Hontiveros: Death penalty under 'flawed' system to bring injustice

MANILA, Philippines — Reimposing the death penalty while the Philippine justice system is badly in need of reforms will mean risking innocent people being sentenced to death, Sen. Risa Hontiveros said Tuesday. 

 

Speaking before the hearing on a proposal to revive the death penalty started on Tuesday, Hontiveros said that the death penalty has been shown to be an ineffective deterrent to crime.

 

She added that it has a disproportionate impact on the poor, and that "in a flawed and biased" justice system, there is little guarantee that innocent people will not be sentenced to death.

 

"Hanggang corrupt pa at mabagal pa ang sistemang pangkatarungan sa Pilipinas, Mr. Chairman, walang garantiya na ang parusang bitay ay magbibigay ng tunay na katarungan para sa lahat," Hontiveros said, adding that most of those who will be meted the death penalty will be from the poor because they cannot afford defense lawyers.

 

Hontiveros said that the death penalty gives up on the rehabilitative purpose of the justice system and even the rehabilitative purpose of punishment, and that it denies due process of the law.

 

She added that implementing the death penalty costs more than life imprisonment "without making us safer."

 

"It is not fair to require taxpayers to shoulder the burden for retribution alone," Hontiveros said.

 

She then asked if the only choice of the public is between extrajudicial killings and judicial killings.

 

"Hindi ba natin puwedeng piliin ang isang epektibo, mabilis, at may hustisyang systemang pang katarungan?" Hontiveros added.

 

Sen. Leila de Lima, a former Justice secretary and former chair of the Commission on Human Rights, meanwhile, said that she has "been and always will be" against death penalty.

 

She said that she attended the hearing to hear the the anti-death penalty advocates to convince the people "not to support the bills pushing for the reimposition of death penalty."

"Death penalty is wrong on legal, moral, ethical, and constitutional grounds," De Lima said.

 

She said that "under settled jurisprudence Bayan Muna vs Alberto Romulo, it says that treaties and international agreements duly ratified have a limiting effect on our otherwise exercise of an act of sovereignty. That is a very fundamental principle."