DEATH PENALTY IN THE PHILIPPINES SHOULD NOT BE RESTORED

Introduction
Death penalty has been an inalienable part of human society and its legal system
for centuries, and the belief that it deters dangerous crimes and a way to liberate
the community from dangerous criminals. However, this kind of method is a
barbarous act and inhumane in its nature and its validity in the legal system has
been questioned. Until now, the debate rages on. This resulted in a wide
discrepancy of laws on this issue. Some nations including China, the US, Iran,
Belarus, and others preserve the death penalty as an option, while the
Philippines has suspended the use of this kind of punishment and other nations
did the same. Still others keep the norm in their legislations, but have de facto
suspended execution of criminals sentenced to capital punishment. This paper
will seek to prove that death penalty does not deter criminals from committing
serious crimes. It will prove that there are other alternatives to death penalty.
Background
The history of death penalty is almost as old as the history of mankind. Various
means of capital punishment involved burning, hanging, drowning, crucifixion,
breaking on the will, boiling to death, electrocution, firing squad, gassing - the list
can be continued.1
History of death penalty in the Philippines can be traced back during the Spanish
Colonialization Rule. Where in the Spaniards introduced common methods in
execution during that era which includes death by firing squad (especially for
treason/military crimes, usually reserved for independence fighters) and garrotte
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Philippines

(designed to strangle a person). Death by hanging was also another popular

method.
A prominent example is the national hero, Jos Rizal, who was executed by firing
squad on the morning of December 30, 1896, in the park that now bears his
name (The Luneta Park).
In 1926, the electric chair was introduced by the United States' colonial Insular
Government, making the Philippines the only other country to employ this
method. The last colonial-era execution took place under Governor-General
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. in February 1932. There were no executions under
Manuel L. Quezon, the first President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.
President Fidel V. Ramos promised during his campaign that he would support
the re-introduction of the death penalty in response to increasing crime rates.
The new law, drafted by Ramos, restored capital punishment by defining
"heinous crimes" as everything from murder to stealing a car. This law provided
the use of the electric chair until the gas chamber (chosen by the government to
replace electrocution) could be installed.
Executions resumed in 1999, starting with Leo Echegaray, who was put to death
by lethal injection under Ramos' successor, Joseph Estrada, marking the first
execution after the reinstatement of the death penalty. The next execution saw an
embarrassing mishap when President Estrada decided to grant a last-minute
reprieve, but failed to get through to the prison authorities in time to stop the
execution. Following on a personal appeal by his spiritual advisor, Bishop
Teodoro Bacani, Estrada called a moratorium in 2000 to honor the bimillenial
anniversary of Christ's birth.[10] Executions were resumed a year later.

Estrada's successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was a vocal opponent of the

death penalty and also approved a moratorium, but later permitted executions
and denied pardons.
On 15 April 2006, the sentences of 1,230 death row inmates 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 by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on 24 June 2006. The bill followed
a vote held in Congress earlier that month which overwhelmingly supported the
abolition of the practice. The penalties of life imprisonment and reclusion
perpetua (detention of indefinite length, usually for at least 30 years) replaced the
death penalty. Critics of Arroyo's initiative called it as support and in favor to the
Roman Catholic Church regarding human rights and the gift of life, many favored
in Arroyos decision, it is a gateway to let the person change and start a new life
again and reform his way of living because he regretted the things that has been
committed.
President Arroyo pardoned many prisoners during her presidency, including a
2009 pardon for all remaining felons convicted for the 1983 assassination of
former Senator and opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr.
Japanese Occupation (1941-1945), there are no recorded or documented cases
of executions through the death penalty during this period simply because
extrajudicial executions were widely practised as part of the pacification of the
country.
Post-World War II, Espionage is added to the list of capital offenses.

The Anti-Subversion Law called for the death penalty for all Communist leaders.
However, no executions were recorded for any captured communist leader.
For the period of 1946-1965, 35 people were executed for offenses that the
Supreme Court labeled as crimes of senseless depravity or extreme criminal
perversity.
The Marcos Years (1965-1986), Deterrence became the official justification for
the imposition of the death penalty. This is the same justification used for the
declaration of Martial Law in 1972.
The number of capital crimes increased to a total of 24. Some crimes which were
made punishable by death through laws and decrees during the Marcos period
were subversion, possession of firearms, arson, hijacking, embezzlement, drugrelated offenses, unlawful possession of firearms, illegal fishing and cattle
rustling.
Jaime Jose, Basilio Pineda, and Edgardo Aquino were executed for the gang
rape of movie star Maggie dela Riva in 1972. Despite prohibitions against public
executions, the execution of the three was done in full view of the public.
Nineteen executions took place during the Pre-Martial Law period. Twelve were
executed during Martial Law.
Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. was sentenced to die by firing squad for charges of
murder, subversion and illegal possession of firearm in 1977.
The last judicial execution under the Marcos years was in October 1976 when
Marcelo San Jose was executed by electrocution.

