Death Penalty: The solution to nothing

(originally published in the January 2009 issue of The LaSallian, the Official Student Publication of De La Salle University)

Photo by Andrejs Zemdega for Getty Images

With the recent buzz on certain drug pushers from wealthy families dubbed the “Alabang Boys”, talks about the death penalty are scurrying about. Senator and majority floor leader Juan Miguel Zubiri attributes the alarming criminal activity in the country to the abolishment of capital punishment back in 2006. While it might be true that some criminals only did what they are convicted of because they didn’t deem squeezing into a tightly-packed prison as threatening, is the number significant enough to justify the reinstatement of a penalty which is essentially legalized killing?

The death penalty was repealed by the 1987 constitution, after the Marcos regime. It was brought back by former President Fidel Ramos in 1996, reportedly in response to rising crime rates. A decade later, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo once again removed it. Was the national crime rate affected significantly? Not exactly. In the years of the Ramos Administration, crime rates were steadily declining, regardless of whether the death penalty was enacted or not. Starting from 1993’s 145.7 crime incidence per 100,000 of the population, it went down to 112.8 in 1995, just before Ramos brought back capital punishment. It continued to decline steadily, only slightly rising in some years. The lowest crime rate reported in the National Statistics Coordinating Board (NSCB) website was in 2006, 81.9, even after the current president removed the death penalty. It rose significantly in 2007, but is mainly attributed to political turmoil. In fact, it seems that a more direct antecedent of high crime rates is the political and economic conditions of the country.

The highest crime rate in recent history was recorded in 1984 to 1986, which, according to the CIA Factbook, was approximately 310 per 100,000 people. Any Filipino would know that this was the time former president Ferdinand Marcos was losing the support of the people, inciting civil unrest. In 2007, there was a large number of politically-motivated killings all over the country. All of these lead to a very simple fact: crime rates are not significantly affected by the death penalty.

What then is the effect of the death penalty? Aside from a miniscule decrease in the population and a heightened sense of fear of committing “heinous crimes” for a number of people, there is hardly any benefit derived from killing criminals. What then is the solution to the banes of modern Philippine society? A better justice system: one that cannot be bribed. Let us not forget that the “Alabang Boys” didn’t gain notoriety just because of the gravity of their crime or their elite families. It is mainly because of allegations of bribery against the Department of Justice and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

Even if the law reverts to the barbaric penalties of the pre-Hispanic period, crime will still continue to thrive if the courts can easily be paid to get offenders off the hook. Only those who can not afford the prices will be put to death. In other words, the poor, who ironically are seldom the masterminds of the crimes they’ve committed, especially when it comes to drug trafficking. This reveals the real culprit that all Filipinos know so painfully well: corruption.

What the Philippines, not just the government, should focus on is trying to eliminate this cancer of society. And it doesn’t just entail running anti-corruption commercials on primetime TV. While there is a specific agency, the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission, that focuses on the elimination of corruption in the government, these efforts are clearly not enough. Every single citizen should do their part in this fight. It might seem too idealistic to be realized in this modern world, but this is the only way to reverse the culture of corruption in the country. We are all victims, but what we don’t see is that we also contribute in cultivating this mindset in our own little ways. And no, the death penalty won’t help this cause.

While most reasonable people are afraid of death, especially if it’s in a prison, the death penalty would not improve the conditions of the country. If anything, it would only further dehumanize our already-downtrodden people. Before thinking about what punishment is fit for a crime, offenders should be caught effectively, and shouldn’t be able to bribe his way out. Senator Francis Pangilinan says in a statement published by Inquirer.net, "It isn't the harshness or severity of punishment but the certainty of punishment that will make would be criminals think twice before committing illegal acts."