KARAPATAN vehemently condemns a proposal by the Duterte Youth Partylist to reinstall the death penalty in the Philippines for plunder and heinous crimes such as murder.
This proposal, if passed, will be another prime example of legislation that is brazenly anti-poor. Under a corrupt and bankrupt justice system that favors the moneyed and powerful, the death penalty will disproportionately impact the poor who cannot afford to mount an effective defense.
It will also be another law that the State can and will weaponize against human rights defenders, activists and political dissenters who, even now, are already being falsely and maliciously charged with heinous crimes as a means of suppressing dissent and derailing their activism. Farmers, workers and other poor and marginalized sectors who are falsely charged with heinous crimes for resisting fascist attacks will also be rendered more vulnerable to persecution, and their persecutors imbued with even greater impunity.
The usual pretext for reinstalling the death penalty is its supposed role as a deterrent to crime. In study after study, however, it has been shown that the death penalty has never succeeded in deterring crime, especially in the absence of serious measures to address the economic and social drivers of crime.
The reimposition of the death penalty will likewise be violative of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other human rights instruments to which the Philippines is a signatory.
The death penalty was abolished in the Philippines in 2006, the same year the Philippine government signed the Second Optional Protocol, which it later ratified in 2007.
International law does not permit States that have ratified or acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to denounce it or withdraw from it, thus guaranteeing the permanent non-reintroduction of the death penalty in States that have ratified the Protocol.
Contrary to claims that it seeks to protect human life, the death penalty is actually a heinous violation of the right to life and the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.
It is only when the underlying and systemic causes of crime are addressed and significant and comprehensive social, economic, and political reforms implemented that crimes can actually be reduced or eliminated.