Reviving death penalty would be an international embarrassment for the Philippines, Amnesty International (AI) said on Friday even as it pointed out that the country is a signatory to various covenants on human rights, including the protocol to abolish the capital punishment.
AI Philippines vice chair Romeo Cabarde Jr. said there is also no logical connection between imposing death penalty and reducing crime rate, citing the increase in the country’s crime rate in 1999 when seven convicts were executed by the Estrada administration.
“We call on the incoming president to carefully think about the policy proposals under his administration in order to ensure that none of his proposed measures will contravene the very commitment we made before the world,” Cabarde said in a media forum in Quezon City.
The group presented a program of action to be submitted to presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte to ensure that human rights is made a priority and embedded in all government agencies and programs.
“Putting an end to extrajudicial executions, unlawful arrests, secret detention, enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment is one of our non-negotiables for President Duterte,” AI Philippines chair Ritz Lee Santos III said.
In a news conference after the May 9 elections, Duterte said bringing back the death penalty would be a central part of his war on crime.
Breaking promise?
Cabarde noted that the Philippines is a state party to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which aims for the worldwide total abolition of death penalty.
“What kind of face are we going to show the rest of the world, having promised at a certain point that we will eradicate death penalty and here comes a new leader who wants to reimpose death penalty just because he wants to curb criminality,” Cabarde said.
Based on the Commission on Human Rights report cited by Cabarde, the crime rate in 1999 even increased by 15.3 percent or a total of 82,538 compared with the previous year’s 71,527 cases despite the executions of death row convicts.
Meanwhile, European diplomats and civil rights advocates have also raised concern on the reimposition of death penalty in the Philippines, saying it is anti-poor and will not deter crimes.
Numbers game in Congress
German Ambassador to the Philippines Thomas Ossowski said the reimposition of death penalty is contrary to the human rights principles that the Philippines is known for in the world.
“Germany is very adamant in that (the reimposition of death penalty). We are against death penalty,” said Ossowksi in an interview Thursday night at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) anniversary in Makati.
Former Deputy Speaker Lorenzo “Erin” Tañada III, who espoused the bill to repeal the death penalty, expressed hopes that lawmakers will vote against the proposal to reimpose it.
“It’s going to be a numbers game in Congress and those who voted for the repeal of death penalty in 2006 have been reelected and hopefully they will maintain their position and vote against its reimposition,” said Tañada in an interview at the sidelines of the FNF event.
Jules Maaten, outgoing country director of FNF, said “state killing” through capital punishment sends a wrong signal “that every person can also commit killings.” TVJ
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