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Friday, March 29, 2024

Revisiting the death penalty for drug offenses

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Not discounting the power of prayer, the execution of Filipina OFW Mary Jane Veloso  seems inescapable considering that Indonesia has made a seriously hard stand to arrest its increasingly severe drug problem, and has vowed not to give in to international pressure in meting out its tough drug laws.

Despite this foreboding scenario, however, we join in supporting the optimistic view that the Indonesian court should reconsider its decision due to the merits of Veloso’s statement of innocence that she did not knowingly agree to act as a courier, and that her recruiter underhandedly placed the drugs in her luggage. China has similarly done the same and several Filipinos have been executed due to drug related cases. Like Indonesia, it has also refused to listen to our government’s appeals for clemency, underscoring the argument that it needed to enforce its laws to arrest the incidence of illegal drug trade in the country.

According to the latest data from the Department of Foreign Affairs, about 787 Filipinos are facing drug-related cases around the world. There are 116 cases in the Americas, 104 in Europe and 244 in the Middle East and Africa, but the majority, 343 of which are in Asia. This reflects the seriousness and gravity of the illegal drug epidemic. Notwithstanding the merits of Veloso’s case, we should emulate what these countries are doing to discourage the drug trade in their jurisdiction. While it is true that the death penalty did not entirely eradicate the drug problem in these countries, it has nevertheless offered a strong deterrence. In the Philippines, the severity of the drug epidemic can be readily surmised just by realizing that 60 percent of our inmates are incarcerated due to drug related offenses. Further supporting this concern is the advisory given by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) under the section “Drug-related Crimes” in its “Philippines 2014 Crime and Safety Report”: “Production, trafficking, and consumption of illegal drugs are issues of concern…Transnational organized crime groups both exploit under-staffed and under-resourced law enforcement and a weak judicial system to establish clandestine drug laboratories and import wholesale quantities of methamphetamine to supply the domestic market…Regionally, the Philippines is an identified source of methamphetamine for Guam and a transit point from Africa to Southeast Asia (emphasis mine).”

This cancer continues to grow and root itself in the very foundations of our society while simultaneously, boldly mocking the weight of our criminal justice system. Having said this, I strongly feel that we need to draw on both China and Indonesia’s iron-hand approach to arrest this menace. Even in our own national experience, no one can deny the high deterrent psychological effect of the execution of Lim Seng during the Marcos administration when capital punishment was still being enforced in the Philippines. Lim Seng was a Chinese drug lord that was tried and sentenced to die by firing squad in December 1972. His execution was a good example which put terror in the hearts of other big-time pushers during the time.

The concept of capital punishment in the Philippine context has had a varied history. Many Filipinos oppose it due to religious and humanitarian arguments, while its proponents view it as an effective way of deterring crimes. Although I do not subscribe to the opinion that the death penalty is the only solution to the problem of the drug menace in our country, I am firmly convinced of the fact that its absence has emboldened many local and foreign operators and syndicates to perpetuate and broaden their activities here. As a result, many of our countrymen have directly and indirectly fallen victims to this scourge.

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Indeed, the life of every individual is priceless and valuable, but we should not hesitate to choose the ruin of one to deter the ruin of greater populace.

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