Circumstances Which Affect Penalty
Certain circumstances, namely, criminal responsibility, alienship, kinship, confession, and the relative rank of offender and offended, affect penalty, either as to its severity or as to the likelihood of its being inflicted at all.
76. Moral turpitude not a factor.—Moral turpitude, which plays no small part in our own law in determining punishment, seems not to enter into the consideration of Ifugao law. Thus, such crimes as incest between brother and sister, parricide, matricide, fraticide, and treason against one’s family, all go unpunished. Even the betrayal of a co-villager into the hands of the enemy subjects the offender to only a third degree of likelihood of being punished (see [sec. 80]). These crimes probably go unpunished in accordance with the following correlated fundaments of Ifugao society: Legal procedure is conducted by and between families; the family unit is the most precious thing in Ifugao social life; family unity must, at all hazards, be preserved. In the case of a murder accomplished by treachery, as for example, the killing of a guest, the moral turpitude involved might perhaps hasten punishment—it might even increase its severity in that the kin of the murdered person might retaliate on a greater number of those concerned in the murder. But such an abuse of hospitality appears never to have occurred.
Another reason why what we consider moral turpitude does not enter into punishment is that treachery, ambush, and accomplishment by superior force are the rule, not only in commission of crime, but also in perfectly legal capital executions and seizures of property.