Death penalty which is also known as “Capital punishment” is a legal process where the

state sends a death row inmate to execution as their punishment for a serious offense
committed.

Other countries still practiced this but it has been abolished in United States and still
observed in several states. While death penalty in the Philippines, just passed on its
third and final reading that seeks the return of it last Tuesday, March 07. There are still
strong opinions shared by both anti and pro- death penalty.

And since this has been a long standing argument between two opposing parties. Here
are the list of “Pros” and “Cons” of death penalty.

PROS OF DEATH PENALTY

 It daunt people to commit dreadful crimes l. Criminals will get scared of

committing crimes because they will suffer such harsh punishment. The fear of
suffering will discouraged this potential criminals to commit crimes.
 Death penalty costs the government less. compared to the costs of life
imprisonment because they will be given the expenses of food, health care and
other costs that will sustain their lives. Some critics says that spending for people
who committed such heinous crimes is impractical and just a waste of taxpayers’
 Death Penalty will reduce the number of crime rate in the country because
criminals will just be taking advantage of people without harsh punishments.
 It is what hardened criminals deserve. Criminals become bolder and careless to
commit crimes knowing that they will only be imprisoned that is why they are not
scared of repeating heinous crimes. Thus, these type of people should be put to
death to project the majority.
 Death penalty is just punishable to drug related crimes only, which was stated
under the House Bill Number 4727. However, President Rodrigo “Digong”
Duterte wants plunder, rape to be next in line among the heinous crimes
punishable with death penalty.

You may read: Duterte wants plunder, rape next on death penalty

Here’s a video of lessons from death row inmates by David R. Dow.

CONS OF DEATH PENALTY

 There are innocent people wrongly executed. Critics believed that they keep on
sending innocent people who are wrongly accused to death row and the sad
thing about this is that, innocence is proven after the execution has been carried
out.
 Critics also argue that death penalty does not really deter criminals from
committing crimes, since there are criminals who suffer from mental illness and
 death sentence will not prevent them from doing things they can no longer
control without proper medication.
 Pro death penalty believed that feeding the inmates is much more expensive
than death penalty. On contrary to that, Anti- death penalty believes that the drug
used in lethal injection and other expenses related to execution is much more
costly.
 Death penalty is a form of revenge. While pro death penalty thinks that capital
punishment is a form of death retribution, Anti death penalty also believes that to
avenge a crime committed by individual may be understandable yet killing
someone is also unconstitutional. It is also a crime that is only masked by the
term capital punishment but the reality is, it only continues the series of violence.
 People who have been involved in the process of death penalty suffer from
depression out of guilt from having to end another person’s life. Former
executioner once stated that people who participated in executions were later
destroyed, some of them turned to drugs and alcohol to feel better.
 It is a platform that is anti-poor because accused people who are poor are mostly
the ones who get the death penalty, since these people lack finances to pay for a
powerful defense attorneys.
 It is not humanity and cannot be undone. Those innocent criminals who got
executed and then latter would have proven the person’s innocence, he or she
can never be brought back to life anymore.

With the ongoing issue about death penalty, opinions continues to be divided. Deciding
which opinion is able to prove a more logical perspective regarding on the issue can be
challenging with the disparate views of proponents and opponents.

Philippines: The death penalty is an inhumane, unlawful and ineffective response

to drugs

7 March 2017, 13:19 UTC

The adoption of a draft law by the Philippine House of Representatives to revive the
death penalty sets the country on a dangerous path in flagrant violation of its
international legal obligations, Amnesty International said today.

“The idea that the death penalty will rid the country of drugs is simply wrong. The
resumption of executions will not rid the Philippines of problems associated with drugs
or deter crime. It is an inhumane, ineffective punishment and is never the solution. The
Philippines’ attempts to reintroduce it are clearly unlawful. This will just earn the country
notoriety as one of the few countries to revive its horrific use,” said Champa Patel,
Amnesty International’s Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Today, the House of Representatives of the Philippines adopted on its third and final
reading of House Bill 4727, a measure put forward by President Duterte’s majority
coalition to reintroduce the death penalty.
The idea that the death penalty will rid the country of drugs is simply wrong. The
resumption of executions will not rid the Philippines of problems associated with drugs
or deter crime. It is an inhumane, ineffective punishment and is never the solution. The
Philippines’ attempts to reintroduce it are clearly unlawful
Champa Patel

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The proposal was passed with 216 votes in favour, 54 against and one abstention. The
Speaker of the House openly threatened to strip members of Congress of key positions
if they dared to vote against the bill, or even abstain from voting. The bill will now go to
the Senate.

