While proponents believe that reinstating the death penalty in the Philippines will reduce the country's crime rate and instill a level of fear among wrongdoers, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) believes otherwise and warned that there will be several repercussions, particularly in the country's negotiating powers with other countries.
(MANILA BULLETIN)
In the discussion “Bringing Death (Penalty) Back to Life?” held by the Ateneo Human Rights Center on Thursday, CHR Commissioner Karen Gomez-Dumpit said that reinstating the death penalty will make it more difficult for the Philippines to save the lives of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are facing trial in other countries.
"We want to stand on higher moral ground when we beg for the lives of our OFWs abroad. We find it hypocritical for us to kill ourselves when we beg for the lives of our OFWs on death row," she said.
Dumpit also warned that the confidence in the Philippines as a member of the international community will be eroded should the death penalty be reinstated.
"International cooperation must be had in terms of solving transnational crimes," she said.
Dumpit cited the case of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino woman who was arrested and sentenced to death back in 2010 for smuggling heroin into Indonesia. When they were begging for her life, they reasoned that they needed to save her so they could trace the syndicate behind the international drug operations.
The death penalty in the country was abolished in 2006 during the term of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
President Duterte has long pushed for the return of the death penalty in order to bolster the government's fight against illegal drugs.
He repeated this call during his 5th State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July.
"I reiterate the swift passage of a law reviving the death penalty by lethal injection for crimes specified under the Comprehensive Dangerous Act of 2002," he said.
President Duterte's statement alarmed the CHR with spokesperson Atty. Jacqueline Ann de Guia saying that bringing back the capital punishment in the country "will be a breach of international law."
The CHR said reinstating the death penalty will be in conflict with the tenets of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the Philippines ratified in 2007.