ORATORICAL SPEECH

Is death penalty the answer? Will it deter crime rate? Will it solve our problem?
Yes, yes, and yes.

To our honorable judges, my worthy competitors, friends, guests, good morning.

I firmly believe that death penalty should take effect again in our country. Capital
punishment, by all means, does not only serve as a punishment; but also a stern
warning to everyone.

Imagine this: What if my sister was raped and killed? How do you think our
parents would feel – how do you think I would feel if I see the person who decided on
my sister’s fate still walking around alive albeit incarcerated.

The very existence of the criminal himself after doing his dastardly deeds is the
most painful reminder a victim could ever have. Consider how the family would feel that
their loved one is gone and the perpetrator still lives?

Historically, death penalty was known and an accepted fact by our early
ancestors. The Code of Kalantiao, the oldest recorded body of laws showed the
strictness under the barangay that existed and based their moral acceptance of right
and wrong. For example, anyone caught stealing would be penalized by suffering the
loss of finger. The graver the theft, the more fingers were cut off, and in some cases a
life will be taken to serve as one’s punishment. Therefore, death penalty has been
widely accepted in the early periods of our history.

The 1987 Constitution clearly provides that the prime duty of the government is
to serve and protect its people. With the increasing number of crime rates every year in
our country it is very clear that people are no longer afraid to commit offenses even the
heinous ones. How then will the State, as parens patria, fulfill its obligation to the
people? This will only redound to the reinstitution of death penalty.

The primary effect of this punishment is, nevertheless, to redress the disorder
caused by the offenders. This shall preserve the public order and safety which every
Filipino ought to have.

Now, let us resolve the issue whether death penalty is indeed inhuman. Legally
speaking, the Constitution does not allow cruel nor degrading punishments be imposed
on the offender. To begin with, death penalty, is not cruel and inhuman because the
manner by which it is executed, by electrocution or by lethal injection, does not involve
physical or mental pain nor unnecessary physical or mental suffering. A convict does
not experience a lingering death such as burning alive, starvation, drowning, or other
barbarous forms of punishment.

Others would probably argue this, “Is imprisonment not enough?”. Indeed, it is
not. Several incidents have already occurred in the Philippines which show that even
within the confines of prison, a condemned criminal may murder or rape a guard, a
fellow inmate, or a visitor. Last 2015, an eight-year-old daughter of an inmate in the
Bilibid prison, who was visiting his father on a New Year’s Day, was raped by one
Norvin Domingo, a member of the Bahala na Gang. Hear me, ladies and gentlemen!
The offender was already in a maximum security compound but still was able to commit
such heinous offense. Executing a condemned criminal is the only sure way to prevent
him from committing additional acts of crime.

Capital punishment is deemed to be just as it is an exercise of the society’s right

to self-defense. Society, like the individual, has the right to preserve itself when its
existence is already threatened. It must be noted that a murderer does not only attack
the individual victim but the society in general.

Now, if these criminals could form syndicates to sow fear among ordinary people,
then why can’t we impose fear to attain a just and humane society which every Filipino
deserves to have? Ladies and gentlemen, let us no longer wait that we may be one of
the victims. Our society not only is environmentally polluted but most importantly, it has
become morally poisoned. Now is the time to effect the change that we have been
seeking for. Let there a reimplementation of death penalty!