Similar to the reasons for the imposition of capital punishment during the Colonial
Periods, the death penalty during the Marcos Regime was imposed to quell
rebellion and social unrest.
President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino (1986-1992), The Death Penalty was
abolished under the 1987 Constitution.
The Philippines became the first Asian country to abolish the death penalty for all
crimes. All death sentences were reduced to reclusion perpetua or life
imprisonment.
In 1988, the military started lobbying for the imposition of the death penalty for
crimes committed by the CPP-NPA.
President Fidel Valdez Ramos (1993-1998), A series of high profile crimes during
this period, including the murder of Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez, created
public impression that heinous crimes were on the rise.
The Ramos administration reimposed the death penalty by virtue of Republic Act
No. 7659 in December 1993 to address the rising criminality and incidence of
heinous crimes.
The Death Penalty Law lists a total of 46 crimes punishable by death; 25 of these
are death mandatory while 21 are death eligible.
Republic Act No. 8177 mandates that a death sentence shall be carried out
through lethal injection.
President Joseph Ejercito Estrada (1998-2001), Leo Echegaray was executed in
February 1999 and was followed by six other executions for various heinous
crimes.

In 1999, the bumper year for executions, the national crime volume, instead of
abating, ironically increased by 15.3 percent or a total of 82,538 (from 71,527
crimes in the previous year).2
Estrada issued a de facto moratorium on executions in the face of church-led
campaigns to abolish the death penalty and in observance of the Jubilee Year.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-2010), Arroyo publicly stated that she
is not in favor of executions., from thereon up to the present the death penalty is
suspended.
Argument
The issues involved in the discussion of death penalty focuses around three main
parts.
I.

the punishment is analyzed from a purely utilitarian perspective in an

effort to find out whether application of capital punishment really helps
to deter crime and reduce the risk of recidivism, when criminals commit
repeated crimes. The evidence for this is sought in crime rates in
regions and nations where executions are carried out.

II.

Supporters or opponents of death penalty need to find out whether this

penalty can be acknowledged on moral grounds, solving the problem of
whether human beings are justified in killing other human beings.

III.

The provision in the 1987 constitution states that death penalty is a kind
of cruel punishment, and no person shall be affected by it.

2 http://pcij.org/blog/2006/04/18/a-timeline-of-death-penalty-in-the-philippines

Although the arguments stated remain basically the same throughout history of
the discussion, evidence can vary, and the findings, although controversial, can
tilt the public opinion to one or the other side.
Death penalty, in my view, should not be restored on the ground of being against
human rights and the Roman Catholic Church. Still there are some countries that
exercise death penalty as the capital punishment.
I. Does not effectively deter criminals from committing heinous crimes
Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter
people from committing crime any more than long prison sentences. Moreover,
states without the death penalty have much lower murder rates. The South
accounts for 80% of US executions and has the highest regional murder rate.3
A survey of experts from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of
Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association showed that the
overwhelming majority did not believe that the death penalty is a proven
deterrent to homicide. Over 80% believe the existing research fails to support a
deterrence justification for the death penalty. Similarly, over 75% of those polled
do not believe that increasing the number of executions, or decreasing the time
spent on death row before execution, would produce a general deterrent effect.
(M. Radelet and R. Akers, Deterrence and the Death Penalty: The Views of the
Experts, 1995)
Research reported in Homicide Studies, Vol. 1, No.2, May 1997, indicates that
executions may actually increase the number of murders, rather than deter
murders. Prof. Ernie Thomson at Arizona State University reported a brutalizing
effect from an execution in Arizona, consistent with the results of a similar study
3 www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=82

in

Oklahoma.

