During the celebration of the Law Week, I, along with my
classmates participated in the College of Law Debate Competition. The first topic was about the re-imposition of the death penalty in the Philippines. The bout was one of the most intense ones I have ever experienced but luckily with the aid of our Almighty God, we managed to convince the adjudicators that capital punishment should not be re-imposed.
Article 2, Sec. 11 of our Organic Law provides that, “ The State
values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for human rights.” This specific provision is in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which guarantees that every human being has the inherent right to life. The framers of our Constitution furthermore emphasized this in Article 3 Section 1 of our Constitution which reads, “No person shall be deprived of Life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”
Statistics provided by the Directorate for Investigation and
Detective Management of the PNP have shown that the volume of crime began to fall significantly when the death penalty was constitutionally abolished in 1987. This continued until 1997 even after the death penalty had been reinstated in 1993. However, in 1999, the crime rate once again increased after six (6) death convicts were executed. In the year 2000, the crime rate began to fall when a moratorium on executions was officially declared. The following year, when a de facto moratorium on executions came into existence, the crime volume fell again.
A 2004 survey conducted by the Free Legal Assistance Group
(FLAG), they asked 1,121 death row inmates if they knew of the death penalty prior to them committing their crimes. It was discovered that majority of them, did in fact, know about the death penalty. So despite the fact that the death penalty was in effect, it did not deter criminals from committing crimes contrary to the claim of the advocates of lex taliones that capital punishment is necessary to lower the crime rate.
Furthermore, in the case of People Vs. Mateo G.R. No. 147678-87,
July 7, 2004 the judicial error rate of Philippine Courts when it comes to Death Penalty cases is a stagering 71.77 percent. To add to that, according to a study conducted by none less than the Supreme Court itself as documented by Mamamayang Tutol Sa Bitay-Movement for a Restorative Justice (a group composed of some 150 human rights, sectoral, political, and church groups,) 4 out of five death row inmates have been wrongfully sentenced by various lower courts. Although the AFOS, JAN ALDRIN E Criminal Law - II
Supreme Court corrected some of these decisions, still an alarmingly
high number of innocent people have been subjected to the mental and emotional torture of going through the ordeal of being sentenced to die for a crime which they did not commit.
Therefore in the end, we fought for the fact that the re-imposition of death penalty is not necessary, not practical, and is not beneficial to the Filipino society.