"We do not need it."
"We do not need it."
President Rodrigo Duterte made a strong pitch for the restoration of the death penalty during his fourth State of the Nation Address. As expected, pro-Duterte lawmakers from both Houses of Congress echoed Duterte’s position. In the Senate, neophyte senator Bato dela Rosa has filed his bill reinstating capital punishment weeks before the SONA.
This type of punishment has been legal in the Philippines for many years. From 1946 until the adoption of the 1987 Constitution, there was death penalty. The very first execution was in April 1950 for the attempt to assassinate then President Manuel Roxas. There were 51 deaths from the penalty until 1961, and there were many more during the dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ time. In 1972, the three who were convicted for the abduction and gang rape of actress Maggie dela Riva were executed. Under Marcos, drug trafficking was punishable with death by firing squad. Convicted drug lord Lim Seng suffered this on Jan. 15 1973 in full view of the Filipino people. Marcos ordered the execution televised.
There was a turnaround when the 1987 Constitution prohibited death penalty. However, it also allowed Congress to reinstate it “hereafter” for heinous crimes. The Philippines was the first country in Asia to abolish capital punishment.
This was short-lived though because during former President Fidel Ramos’ time, Republic Act (RA) 7659 was passed in 1993 restoring capital punishment through the electric chair until the gas chamber could be used. In 1996, another law, RA 8177 was passed prescribing the use of lethal injection as the method to carry the sentence out.
Executions resumed in 1999 already under former President Joseph Estrada with the Leo Echegaray rape case involving his young daughter. This was a particularly sad event for women’s rights advocates because when we were advocating for the passage of the Anti-Rape bill, we wanted the most severe punishment for rape and at that time, it was life imprisonment. We did not favor death penalty but because the law changed, Echegaray was executed.
Estrada was replaced by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who was staunchly against the death penalty. This was committed to law when Congress passed RA 9346 in 2006. In 2007, the Philippines became a signatory to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights regarding the abolition of the death penalty. Thus, from 2006 till now, the country has done away with capital punishment.
Worldwide, 106 States of the 198 members of the United Nations have abolished death penalty, 56 still have it, 28 are abolitionist in practice, and eight have abolished it for ordinary crimes but maintain it for special circumstances like war crimes.
Pro-death penalty lawmakers claim that this punishment will deter the commission of crime. However, there is no proof that this is so. The contrary is true. Internationally, States without death penalty have significantly lower murder rates than those still practicing it. Murder rates in these countries are higher by no less than 42 percent compared with countries that do not allow death penalty.
Scientific studies on the deterrent effect of capital punishment in 1996 and 2008 had the same conclusion—death penalty does not deter crime and that the deterrence hypothesis is a myth. Of the scientists involved in the studies, 88.2 percent believed this; only 9.2 percent said otherwise.
In the Philippines, the biggest argument against the death penalty is our experience with it. We had it for 54 long years and executions were done on those convicted of heinous crimes including drugs and rape. Some of the killings were even televised. Did it deter the commission of more crimes? NO. We know where we are now in terms of criminality.
Another argument against the death penalty is its being anti-poor. As it is, thousands upon thousands of poor suspects have already been killed without due process in the name of the war against drugs. Adding the death penalty to legitimize murders such as those will kill more poor people.
July 2017 data from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology indicated that there were 143,367 inmates housed in 466 jails that should only hold 20,773 people. We can only imagine how inhumane the living condition in these jails was. Ninety-seven percent of them were awaiting, or undergoing trial, or waiting for final judgment.
While in the eyes of the law these inmates were innocent until proven guilty, they were being kept in prisons. Outside of those charged with non-bailable offenses, the big majority of them could have availed of temporary liberty with the right amount of money. It is reasonable to think that many were in jail because they could not afford representation, or bail due to poverty. This was in 2017. Imagine how it is now with the ongoing war on drugs. If death penalty is reimposed, more poor people will die because they will not be able to afford lawyers and sustain their defense.
The kind of “justice” system we have is another reason to oppose death penalty. It is corrupt, inefficient, complex, and protracted. It will be easy for the moneyed to get away with crimes and for the poor to die for crimes they did not commit. Wrong convictions can no longer be overturned when people are already dead.
The reinstatement of the death penalty is unjust, anti-poor, and a violation of human rights. Contrary to the claims of those who want it, it will not deter crime.
The thing to do is to revamp our justice system. Make it effective and efficient. Ensure that laws are properly and impartially implemented. Instead of the system being purely punitive, make it transformative so those who have served their time are prepared to rejoin society as productive, law-abiding citizens.
We do not need the death penalty. REJECT it.
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