Anti-death penalty advocates were called on by a Catholic bishop to “exert more efforts” to change the views of pro-death penalty Filipinos.
Bishop Joel Baylon, the head of the Episcopal Commission on Prison Pastoral Care, lamented that many Filipinos still see the death penalty as a “just way” of meeting out judgment.
“The old ‘lex talionis(an eye for an eye)’ is still very much present in the mind and in the mindset of many of our people,” he said, as quoted by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) News.
The bishop stressed that pro-life advocates must “exert more efforts” to make the public understand in different ways.
“And help them see the dignity of the human person,” he added.
Baylon, a prelate of Legazpi, said such during this year’s online general assembly of the Coalition Against Death Penalty (CADP).
The assembly also marked the 16th anniversary of a law that prohibited the death penalty in the Philippines.
Per a 2018 survey by the Social Weather Station (SWS), it was found that out nearly six in every 10 Filipinos agree to reinstate the death penalty for heinous crimes.