The words expressly are a ‘pound of flesh’;
Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
Unto the state of Venice.”
- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
There is a famous argument in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, where a lawyer/judge (Portia) “restructures” a debtor’s (Antonio) bond and in the final “rehabilitation plan” all the goods of the creditor (Shylock) are dramatically forfeited in favor of the debtor and the Duke of Venice. Although this is fiction, it is illustrative of the change in the history of indebtedness. Roman law allowed a creditor to seize the debtor and sell or kill him in foreclosure. Judaic law allowed a creditor to take the children of the debtor in case of nonpayment of a debt. Greek law categorized indebtedness as a capital crime similar to murder.
Social change rendered these radical measures obsolete, and, with the rise and fall of corporations, modern laws on bankruptcy, insolvency and rehabilitation evolved to serve three basic functions:
Secure equality among creditors,
Provide relief to debtors thru a discharge of the debt, and
Benefit society at large.
Although there is no current rehabilitation plan that is as beneficial to the debtor as the plan for the merchant of Venice, in the Philippines, the primary consideration of rehabilitation, and its definition as well, is:
The continuance of the debtor’s business life and activities in an effort to restore and reinstate the debtor to its former position of successful operation and solvency.
