EDITORIAL - Why criminals become bolder

Amid the wave of heinous crimes sweeping through the country, many are calling for the re-imposition of the capital punishment. Some quarters have said that there is really a need for the reinstatement of the death penalty considering the rising cases of murders, robberies, rapes, among others, of late.

 The Catholic Church and those prolife advocates had hailed when Congress repealed the death penalty law during the Arroyo administration. Fighting for the belief that a death sentence will never solve the problem on criminality, they had succeeded in their campaign to end the capital punishment in the country.

But as we have observed, heinous crimes have become the trend across the country. In Metro Manila, an honor college student was robbed and was later killed when she resisted a rape attempt by her perpetrators, while a budding young model was abducted, raped and killed.

These gruesome murders are only two of the recent cases that shocked the nation. Of course, in Cebu, we have the case of Ellah Joy Pique, whose kidnapping and killing last year continues to grip Cebuanos.            

Authorities had to admit that crime syndicates are becoming bolder nowadays. These criminals seemed encouraged by the fact that when they murder, rape or rob, no lethal injection awaits them when they are arrested.

However, this is not to say murders, rapes and robberies were an uncommon thing when capital punishment was still imposed. Heinous crimes do happen even if you have the most lethal deterrent around.

The only problem when the capital punishment was still around was that it lacks the teeth to bite. The previous administrations truly failed to muster enough political will to show death penalty as crime deterrent.  

If we go by the records, only few were sent to the gallows among hundreds of death convicts over the years when capital punishment was implemented. That is because of the interference of the Church and those so-called prolife advocates that enabled death convicts to win a stay in their execution.

Crimes do happen every day and there is really no perfect solution to prevent them. But it would have been a different story if the death penalty was religiously implemented.