless
you intent to hit that someone. Reclusion Temporal is equivalent to 12 years to 20
years imprisonment. Murder and Homicide are both non bailable offense according to
a September 1936 Supreme Court Ruling.

“You are not entitled to you opinion, you are entitled to your informed opinion. No
one is entitled to be ignorant” Harlan Ellison said. We should always be informed
about the topics that are relevant. Killing is becoming more and more normal as times
goes by and we should not normalize it. Killing is never an answer to anything, ones
should always respect the lives of other no matter how heinous that person is, only
God has the authority to take lives and no one else.

Responding to the Text

Comprehension Questions
1. After becoming a steamboat pilot, he notices a shift in his attitude toward the river.
In other words, as he gains knowledge and life experiences, he begins to take the
river's beauty for granted and loses his love for it.
2. Mark Twain's Two Views Of The River uses figurative language. The small ripples
in the water were now a sign of a reef that would ruin his boat, the log was now a sign
of rising floods, and finally, this lovely sunset that he previously cherished was now a
sign of wind the next day, he said.
3. Twain feels he has “gained most or lost most”. When he looks at the river, he has
gained knowledge and experience. He was struck by its peacefulness, smoothness,
and beauty the first time he saw it. However, after spending so much time staring at
that river, he became less charmed with it. He lost his emotional connection to the
river, as well as the river's link to his life. That’s what he has lost.

Critical Thinking Question

1. Because the author can view the river every day, he loses his sense of the river's
natural beauty. While learning the craft of steamboating, he picks up a lot of helpful
information. he learned the value that the river had, as he describes “all the value any
feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward
compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat”.
2. When we fully understand something, we lose our imagination, because we would
only focus on the technical stuff. Knowledge is very useful but sometimes it can also
ruin things.