Death Penalty in the PH

Introduction

In the long history of the Philippines, the death penalty was known and accepted fact.Capital
punishment in the Philippines has a varied history and is currently suspended as of 2006. Capital
punishment was legal after independence and increased in use under the Ferdinand Marcos regime.
After the fall of Marcos, there was a moratorium on capital punishment from 1987 to 1999, followed by
a resumption in executions from 1999 to 2006, and followed - in turn - by a law ending the practice.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, capital Punishment, aka death penalty is an execution of

an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law. Capital punishment is a matter of
active controversy in various countries and states, and positions can vary within a single political
ideology or cultural region. For now 56 countries have death penalty, while 103 have completely
abolished it for all crimes including the Philippines. Capital crime includes crimes against humanity,
murder, drug trafficking, rape, adultery, etc.

Death penalty in the Philippines started during the Spanish and American periods, legal after
independence and increased the President Ferdinand Marcos regime, but called a moratorium on the
1987 Constitution after the fall of Marcos. Under President Fidel V. Ramos that continue until to his
successor, Joseph Estrada, the death penalty resumed its executions from 1999-2006, followed by a law
to end the practice by the anti-death penalty President Arroyo. It seems like a switch that turns off and
on and off again.

To address the country’s drug and crime problem, with today’s administration, under President
Duterte called on congress to resurrect death penalty after being abolished in 2006. As a response, the
3rd and final reading of House Bill 4727 on Tuesday, March 7, a total of 217 lawmakers voted yes
including Muntinlupa congressman Ruffy Biazon, while only 54 congressmen said no including former
president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Imelda Marcos.
 Background History of Death PenaltyDeath penalty is one of the first forms of punishments in
the world. The first ever establisheddeath penalty law date as far as Eighteenth Century BCE in the
Code of King Hammurabi of Babylonwhich designates the consequence of 25 different crimes as
death. During the Athenian Age, death isconsidered as the only punishment for crimes. This has been
their way of minimizing the crime rate intheir own respective places.In the Philippines, the earliest
record of death penalty was during the Spanish Era. TheSpanish colonizers brought with them

Medieval Europe’s penal system including executions. The earliestforms of death penalty included
burning, decapitation, drowning, flaying, garrote, hanging, shooting,stabbing and others. Some of our
heroes, including our national hero, Jose Rizal, have been victims ofdeath penalty. During the American
Period, death penalty is still widely used. Public executions are stillheld though some laws have been
passed to minimize the field of death penalty. Some of the capitalcrimes punishable by death were
Treason, parricide, piracy, kidnapping, murder, rape, and robbery withhomicide. Death penalty was
primarily used against the Nationalist Filipinos who build resistance againstthe American Colonizers.
During the Japanese Occupation, no record of death penalties was madesimply because extrajudicial
executions were widely practiced as part of the pacification of the country.The Philippines was the first
country in Asia to abolish death penalty in all crimes. It wasthen replaced byreclusion perpetua or life
imprisonment. This was during the reign of President CorazonAquino although shortly after her six-year
term, Fidel V. Ramos, the proceeding president was forced toreinstate death penalty as punishment for
capital crimes due to heinous crimes committed in his time. Itis also in this time that Republic Act No.
8177 was passed and so it states that death penalty shall becarried out through lethal injection. In
the time of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, she stated thatshe is not in favor of executions but then
due to the rise in crimes related to drugs and kidnappings thattargeted the Filipino-Chinese community,
she announced that she would resume executions “to sow fear into the hearts of criminals.”

Although, on 15 April 2006, the sentences of 1,230 death row in mates were commuted to
life imprisonment, in what Amnesty International believes to be the "largest ever commutation of death
sentences".Capital punishment was again suspended via Republic Act No. 9346, which was signed
byPresident Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on 24 June 2006. The bill followed a vote held in Congress
earlierthat month which overwhelmingly supported the abolition of the practice. The penalties of
lifeimprisonment and reclusion perpetua (detention of indefinite length, usually for at least 30-
years)replaced the death penalty.Critics of Arroyo's initiative called it a political move meant to placate
theRoman Catholic Church, some sectors of which were increasingly vocal in their opposition to her rule.
My Argument

The death penalty does not deter the commission of crimes. Numerous scientific studies conducted in
various countries have clearly and indisputably established that the certainty of punishment is a more
effective deterrent against crime compared to the severity of punishment. The death penalty has never
been scientifically proven to have a clear and substantial effect in reducing crime incidence.

