Rep. Edcel C. Lagman (LP, Albay)
0917-1023737 (new) / 0916-6406737
08 November 2016
The proposed revival of the death penalty in the Administration’s House Bill No. 001 is a retrogression. The abolition of the death penalty in 2005 under Republic Act 9346 was the culmination of a multi-year crusade which I spearheaded. Its proposed re-imposition is a patent affront to human rights and an abandonment of modern penology’s focus on rehabilitation of the convict, not the exaction of retribution.
The revival of capital punishment even for heinous crimes is an anachronism and execution by hanging is inordinately aggravating.
The death penalty should not be revived for the following overriding:
(1) It is not a deterrent to the commission of heinous crimes as validated by worldwide empirical and scientific studies. There are no studies indicating the contrary.
The death penalty, in varying forms of execution for various crimes, has been imposed since the dawn of civilization but the commission of crimes, including heinous offenses, has persisted, mocking the death penalty.
The classic example that the death penalty does not deter the commission of crimes is recorded in medieval England where pickpocketing was punishable by hanging. It is documented that every time a convict is hanged, pickpockets had a field day plying their outlawed trade by victimizing the mob witnessing the execution.
(2) What deters the commission of crimes are certainty of apprehension, speedy prosecution and inevitable conviction once warranted.
(3) The death penalty is anti-poor because indigent and marginalized litigants could not afford the high cost of caliber and influential lawyers to secure their acquittal. During the campaign for the abolition of the death penalty, it was shown that 73.1% of death row inmates belonged to the lowest and lower income classes, and only 0.8% (7 convicts) came from the upper socio-economic class.
(4) Human justice is fallible. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that “Courts should be guided by the principle that it would be better to set free ten men who might be probably guilty of the crime charged than to convict one innocent man for a crime he did not commit.” (Atienza vs. People, G.R. No. 188694, February 12, 2014). The execution of the death penalty is irreversible, including on those who may be innocent.
(5) Rehabilitation, not retribution, is the thrust of modern penology.
(6) Only God can forfeit life. No human authority has the power to kill, even if judicially mandated as a recompense for another lost life.
(7) The death penalty exacerbates the culture of violence and emboldens the monster in man.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, “on every level, death penalty is wrong.” He further stated that the “backsliding on the abolition of the death penalty will disregard the Philippines’ international obligations as a State Party to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights wherein the Philippines committed to renouncing capital punishment forever.”
EDCEL C. LAGMAN