“The Senate is now the Philippines’ last real hope of upholding its international
obligations and rescuing the country from this backwards step,” said Champa Patel.

The draft law has been passed at a time when the country is reeling from a wave of
more than 8,000 deaths, many of them through extrajudicial executions in its “war on
drugs” since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power on 30 June 2016.

Amnesty International is opposed to the death penalty for all crimes and in all
circumstances. Under international law, the death penalty must be restricted to most
serious crimes, and drug related crimes do not meet this threshold. There is also no
evidence to show that the death penalty has a unique deterrent effect.

“The death penalty for alleged drug offenders, like extrajudicial executions, violates
international law, deprives people of the right to life, and disproportionately targets the
poor,” said Champa Patel.

In 2007 the Philippines ratified an international treaty that categorically prohibits

executions and commits the country to the abolition of the death penalty. Legally, this
obligation cannot be withdrawn at any time.

Since the death penalty was abolished in 2006, the Philippines has been a strong
advocate against capital punishment and has championed several initiatives to this end
in international forums. It has also worked to commute the death sentences imposed on
Filipino nationals abroad, such as overseas workers.
“If the Philippines authorities want to deal with the root causes of drug-related offences,
they should support humane, voluntary, health-focused and evidence-based policies as
an alternative,” said Champa Patel.

Why the death penalty is unnecessary, anti-poor, error-prone

Crime is a more complex and nuanced issue than many of our politicians will care to
admit

JC Punongbayan and Kevin Mandrilla

Published 9:00 AM, February 11, 2017

Updated 5:59 PM, March 24, 2017

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To address the country’s drug and crime problem, President Duterte has called on
Congress to resurrect the death penalty after it was abolished in 2006.

In response, the House of Representatives Committee on Justice swiftly approved

House Bill 1 last December, with plenary debates now ongoing. In the Senate, the death
penalty bill is reportedly having a much harder time because of greater opposition from
the senators. (READ: Senate poised to kill death penalty)

Indeed, there’s a great deal of debate surrounding the pros and cons of the death
penalty. But in this article we take on the issue by turning to statistics, empirical studies,
and a review of the country’s past experience with the death penalty.

All in all, the data suggest that the death penalty will be unnecessary, anti-poor, and
error-prone given the current state of our legal and judicial system.

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1) Crime rates have fallen even without the death penalty.

Many people justify the return of the death penalty because of its purported ability to
quell the rising tide of criminality plaguing the country. The idea is that executing felons
for committing heinous crimes will deter future criminals, thus lowering crime rates.

But Figure 1 shows that from 1978 to 2008 there had been a general decline in the
incidence of “index crimes”. These are crimes that occur with “sufficient regularity” and
have “socioeconomic significance”, including some “heinous” ones like murder and
rape.
Figure 1. Source: PSA, PNP. Note: Data cover 1978 to 2008. According to the PNP,
'index crimes' are those considered to have socioeconomic significance and 'occur with
sufficient regularity to be meaningful'. These include the following crimes against
persons (e.g., murder, homicide, physical injury, rape) and crimes against property
(e.g., robbery, theft, carnapping). Also note that the PNP made methodological changes
since 2009 making data thereon incomparable to previous data.

Crime data are usually laden with many caveats, most notably underreporting. But
despite these limitations, Figure 1 suggests at least 3 things.

First, the supposed “rising tide” of criminality is more of a myth than a fact: index crimes
have, in fact, been falling steadily since the early 1990s.

Second, even in the years without the death penalty, the index crime rate had
plummeted. Hence, the death penalty is not necessary to see a fall in crime rates.
Third, even after a record number of executions in 1999 (when Leo Echegaray and 6
others were put to death by lethal injection), no pronounced drop in index crimes was
observed. The incidence of index crimes even rose by 8.8% from 1999 to 2002.

