Bishops lead fight vs death penalty

Parishioners in San Carlos City in Pangasinan province add their collective voice to calls against the reimposition of death penalty. —RAY ZAMBRANO

The leader of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said improving the criminal justice system is the most effective deterrent against criminality, not the death penalty which is being revived by Congress.

In his homily during a prayer rally on Monday to protest the death penalty restoration, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said the church is against crime, illegal drugs, rape, plunder, smuggling, terrorism and social disorder.

“We do not condone wrongdoing. We do not ignore the pain of the victims of crime. But if the criminal justice system is corrupt, slow, biased and peering through the blindfold, criminals like rapists, plunderers, killers and drug pushers would continue their trade,” said Villegas, CBCP president.

“We are not protesting without a solution. We are protesting with an alternative—reform the criminal justice system,” he said.

Last week, the House justice committee approved for plenary deliberation a bill that sought to impose death penalty for more than 20 heinous offenses, including those related to illegal drugs, rape with homicide, kidnapping for ransom, and arson with death.

The rally started with a Mass at the Saint Dominic Parish Church, followed by a march around the city’s business center where the images of the “Santo Bangkay”  (the Dead Christ) and the Our Lady of Manaoag were paraded.

Church officials, priests and seminarians led students and residents, who carried placards opposing the death penalty. The march culminated with a rally at the city plaza, highlighted by the signature drive supporting the “No to Death Penalty” campaign.

Fr. Stephen Roque, director of St. Dominic Vicariate Family and Life Ministry, said the rally was meant to show that church people are against the culture of death that, he said, is taking place in the country.

He took exception to an assertion made by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez that priests should focus only on teaching about faith.

“We are priests, but being priests does not take away our being Filipinos who have the right to speak. As priests and Filipinos, it is our duty to teach what is right and wrong. It is wrong to kill,” Roque said.

In the Visayas, at least 1,500 parishioners and students converged at the Bacolod City public plaza and joined a procession to the San Sebastian Cathedral to protest against the plan to reimpose the death penalty.

Fr. Felix Pasquin, rector of the San Sebastian Cathedral, the seat of the Catholic Diocese of Bacolod, said the prayer rally kicked off the diocesan-wide education campaign against the return of capital punishment.

Bacolod Bishop Patricio Buzon called for prayers against the passage of the death penalty bill and for lawmakers to vote against the measure.

“We, in the Diocese of the Bacolod, are joining the urgent initiative of many dioceses in the country to oppose the railroading of the passage of the death penalty bill,” he said

Buzon officiated a concelebrated Mass after the procession to commemorate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Monday.

Pasquin said the Our Lady of Guadalupe is considered the patroness of prolife movements.

In the Bicol region, hundreds of parishioners priests, nuns and seminarians in Legazpi City in Albay province called on legislators to stop human rights violations in the government’s war on drugs and to oppose the revival of the death penalty.

Carrying placards bearing antideath penalty messages, they marched around the Peñaranda Park in Legazpi last week while praying the holy rosary. Legazpi Bishop Joel Baylon celebrated Mass and led a candle-lighting ceremony.

Baylon sought prayers for government leaders, particularly for President Duterte and the country’s policemen, as they deal with the illegal drug problem and crime.

“The leaders of the Church, even the faithful, can’t change President Duterte’s vision, especially his [hardline position at] ending the drug problem … It is only God, who is the most powerful, who can do that,” Baylon said.

“It seems the value of life is not being given any importance. We need to respect the basic sanctity of life—only God has the full authority to take one’s life,” he said.

“We are with [Mr. Duterte] in his war on drugs, but we don’t agree with his methods,” Baylon told reporters.

The bishop said the restoration of capital punishment would only “create vengeance.”

“That’s Old Testament law. We’re already past that. The Philippines is a civilized country,” he said.  —YOLANDA SOTELO, CARLA GOMEZ, REY ANTHONY OSTRIA AND MICHAEL JAUCIAN