Deaths of Children in the US: New Report - Apparently, the US's use of the
death penalty is not improving its standing in the world community when it comes
to the deaths of children. In a February 7, 1997 Report from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (part of U.S Dept. of Health and Human
Services), from 1950-1993 child homicide rates in the U. S. tripled. CDC
compared the U.S. with 25 other industrialized countries and found that "the
United States has the highest rates of childhood homicide, suicide, and firearmrelated death among industrialized countries." Almost all of these other
industrialized countries have stopped using the death penalty.
The report found that:
The overall firearm-related death rate among U.S. children less than 15
years of age was 12 times higher than among children in the other 25
countries combined.
The firearm-related homicide rate in the U.S. was nearly 16 times higher
than in all of the other countries combined.
The firearm-related suicide rate was nearly 11 times higher.4
The report noted that previous studies have shown an association between rates
of violent childhood death and low funding for social programs, economic stress
related to participation of women in the labor force, divorce, ethnic-linguistic
heterogeneity, and social acceptability of violence. (Rates of Homicide, Suicide,
and Firearm-Related Death Among Children - 26 Industrialized Countries, 46
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 101 (Feb 7, 1997))
4 www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=82

II. Innocent individuals convicted

There are some individuals who are convicted for the things that they have not
committed.
Picture yourself a man with good moral character without any previous
convictions ever in his entire life. He also has a wonderful family who loves him,
has a very lovely daughter for whom she walks with him every day in a nearby
park, from which they cherished every moment, But the happiness did not last for
long, one night a stranger entered their home. The father rushed-in to protect his
family. He stabbed the stranger on its back, but the real reason he did that was to
protect her young daughter from being kidnapped by the man who wants to sell
her organs to the black market. Isn't that brutal? Yes, it is brutal and merciless,
only a man without a soul can commit such a thing.
The father who stabbed the person trying to kidnap her daughter, was tried in
court, due to lack of evidence... He was convicted of murder. The father was
convicted of murder and was sentenced to death penalty and now the father is
on death row for the crime he did not intentionally committed.
The daughter kept praying every night, there is no night that she did not pray for
her father to keep him always safe, and wished that her father will walk her to the
plaza again.
The day of the execution has arrived, the daughter was watching the coverage of
the execution, deep inside shes crying, it felt like someone took her heart and
crushed it into bits. Tears starts falling, you can hear the child's cry seeing her
beloved father being executed, and in her mind she asked is this really what
justice is supposed to be?.

This is one of the examples why we should not restore death penalty, there are
lots of people being executed for the things that they have not done. They are
innocent and why they should be the one to be punished?
Based on a survey, scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that
executions deter people from committing crimes than long prison sentence.
Death penalty also costs more, it is costlier to execute a person, than to imprison
the person for life.
There are better alternatives to death penalty, such as life imprisonment without
parole.
III. The provision on the 1987 constitution is against cruel punishment
Under

the

provision

of

the

1987

constitution

which

states

that:

Section 19.
(1) Excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel, degrading or inhuman
punishment inflicted. Neither shall the death penalty be imposed, unless,
for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter
provides for it. Any death penalty already imposed shall be reduced to
reclusion perpetua.
(2) The employment of physical, psychological, or degrading punishment
against any prisoner or detainee or the use of substandard or inadequate
penal facilities under subhuman conditions shall be dealt with by law.5
Here, the law clearly says that death penalty shall not be imposed, it shall be
reduced to reclusion perpetua.

5 http://www.gov.ph/constitutions/the-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-thephilippines/the-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-the-philippines-article-iii/

It is immoral in principle, and unfair and discriminatory in practice... No one

deserves to die. When the government metes out vengeance disguised as
justice, it becomes complicit with killers in devaluing human life and human
dignity. In civilized society, we reject the principle of literally doing to criminals
what they do to their victims: The penalty for rape cannot be rape, or for arson,
the burning down of the arsonist's house. We should not, therefore, punish the
murderer with death... Capital punishment is a barbaric remnant of uncivilized
society.
Conclusion
There are many more issues that can be considered with regard to death penalty.
As suggested from the scientific studies, death punishment does not deter
criminals from committing a crime, no drastical changes can be observed in
implementing death penalty. Innocent people are in death rows for the crime they
did not commit or intentionally committed. They dont deserve this kind of
inhumane punishment. Reclusion Perpetua is the proper sentence.
Death penalty is a barbarous act it is an inhumane way to serve justice. No one
wants to die. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth they say, it is not always
applicable for it is absurd, when someone raped their victim does that mean the
accused should be raped also? Certainly not. There are better ways in deploying
justice.
Death penalty also costs more, it is costlier to execute a person, than to imprison
the person for life.
There are better alternatives to death penalty, such as life imprisonment without
parole.
This is what the true meaning of JUSTICE is, not by equality but by EQUITY.