EDITORIAL - Why capital punishment failed to serve its purpose

It's easy to understand why the Catholic Church and those human rights and pro-life organizations are moving heaven and earth to stop the re-imposition of the death penalty in the country. For them, the capital punishment has never been the best weapon against criminality.

As Congress moves to bring back the death penalty, the Cebu Archdiocese said it is supporting peaceful protests against the reinstatement of capital punishment, which has already been passed by the justice committee at the House of Representatives.

According to Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, mass actions against the death penalty law's re-imposition should be non-violent and limited to only prayer rallies. Restoring the law, Palma said, would be against the Catholic doctrines and beliefs that respect the value of life.

To recall, President Rodrigo Duterte had called for the re-imposition of the capital punishment for those drug lords and traffickers. The call is part of his administration's heightened campaign against the illegal drug trade in the country that has already cost thousands of lives.

But we can only expect the Church and other opponents of the death penalty to fight tooth and nail to prevent its reinstatement. For them, it's the strict implementation of the law that deters crimes, not the lethal injection, firing squad, among other forms of capital punishment.

The death penalty had miserably failed to deter crimes when it was re-imposed in the country decades ago. But we cannot blame the government for such failure. That the capital punishment did not live up to the Filipino people's expectations can be largely due to the stiff opposition of the Church and other groups.

Because every time a death row inmate was scheduled for execution, death penalty opponents would then rush to lobby for a reprieve, which ultimately led to the suspension of the law in 2006. Had the government been religious in executing those death row inmates, the result would have been different.

Yes it is true that it's the strict implementation of the law that deters all forms of crimes. And if only the death penalty was strictly implemented, the law on capital punishment would have served its purpose.