The Philippines was the first Asian country that abolished the death penalty in 1987. But six years after it has reimposed the death penalty, the Philippines has overtaken its Asian neighbors and has the most number of death convicts.
The repeal of death penalty came about with the promulgation of a new Constitution after the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship. The lesson of Martial Law, underscored by the more than 10,000 victims who were either tortured, disappeared or summarily executed, was that the state alone should not be given the awful power of life and death over its citizens.
Within less than a year, however, the military establishment was lobbying for its reimposition as a means to combat the "intensifying" offensives of the CPP/NPA guerrillas. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, then Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and later elected President of the Philippines in 1992, was among those who were strongly calling for the reintroduction of the death penalty against rebellion, murder and drug trafficking.
In mid 1987, a bill to reinstate the death penalty was submitted to Congress. Military pressure was very much evident in the preamble which cited the pestering insurgency as well as the recommendations of the police and the military as compelling reasons for the reimposition of the death penalty. The bill cited recent right wing coup attempts as an example of the alarming deterioration of peace and order and argued for the death penalty both as an effective deterrent against heinous crimes and as a matter of simple retributive justice .
The bill which was promoted as a counter-insurgency bill was passed by the House of Representatives in 1988. Three similar bills, introduced in 1989 failed to get approval of the Senate and the bill was shelved into the archives.
However, in the preceding five years, public opinion, articulated by leading political figures had been flowing in the direction of support for the death penalty as a form of 'retributive justice'. A series of horrific, widely publicized crimes including rape, murder and kidnapping-for-ransom reinforced public fears that lawlessness and criminality had reached unprecedented levels. The tabloid reports painted a bloody picture, widely reporting on high profile murder, rape and kidnapping cases. The view that the death penalty was necessary to fight criminality became a popular notion.
When Ramos was elected as President in 1992, he declared that the reimposition of the death penalty would be one of his priorities. Political offenses such as rebellion were dropped from the bill. However, the list of crimes was expanded to include economic offenses such as smuggling and bribery.
In December 1993, RA 7659 restoring the death penalty was signed into law. The law makers argued the deteriorating crime situation was a compeling reason for its reimposition. The main reason given was that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. In 1996, RA 8177 was approved, stipulating lethal injection as the method of execution.
Last February 5, 1999, Leo Echegaray, a house painter, was executed for repeatedly raping his stepdaughter. He was the first convict to be executed since the re-imposition of death penalty in 1995.
His execution sparked once again a heated debate between the anti and the pro-death penalty forces in the Philippines with a huge majority of people calling for the execution of Echegaray. That there was a strong clamor for the imposition of the death penalty should be viewed from the point of view of a citizen who is desperately seeking ways to stop criminality.
The Estrada administration peddled the death penalty as the antidote to crime. The reasoning was that if the criminals will be afraid to commit crimes if they see that the government is determined to execute them. Oppositors maintained that the death penalty is not a deterrent and that there have been studies already debunking the deterrence theory. Legislators and politicians refused to heed the recommendation of the Supreme Court for Congress to review the death penalty riding on the popularity of the pro-death penalty sentiment.
Six years after its reimposition, more than 1,200 individuals have been sentenced to death and seven convicts have been executed through lethal injection. Yet today, there are no signs that criminality has gone down.
From February 6, 1999, a day after Leo Echegaray was executed, to May 31 1999 two leading newspapers reported a total of 163 crimes which could be punishable by death penalty. But perhaps the best indicator that this law is not a deterrent to criminality is the ever-increasing number of death convicts.
From 1994 to 1995 the number of persons on death row increased from 12 to 104. From 1995 to 1996 it increased to 182. In 1997 the total death convicts was at 520 and in 1998 the inmates in death row was at 781. As of November 1999 there are a total of 956 death convicts at the National Bilibid Prisons and at the Correctional Institute for Women.
As of December 31, 1999, based on the statistics compiled by the Episcopal Commission on Prisoner Welfare of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, there were a total of 936 convicts interned at the National Bilibid Prisons and another 23 detained at the Correctional Institute for Women. Of these figures, six are minors and 12 are foreigners.
One of the reasons as to why human rights groups oppose the death penalty is because of the weaknesses and imperfections of the Philippine justice system. This is very much evident in the review of death penalty cases made by the Supreme Court from 1995 to 1999. Two out of every three death sentences handed down by the local courts were found to be erroneous by the Supreme Court.
Out of the 959 inmates the SC reviewed 175 cases involving 200 inmates from 1995 to 1999; 3 cases were reviewed in 1995, 8 in 1996, 8 in 1997, 38 in 1998, 118 in 1999.
Of these 175 cases, the SC affirmed with finality and first affirmation only 31% or 54 cases involving 60 inmates. Of these cases 24 were affirmed with finality, while the remaining 36 were given first affirmation.
Sixty nine percent (69%) or 121 cases were either modified, acquitted or remanded for retrial. Eighty four (84) cases involving 95 inmates were modified to reclusion perpetua, 10 cases involving 11 inmates were modified to indeterminate penalty, 11 cases involving 11 inmates were remanded to lower court for retrial and 16 cases involving 23 inmates were acquitted by the SC..
In a study prepared by the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), it pointed out that the result of the review of cases done by the Supreme Court "point all too clearly to the imperfections, weaknesses and problems of the Philippine justice system". Some decisions of the trial courts were overturned for imposing death penalty on offenses which were not subject to death penalty. Other decisions of the lower courts were set aside because of substantive and procedural errors during arraignment and trial. Still others were struck down because the lower court mis-appreciated evidences.
The Philippine justice system is so imperfect that it is often tipped against the poor and marginalized sectors of society. Because they are poor, majority of the death convicts could not even afford to hire private lawyers so that in most cases conviction is most likely to occur.
Nineteen ninety eight data form the Catholic Bishops conference of the Philippines showed that more than half of the convicts earned less than the government mandated minimum wage.
In a survey conducted among 425 convicts in 1998, 105 or 24.7% were agricultural workers, 103 were construction workers, 73 were transport workers, and 42 were in workers in sales and services. Only 6% finished college while 32.4 % finished various levels of high school while the remaining did not go to school or have finished only elementary or vocational education.
It is perhaps important to point out that out of these 46 crimes punishable by death, the death penalty has been applied to only 17 crimes. No one has been convicted of qualified bribery, qualified piracy and plunder. Interestingly also, no public official has been sentenced to death for crimes involving public officials.
That the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime has already been demonstrated. That there are severe imperfections in the justice system which could likely result in a situation where innocent victim might be executed can be seen in the review of cases by the Supreme Court. That it is biased against the poor and the marginalized can be seen in the socio-economic profile of the convicts. It is violation of the right to life and the right not to be treated cruelly.
Yet, the government maintains that it is effective in combatting crime. Under the death penalty law, 46 crimes are considered heinous and are now subject to the death penalty. It imposes the mandatory death penalty on 21 crimes while the other 25 crimes are death eligible. These are crimes for which a range of penalties including the death penalty is imposed.
Some Congressmen and Senators are proposing other lists of crimes to add to the above. Some even contemplated lowering the age of those punishable by the death penalty to include youthful offenders.
The death penalty is an easy way out for a government in the face of a strong outcry from the citizenry who wanted the government to stop criminality. It is being used to create the illusion that the government is doing something to stop the crimes when in fact it is not.
Sad though it maybe, more lives would be lost unless the death penalty in the Philippines is repealed.