In fact, in the Philippines, national crime volume increased by 15.3%, during the bumper year of
executions in 1999 where seven individuals were executed for different heinous crimes. On 30 June
2004, then Senator Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel Jr. filed a bill to abolish the death penalty in the country.
Acting on this and other similar bills, then President Arroyo on 24 June 2006 signed Republic Act 9346
that abolished death penalty. She noted that death penalty should be abolished because it had not been
proven to be a deterrent to crime and had become invalid.

Death penalty kills mostly the poor.In a survey conducted by the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) in
May 2004, an overwhelming number of death penalty inmates belong to the poorest of the poor, have
only an elementary education, work in low-paying and back-breaking jobs, live with hardly any access to
drinking water and toilet facilities, and barely own property, including appliances and vehicles. In other
words, the death penalty disproportionately targets the most disadvantaged and vulnerable members of
our society, those who have limited access to adequate legal representation and who are the most
prone to have their rights disregarded or violated.

The Philippine justice system makes mistakes. According to the Supreme Court, trial court judges issued
erroneous judgments in 71.77% of capital-punishment cases tried. The required judicial proceedings
that seek to minimize mistakes were rarely followed. According to the same FLAG survey cited above,
one in four death inmates only had 0 to 1 consultation with their trial lawyers. Most inmates were
arrested without warrants, not informed of their constitutional rights upon arrest, and not assisted by
counsel during the investigation.

Restoring death penalty violates international laws which the Philippines is a party to. The Philippines is
party to international human rights instruments like the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, ratified by the Philippines in 1986, the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), and the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR that
specifically bans the imposition of the death penalty.
Conclusion

To be frankly honest I don’t really support the idea of having death penalty as a punishment at
all, because I was raised in a Christian family and all throughout my life I’ve been told and preach that no
one has the right to take on someone else’s life except God, but when I started on this position paper
that’s when my perspective change. I started to put myself on the same shoes of the victims and the
loved ones of the victims that when it came to me that if were the victim myself I would eagerly seek for
justice but we have to consider the fact our lives are not ours, it is only by our God savior and creator
and that us humans don’t have any right to take anyone’s life

Thus for me the death penalty is no solution to the severe challenge posed by criminality in the
Philippines. It is the certainty of arrest, conviction and long periods of imprisonment, not the threat of
execution alone, which will act as deterrent against crime. The frustration and fear felt by many Filipinos
because of high rates of crime deserves a genuine answer-not a short-term palliative offered through
the death penalty as a means of retribution.

A sustained program of reform of the Philippine National Police, criminal investigation agencies
and elements of the judiciary is necessary. At present law enforcers are too often perceived as
corrupted or responsible for human rights violations while justice is not seen to be distributed fairly-the
wealthy and influential are, in practice, not equal before the law.

The death penalty is being applied at an accelerating rate in the Philippines. As in the past it
appears to be imposed inconsistently and in a disproportionate way against the poor, ill-educated and
disadvantaged. The risk of judicial errors is mounting and Amnesty International is gravely concerned
over the use of illegal methods, including torture, by criminal investigative officers seeking to extract
confessions. Moreover, there is apprehension over inadequate safeguards, especially in the lower
courts, to ensure the defendants have access to competent counsel, and that the rigorous standards of
fair trial essential in capital cases are upheld.

Strapping a prisoner to a bed and injecting him or her with a cocktail of lethal drugs is brutalizing
and degrading. It violates the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and
undermines the aspiration for a renewed respect for human rights that lay at the heart of the popular
movement that restored constitutional democracy in the Philippines in the 1980s.
References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Philippines

https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/philippines/philippines-to-bring-back-death-penalty-
1.2261299

https://www.cram.com/subjects/Death-Penalty-in-the-Philippines

https://www.academia.edu/8644703/Background_History_of_Death_Penalty

http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2017/0220_pangilinan1.asp

https://www.academia.edu/33881272/death_penalty

https://www.scribd.com/document/373381685/Death-Penalty-in-the-Philippines

https://stressedneri.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/position-paper-death-penalty/

https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a99f4.html
 PROJECT
IN
ARALING PANLIPUNAN

POSITION PAPER

Submitted by:

Shianne Alejandro

Submmitted to:

Mrs. Carcueva