Death penalty is the capital punishment for a crime done.

This was imposed in our

country years ago and had been abolished eventually considering some humanitarian reasons.
Individual differences have made death penalty a debatable topic for discussion for it consists of
broad concerns or issues that until now creates argumentation. Criminals deserve to be punished
and death penalty only shortens the supposedly life sentence they have to spend in prison for
them to make sacrifices so as to realize their mistakes. They have to face the consequences for
their wrong doings and this condition will not be able to materialize if life is taken from them.
Philippine society for this matter should indeed maintain its values and life is one thing that
Filipinos consider valuable. Pro-life is what we are. We have to live and let live. More so,
Philippines is a democratic country and every Filipino has the right to live and to be heard.
Human rights, Filipino values and the like are just some of the reasons to understand and analyse
in order for one to deny death penalty in our society. And, as humans with conscience, we firmly
believe that death penalty should not be legalized in the Philippines.
Over the years of survey, death penalty is proven to be no more of a deterrent than a life
sentence without parole. It also said that countries that employ death penalty have a higher
murder rate than those countries that do not. There is no point of implying death penalty if there
is not much effect in the environment. According to Bedau (1997), criminals do not usually plan
the consequences of crime. They usually concentrate on escaping arrest, detection and
conviction. Also, usual criminals are under the effect of alcohol, drugs or depression upon
committing the crime. This is when logical thinking has been suspended. They are irrational to
the point of acting without second thought.
Back in 8 August 1991, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines stated that
death penalty is not the answer in the rising of criminality. He stated that the proper response to
criminality is in the effective law enforcement, a fast response penal system, and the quick and
impartial delivery of justice. If these factors are deemed ineffective, that is when death penalty
can be considered as an alternative.
Sending a criminal in prison is an act of punishment. And, punishment is to teach the
convict his or her mistakes. If death penalty is persisted, the convict will learn nothing because
he or she is no longer alive to learn from it and reflect. One cannot rehabilitate a person by

killing him or her. If the convict did not learn anything, neither will are those criminals that are
loose and free.
The trial was never perfect and still commits erroneous decisions. Once a death penalty
was imposed, there is no turning back even there was a mistake committed. It is a major decision
that is final and must be carried out. There is a chance the convict was innocent due to the fact
that trials are not always perfect. Even from the past years, numbers of people were exonerated
after the evidence proved that they were innocent. In the year 1973, over 650 people have been
executed and it is not a hundred percent that they committed the crime subjected to them. These
clearly show that there is a high risk of executing an innocent man who in fact did not commit
the crime.
An investigation was made in Illinois by a group of students to a man who was convicted.
They found out that during the original trial court one witness had lied and a video tape was
exposed which a criminal confessing his crime. And soon the convicted was freed and the true
killer was found. Justice system didnt worked well at this point. Without the efforts of the
concerned citizens, another innocent man might have been executed.
There is another way of judging if a man committed or not the crime. It is with the use of
DNA Testing that exonerated death row inmates. It was developed in the early 1990s and which
tells us that before it was ready to be use, a lot of people died with the crime they did not
committed. But according to Kogan (1999), there are crimes DNA Testing cannot be used and
will only mean the convicted will no longer have the chance to be exonerated if factually did not
commit the crime.
Death Penalty should not be implemented in the Philippines. In other countries like
America, Discrimination and Arbitrary are common in judgement of Death Penalty. The people
who accused in a case will not be punish because of the two factors that contributes to the
arbitration of the death penalty.
First, the people who are inmates who does not have enough money to have a good
attorney who is well educated and can defend the cases. Many suspects in the Philippines face
the crime with lack of money. Poor people do not afford the good quality of an attorney so that

the criminals are dependent on the quality of a lawyer that the government has assigned to the
cases. Some of the lawyers that are assigned to the people who accused have a lack of experience
in managing the cases. Philippines is one of the poorest country in the world and it is possible
that an accused person who will likely convict to a death penalty.
Second, there is racism in the death penalty. There is a study that proves that there is
discrimination between the black Americans and the white Americans. In the United States,
back from 1976, there are 202 black Americans who have been accused for killing a white
citizen of America, while only 12 white Americans have been accused for the cases where he
kills a black citizen. Racial Discrimination has been seen in the past history of America and it
should not be occurred in the Philippines because there is a biased in the side of the government
like the rich and the poor people. The leaders in the Philippines cannot be trusted because there
uses the power to overcome the poor people.
Therefore, Death penalty should not imply in the Philippines because these factors will
hardly affect the lives of the people. Many changes might happen.
Yet death penalty has the ability to incapacitate the violent criminals. Incapacitation is the
ability to eliminate the opportunities of the criminals to do crimes. The death penalty can serve
as a permanent solution to prevent those who are unchangeable and violent prone to do more
harm. It is a protection for the society. But this objection lacks evidences. Potter (1999), using
statistical facts proves that people who are committed murders and sent to prison are unlikely to
do it again. Even for those who are in parole, 4.5 percent of the prisoners are guilty for other
violent crimes and only 1.6 percent of them committed another homicide. Therefore, the
protection for the society is not improved by death penalty.
It is suggested that life imprisonment can be used for the incapacitation of the prisoners.
This can prevent them from engaging in the community and doing such crimes. Life sentences
can also help the prisoners mentally and emotionally. It is like a second chance, it gives a fair
and helpful for the prisoners (Vienna, 1994). Hence, death penalty is not necessary because not
only does it take away the life of a person who can be given a second chance but also because
life imprisonment can be implemented instead of it.

Death penalty advocates the principle of retribution or lex talionis, or an eye for an eye
a passage which is believed that punishment should fit the crime. The death penalty is a perfect
way to give back the justice especially for cruel and heinous crimes and allows the society to
present that the criminal is intolerable that can be punished in kind. This only ensures that the
criminal will no more do the same thing and creates no more victims. Pojman (2005) presented a
list of philosophers who affirmed that a proper retributive punishment for a person who takes a
life of an innocent person is death including Plato, Thomas Aquinas and many more. Yet this
argument lacks the proofs and evidences. Fridell (2004) states that retribution is seen as a blind
revenge due to the motivation of supporters by a sense of indignation and anger to proceed to
death penalty. Georgia (1972) laws and punishment should not spring from the desire for
revenge of the convicted of a particularly offensive act but it is rather measured rationally and
free from vengeful emotions. Moreover, people who respond to crime with certain handle of
anger shows that they care and long passionately for justice which leads to putting justice on
ones hand. Thus this proves that retribution is not a valid argument to legalize the death penalty
in the Philippines.
Fridell (2004) a prime factor of a well civilized society is the respect for life. Instead of
death penalty, putting into life sentence imprisonment and keeping away from the society makes
it more pro-life.
It is clear that death penalty should not be legalized in the Philippines to lessen the
number of crimes in the country. The following claims, which are deterrence, innocence and
discrimination, will help them to have an idea if death penalty will be legalized. These claims
would screen out the negative effects of death penalty and would also to maintain the stillness of
people. Most important, they would help to prevent the unnecessary issues that may subsist in
the community. Death penalty is not the solution for a certain crime committed. To pay the crime
that they committed, they should be in imprisonment. Death penalty may be a product of
mistakes and false assumptions that causes wrong judgment for everyone.