Relevance

During the campaign season of the 2016 National and Local Elections, former
frontrunner and now President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte was one of the candidates
who vocally supported the reinstatement of death penalty to aid him in his war against
drugs. He put the reimposition of the death penalty at the top of his administration’s legislative
priorities although three years into his term and it still has not been enacted yet due to several
factors hindering him to do so which shall be discussed as we progress in this paper . Despite
the delay in the legislative enactment, efforts have continuously been made by the President to
push for this measure. As a matter of fact, during his State of the Nation Address last July 22,
2019, he once again asked the Congress to bring back death penalty for the alarming rise of
“heinous crimes related to illegal drugs and plunder”.
Due to the recent surge of heinous crimes as in the case of Christine Silawan, a 17 year
old girl who was raped and skinned alive with her muscles carved off the bone in Cebu earlier of
2019, some Filipinos might have reconsidered the reimposition of death penalty.1 This Silawan
case, which is now considered as one of the most notorious rape and slay cases in the
Philippines, is one of the examples which sparks the emotional outrage of some members of
the Philippine community who desire to demand justice in a manner that is directly
proportional to the gravity of the offense committed and execute the law at the expense of the
offender’s life.
Senator Bato Dela Rosa, among other lawmakers, shares the same belief as President
Duterte and in fact, authored his own version of death penalty bill punishing drug traffickers
and filed it in the Congress. According to him, this capital punishment is not anti-poor as what
people make it to be because there are no drug-traffickers who are poor. 2 On the other hand,
Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, also filed a bill to bring back death penalty but his version was
for plunderers.3 As of September 24, 2019, there are at least 15 bills filed in the House of
Representatives4; some of these are bills including amendments to the Revised Penal Code and
a House Bill No. 2026 filed by Surigao del Norte 2nd District Representative Robert Ace Barbers
which repeals Republic Act No. 9346, also known as “An Act Prohibiting the Reimposition of
Death Penalty in the Philippines.5
Despite the clamor for the reinstitution of the death penalty in the Philippines,
historically and statistically, it has been proven ineffective as it is unable to deter crimes, it is
against the poor and is prone to error.

1
CNN Philippines Staff. “PNP details Christine Silawan murder, say ‘case solved’. CNN Philippines. April 11, 2019.
Accessed January 2, 2020. https://cnnphilippines.com/regional/2019/4/11/Christine-Silawan-murder-suspect-
Cebu.html
2 Rey, Aika. “Bato: Death penalty bill for drug trafficking ‘not anti-poor’. Rappler. July 4, 2019. Accessed January 2,

2020. https://www.rappler.com/nation/234591-dela-rosa-says-death-penalty-bill-drug-trafficking-not-anti-poor
3
Ibid.
4
Rappler Staff. “LIVE: House hearing on the death penalty bill. Rappler”. September 24, 2019. Accessed January 2,
2020. https://www.rappler.com/nation/240867-updates-house-hearing-death-penalty-bill
5
Roxas, Pathricia Ann. “Death penalty House bills filed prior to Duterte’s Sona appeal. July 25, 2019. Accessed
January 2, 2020.
THESIS STATEMENT: Despite the clamor for the reinstitution of the death penalty in the
Philippines, historically and statistically, it has been proven ineffective as it is unable to deter
crimes, it is against the poor and is prone to error.

Death penalty is anti-poor.

1. According to the survey of 890 death row inmates conducted by Free Legal Assistance
Group (FLAG) in 2004 entitled as “Socio-economic profile of capital offenders in the
Philippines”, most death row inmates were poor (Punongbayan, J & Madrilla, K., 2017).
a. The survey done by FLAG shows that 79% of the inmates who
were sentenced with death penalty did not have college degree.
b. Moreover, the survey shows that 63% of the death row inmates
were agriculture workers, farmers, transport and common laborers.
c. Data shows that two-thirds of inmates were either earning the
minimum wage or below whereas the other 1% of death row inmates earned Php 50,000.00 or
more.
2. It is a class-based form of partiality in the sense that poor inmates are more likely to be
sentenced with death penalty than rich inmates with our expensive justice system.
a. Rich inmates have the capacity and means to afford adequate and
competent legal assistance whereas poor inmates are only handled by the Public Attorney’s
Office which conceded prior that their lawyers did not have any expertise in cases punishable
by death.
b. Unless, the justice system is reformed, the poor and uneducated
are the only ones who will be harshly punished due to their limited access to legal
representation.
c. Rich inmates have the means to bribe the judge, fiscal, or the
police authorities hence, death penalty will only be an instrument of abuse by corrupt state
authorities.
d. Human rights of the poor are more likely to be violated.
e. Even though their rights to bail cannot be impeded, many cannot afford to bail.
f. Everything is just costly in the sense that they are denied of producing witnesses and having
their cases on appeal.
3. It will only provide for an avenue for unconstitutional acts such as extortion, extra-judicial
killing, planting of evidence and corruption by the Philippine National Police which is
detrimental to the poor.
a. President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs is a clear demonstration
of massive poor discrimination as most of the 12,000 Filipino victims of extra-judicial killing
were from the urban poor.
b. There is a huge discrepancy in numbers between the rich victims
and those victims who are reported to held jobs on minimum wage or below.
 c. The PNP is behind the atrocious killings of thousands of suspected
drug users who were from among the poor as they are considered as being the most
vulnerable.
d. Poverty-stricken areas in the Philippines are where rampage
killing happens because poor people are easy target for the police.
e. Unless there will be a purification of corrupt and criminal officials
in the government and police authorities, death penalty will never solve criminality.

D. Death penalty is error-prone.

1. “It is not the severity of the punishment but the certainty that stops the crime.”
(Diokno, 2019)
2. In the case of People of the Philippines vs. Mateo (2004), the Supreme Court stated that
most of the trial courts had wrongfully imposed the death penalty from 1993 to 2004.
a. Among the 907 convictions between 1993 and 2004, 651 were wrongly judged.
3. According to an article published by The Manila Times in July 24, 2016, during Estrada’s
administration, there was a 15% wrongful execution rate, that is, out of seven who were killed,
one was later found out to be innocent.
4. In 2006, Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban admitted that the judiciary overlooked the
defective charge sheet which resulted into the very first death of Leo Echegaray, a Filipino
housepainter under the imposition of death penalty in the case of Echegaray vs. Secretary of
Justice (1998).
5. The Philippines has an error-prone judiciary.
a. Members of the judiciary are fallible persons.
b. The prosecution service has to be improved.
c. Some members of the judiciary are susceptible to corruption.
d. Some members of the judiciary are inept to deal with death cases.
e. Red tape occurrences are rampant in judicial processes.
f. Cases on appeal and cases which are elevated to high court are
numerous in number which can lead to clogging of dockets.
6. Commission on Human Rights cited data showing that there was 71.77% judicial error
rate in the country and asserted that there cannot be cannot be an absolute error-free judiciary
because it is being run by people who are capable of making mistakes (Morallo, 2017).
7. There are difficulties in disproving fabricated evidence for the lack of knowledge re
scientific investigation hence, would result in high risk of error.
8. Death penalty is irreversible as opposed to sentencing someone if judged wrongly, one
can still rectify the mistakes made.