I.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

During Spanish era, Spanish brought to the Filipinas was the 1848 Spanish Codigo Penal–a law
allowing capital punishment to be imposed on locals who went against the Spanish government.
Despite around 1,700 death sentences, however, only 46 were executed. The methods used then to
execute criminals included burning, decapitation, drowning, flaying, garrote, hanging, shooting
and stabbing.

In 1946, murder, rape, and treason were grounds for the death penalty. Until 1961, 51 were
sentenced to death by the law. This number soared high under the leadership of strongman
Ferdinand Marcos, but during the term of Marcos regime still the crime rates high due to political
rivalry.“Statistics demonstrate that states without the death penalty have consistently lower murder
rates than states within it, but frankly I think those statistics are immaterial and coincidental. Fear
of the death penalty may cause a few to hesitate, but certainly not enough to keep it on force.” H.
Lee Sarokin, LLB.

Beyond merely legal arguments, however, we need to oppose the reimposition of the death penalty
in the Philippines for the simple reason that humans are imperfect and should not render judgments
that are beyond rectification. In People v. Mateo, the Philippine Supreme Court found that seven
(7) out of ten (10) people who received the death penalty were wrongfully charged. That is an
astounding proportion that should, on its own, stop us from trusting in the fairness of the death
penalty. - Paeng Palis

The CHR said that death penalty is against the "poor, uneducated, vulnerable and powerless." It
also cited data that showed the danger of wrong convictions. It disclosed data that demonstrated
that there was 71.77 percent judicial error rate in the country which meant that there was a high
possibility that an innocent individual would be executed once death penalty was revived.
Undersecretary Maria Lourdes Jarabe of the DSWD said the rights of criminals should not be
disregarded as she noted that capital punishment is anti-poor because of the country’s delayed and
expensive justice system. She said moneyed offenders could work on their cases full time unlike
the poor who constitute the majority of those who were on death penalty row.

II.THESIS STATEMENT

Before there’s no law or guide to follow just when you commit crime, punishment will follow the
crime of the higher officials. During the Marcos’ regime there’s a death penalty implemented, but
there’s a law regarding the death penalty, so only those committed crime with legal processes will
be convicted. Due to the protectors, there are innocent people wrongly executed. I believe that they
keep on sending innocent people who are wrongly accused to death row and the sad thing about
this is that, innocence is proven after the execution has been carried out. The death penalty will
not solve crime. But if and when the state begins killing the poor and only the poor Death penalty
effective but it doesn’t lessen the crime rates in the Philippines and there are innocent people
wrongly executed and also reduces the rank of poor.

III. OBJECTIONS AND COUNTER ARGUMENTS

OBJECTIONS COUNTER ARGUMENTS

1. Death penalty effective but it doesn’t lessen 1. The death penalty is okay but still the crime
the crime rates in the Philippines. is not lessen because there’s a main reason and
that is drugs. So the death penalty is not the
solution to lessen the crime rate in the
Philippines.
 2. Death penalty effective but there are 2. they keep on sending innocent people who
innocent people wrongly executed. are wrongly accused to death row and the sad
thing about this is that, innocence is proven
after the execution has been carried out
3. Death penalty is effective but reduces the 3. Justice is not fair to the poor people, because
rank of poor. they don’t have enough money and power.

IV. CONCLUSION

I therefore conclude that death penalty is mostly implemented to the poor people because they
don’t have enough money to sustain the attorney’s fees and because of their difficult financial
problem, they tried to involve in drug business, that’s also the main reason why criminal rate isn’t
decreasing. Every human deserves the chance at life, no matter what they have done and we cannot
take that right away.