Back to the death penalty

Self-proclaimed pro-life senator Manny Pacquiao reportedly expects approval within the year of the chamber’s version of the bill restoring capital punishment.

The senator, whose day job is smashing other people’s faces, can’t stand the idea of preventing conception through artificial methods, but looks forward to seeing drug convicts lose their lives by hanging. Maybe he saw the video of Saddam Hussein being executed in Baghdad.

Pacquiao is leading the deliberations of the justice committee that is drawing up the Senate’s counterpart bill for the restoration of the death penalty.

Considering Pacquiao’s unimpressive record in opposing the reproductive health law when he was a member of the House of Representatives, a.k.a. HOR, the death penalty bill might yet be headed for “cremation” at the Senate (to borrow a term from Sen. Panfilo Lacson).

Pacquiao clearly does not take his cue from the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. Pope Francis has just amended the Catechism of the faith and rejected the death penalty. The new Catechism describes it as “inadmissible” under any circumstances.

This overturned the previous Catechism teaching, under the heading of “Legitimate defense,” which declared: “Preserving the common good of society requires rendering the aggressor unable to inflict harm. For this reason the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not exceeding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty. The primary effect of punishment is to redress the disorder caused by the offense… Moreover, punishment has the effect of preserving public order and the safety of persons.”

The Catechism also allows killing in self-defense, but Pope Francis I guess did not amend this part.

The pontiff reportedly believes there are now other ways to protect the common good, and the death penalty will always be inadmissible “because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

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For sure, new Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo agrees. She was sacked as deputy speaker by her predecessor Pantaleon Alvarez last year after she voted against the House bill restoring capital punishment for drug offenses. (Voting with her against the measure, among others, was another pious lawmaker, the dictator’s widow, Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Marcos.) The HOR passed the measure.

During GMA’s presidency in 2006, Rome’s Colosseum was lit up after the Philippines abolished capital punishment. GMA later visited Rome, declaring in her pre-departure statement that the abolition was her “best pasalubong” or arrival gift for the pope at the time, doctrinal hardliner Benedict XVI.

No one knows what GMA will do with the bill approved under the watch of Alvarez. Her staunch supporter and preferred minority leader Danilo Suarez of Quezon, who was one of about 20 congressmen who joined her in Rome in 2006, said he would file his own bill restoring capital punishment. “Watch me,” he told us on “The Chiefs” last week on Cignal TV’s One News.

The House minority leader – as recognized by the Speaker and the majority – fully supports the draconian methods used by President Duterte in fighting the drug menace.

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I know individuals who believe in reincarnation and oppose capital punishment especially for heinous crimes – because they believe death is too easy a way out, especially considering the “humane” (meaning quick and painless) methods of modern execution. Perhaps they might change their minds if we used the method employed in medieval Britain, when men convicted of treason were publicly hanged but kept barely alive, and then emasculated, disemboweled, beheaded and quartered or chopped into four pieces. Women convicted of treason, like witches, were burned at the stake.

For ordinary folks, the renewed push for the restoration of capital punishment in our country is mystifying, considering that authorities have taken the quicker route, killing thousands of drug suspects in just the past two years. The official death toll from police anti-narco operations from July 1, 2016 to June 30 this year, as acknowledged by the Philippine National Police, stood at 4,354, with 147,802 arrested.

Yesterday, five more drug suspects were shot dead by police – one in Quezon province and four in the city of Manila, including a former cop included in the narco list.

In 1987, a year after democracy was restored, the Philippines became the first country in Asia to abolish capital punishment. In 1993, amid a deadly kidnapping spree, the Ramos administration restored the death penalty, with lethal injection as the mode of execution. Opponents lamented that only poor convicts were executed; proponents sighed that the executions were so few and far between to serve as an effective crime deterrent. GMA, always a darling of the bishops, abolished the punishment in June 2006.

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There’s no definitive study on how effective Duterte’s brand of capital punishment has been in deterring criminality. Would police be willing to wait for snail-paced Philippine justice to take its course in dealing with drug personalities? Under the current administration, it’s doubtful.

There are Singaporeans who bristle at comparisons of Duterte with their founding leader Lee Kuan Yew when it comes to fighting criminality. Lee, his compatriots stress, always made sure due process was followed and guilt established before any state execution was carried out.

Due process can take a long time, even in Japan where the justice system works. It took 18 years before the Japanese executed last month 13 members including the leader of doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, whose 1995 sarin gas attack during rush hour on the Tokyo subway killed 13 people and injured about 5,500 others.

Duterte has stressed that he sees capital punishment not so much as a crime deterrent but as retribution. Would the shock value of a public hanging serve as a deterrent?

The slow, inefficient and often corrupted justice system is one of the biggest reasons for continuing public support (although slipping) for Duterte’s tough stance on crime. Would the restoration of capital punishment compel the police to slow down on short cuts to dealing with drug personalities?

More likely, the return of capital punishment would merely be seen as an enhancement of the “relentless and chilling” war on drugs.