2) Studies abroad could also not find strong evidence the death penalty deters
crime.

Many other countries also fail to see compelling evidence the death penalty deters
crime.

In the US, for example, the death penalty alone could not explain the great decline in
homicide rates observed in the 1990s. Figure 2 shows that the homicide rates in Texas,
California, and New York had fallen at roughly the same pace throughout the 1990s.
This is despite the fact that these 3 states used the death penalty very differently:
Whereas Texas executed 447 people over that period, California executed just 13
people, and New York executed no one.

Figure 2. Source: Nagin & Pepper [2012] Deterrence and the death penalty.
Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Note: Data cover 1974 to 2009.
Indeed, the US National Research Council concluded in 2012 that, “research to date…is
not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases or has no effect
on homicide rates.”

In Asia, a separate study reached the same conclusion when it compared the homicide
rates in Singapore (a country of many executions) and Hong Kong (few executions).
More recent research also shows that, instead of imposing harsher punishments, a
higher certainty of being caught may be more effective in deterring crime.

3) Previous death sentences fell disproportionately on the poor.

The death penalty, as applied in the Philippines before, was not only unnecessary in
reducing crime but also largely anti-poor: poor inmates were more likely to be
sentenced to death than rich inmates.

Back in 2004 the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) did a survey of 890 death row
inmates. Among other things, FLAG found that 79% of death row inmates did not reach
college and 63% were previously employed in blue-collar work in sectors like
agriculture, transport, and construction.

Most tellingly, two-thirds of death row inmates had a monthly wage on or below the
minimum wage (see Figure 3). Meanwhile, less than 1% of death row inmates earned a
monthly wage of more than P50,000.

One main reason behind this disparity is that rich inmates have much more resources to
aggressively defend themselves in court (e.g., hiring a battery of lawyers) compared to
poor inmates. Unless this imbalance is addressed, the death penalty will only continue
to be a vehicle for “selective justice”.
Figure 3. Source: FLAG (2004) 'Socio-economic profile of capital offenders in the
Philippines'. Note: Income brackets are in nominal terms.

4) Previous death sentences were also error-prone.

Too many Filipinos were also wrongly sentenced to death before. This may be the
single most damning argument against the reimposition of the death penalty.

In the case of People of the Philippines vs. Mateo (2004), the Supreme Court admitted
that a vast majority of trial courts had wrongfully imposed the death penalty during the
time it was available as a sentencing option from 1993 to 2004.

Figure 4 shows that of the 907 death convictions that went to the Supreme Court for
review, as many as 72% were erroneously decided upon. These cases were returned to
lower courts for further proceedings, reduced to life imprisonment, or even reversed to
acquittal. By detecting these errors, a total of 651 out of 907 lives were saved from
lethal injection.
Unless this alarmingly high rate of “judicial errors” is fixed, bringing back the death
penalty will only put more innocent people on death row.

Figure 4. Source: People v. Mateo, G.R. No. 147678-87, July 7, 2004. Note: Data were
collected by the Judicial Records Office of the Supreme Court as of June 8, 2004.

Conclusion: The death penalty is a naïve way of dealing with criminality

The death penalty can be assailed on many grounds, whether moral, philosophical, or
legal. But just by focusing on the available data, it is apparent that the death penalty, as
used in the past, was largely unnecessary and ineffective in reducing crime.

Even assuming for a moment that it was a deterrent, the death penalty tended to
discriminate against the poor and was subject to alarmingly high error rates.

It is no wonder that so many countries around the world today have abolished the death
penalty rather than retained it. As of 2015, 140 countries have abolished the death
penalty in law or in practice.
Crime is a more complex and nuanced issue than many of our politicians will care to
admit. Reinstating the death penalty – and equating death with justice – is a patently
naïve and simplistic way of going about it. – Rappler.com

JC Punongbayan is a PhD student and teaching fellow at the UP School of Economics.

Kevin Mandrilla is an MA student at the UP Asian Center with a background in human
rights advocacy. Their views do not necessarily reflect the views of their affiliations.