Position Paper Regarding Death Penalty

Death penalty is said to be capital punishment, an act of execution of an offender who

was sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. It is usually done
through the firing squad, hanging, and the electric chair under the cases of rape, murder, and
treason.

The death penalty is not a viable option for crimes committed in the Philippines,
according to Republic Act No. 9346. The death sentence is immoral and irrevocable, and it is
not ethically acceptable to take another person's life. It does not give the people a positive
outlook. Given the amount of false charges made around the country, it just serves to instill fear
and inhumane practices. "Life is a Human Right," says Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. This demonstrates how the death sentence violates everyone's human rights
since it does not deliver justice, but just partakes vengeance.

Death penalty is against the poor and the unfortunate. The Philippines is known for
having a flawed justice system, with innocent people being accused and imprisoned despite not
being guilty of the crime in question. Jose Rizal was one of the most well-known victims of this,
as he was executed in Luneta on December 30, 1896, for his opposition to the reigning
government, and the place now bears his name. Mariano Gomez, José Burgos, and Jacinto
Zamora, popularly known as GomBurZa, were martyr priests who were put to death by garotte
in a military court after being unjustly convicted of treason and sedation. In 2017, a teenage
male victim named Kian Delos Santos was suspected of being a drug runner and was then
killed by police in "self-defense." This was not under the death penalty but due to the
extrajudicial killings under President Rodrigo Duterte’s implementation of “Oplan Tokhang”, it
then foreshowed the unjust system brought in the government.

Death penalty exacerbates discrimination among races. This does not only cover the
Philippines, but it is usually done in foreign countries like the United States. White and Black
Americans have been always a source of discrimination even up to this day. There is one case
of a 14-year-old black boy named, George Stinney Jr, who was not given a fair trial then was
executed in 1944 for being the suspect in the murder of two white girls. He was sent to the
electric chair as his punishment, but more than 70 years after his death, his conviction has been
overturned. He was proven innocent and died without having much justice, only because he had
different color from the reigning leaders of their nation. Another victim was Gorge Floyd, who is
also a black man which was killed by the police on May 25 after a convenience store employee
called 911 and told the police that Floyd had bought cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. He
was not put to death in the court of law but was openly executed by the police as he was pinned
by the neck, unable to breathe. It was cruel and showed injustice, that should have been dealt
with properly, but people took advantage of the situation and made matters into their own
hands.
In conclusion, death penalty does not offer a better solution. It does not lower both the
crime and death rate. It is not justifiable and would just cover a crime with another crime. It only
violates human rights and produces unnecessary and innocent deaths. Rather than this, it is
better to focus on helping the victims and providing appropriate punishment for the offenders. I
stand for the rights of every living person, and that everyone should also be held accountable
for the sins they committed.

Reference:

https://lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2006/ra_9346_2006.html
https://ccrjustice.org/files/CCR%20Death%20Penalty%20Factsheet.pdf
https://onthehill.info/2019/09/the-colourful-life-and-death-of-jose-rizal/
http://malacanang.gov.ph/7695-the-martyrdom-of-the-gomburza/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46381697
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/george-stinney-jr-black-14-year-old-boy-
exonerated-70-years-after-he-was-executed-9932429.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html
 Government’s Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

The Philippine government did not respond that well in facing the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the virus showed in the Philippines on January 22 of 2020, the government firstly showed an
immediate response to the issue at hand, yet it is still not that stable as of 2021, leading the
country to have the lowest score among ASEAN countries in government pandemic response –
survey and was on the 52nd ranking in a previous COVID-19 resilience ranking by Bloomberg,
where the country scored low in terms of vaccine rollout.

It was widely known that the Philippines had the strictest and longest lockdowns in the
world; closing the schools, suspended works, and prohibited mass gatherings. As the
government dealt with the pandemic, the unemployment rate increased in the first quarter of
2020 to 17.7 percent, the highest rate since 2005; citizens were left to suffer due to lack of
resources, and the cases kept on increasing having a total of 2.77 million cases and counting. It
is known that the implemented social distancing and lockdown policies are not well-handled.
The government relied on the police and the military to ensure that the health protocols applied
are followed well. Scholars and observers then described the government’s response as either
“draconian,” “militarised,” or “police-centric” (Maru, 2020), which is then similar to the approach
of President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs (Robertson, 2020).

It was reported that by the end of April 2020, 156,000 individuals had been apprehended
since lockdown measures were imposed on 15 March 2020; 41,000 of them were charged,
while the rest were released with a warning (Biong, 2020). This contradicts how some
government officials and police authorities were not given punishment despite violating the
health protocols. One example of this is the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO)
chief Major General Debold Sinas who once violated the health protocols such as the social
distancing and the mass gathering, was then promoted as the chief of the Philippine National
Police (PNP), announced by Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, on November 9, instead
of facing the appropriate charge on his violation.

Despite the need of an immediate control of the issue, the government had focused to
other projects instead of the implementation of more health facilities, quarantine resources, and
the safety of the frontliners who had been fighting since day one (1). Hence, the response
showed was ineffective that they should have become more attentive of what is supposed to be
prioritized. Nonetheless, the government still worked hard to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still, they could have done better, knowing that the President expressed his promises to the
masses yet still shows slow management towards the issue, which is the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reference:

https://www.iseas.edu.sg/category/articles-commentaries/state-of-southeast-asia-survey/
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1868103421994261
https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2020/12/23/were-the-philippines-covid-19-responses-sufficient/
https://www.rappler.com/nation/netizens-reaction-debold-sinas-new-pnp-chief
https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2020/06/29/the-philippines-gender-blind-covid-19-response/