Knee-jerking on the death penalty

When Republic Act No. 7659 was approved "way back" in December 1993, the Congress explained its re-imposition of the death penalty in the law’s preambular or "whereas" clauses. In soaring prose, our distinguished lawmakers then said:

"WHEREAS, crimes punishable by death… are heinous for being grievous, odious and hateful offenses and which, by reasons of their inherent or manifest wickedness, viciousness, atrocity and perversity are repugnant and outrageous to the common standards and norms of decency and morality in a just, civilized and ordered society;

"WHEREAS, due to the alarming upsurge of such crimes which has resulted not only in the loss of human lives and wanton destruction of property but also affected the nation’s efforts towards sustainable economic development and prosperity while at the same time has undermined the people’s faith in the Government and the latter’s ability to maintain peace and order in the country…"

Thus, Congress, "in the interest of justice, public order and the rule of law," blah, blah, blah, found "compelling reasons" to impose the death penalty for certain crimes.

In reacting to the simultaneous abolition by both Houses of Congress of the death penalty, the Senate version specifying the maximum "capital" punishment to be life imprisonment without possibility of parole, the Speaker of the House extolled this rare demonstration of legislative consensus, as follows: "We have taken this courageous decision because we believe in the sanctity of human life and in the value of justice not as an act of retribution. This is the mark of a higher civilization."

Quite a mouthful, but it does beg a number of questions. Does the Speaker mean, in referring to the abolition of the death penalty as "courageous," that a previous Congress, in re-imposing the said penalty, was cowardly and bereft of cojones?

But wasn’t he also Speaker of that allegedly limp-wristed Congress?

Further, if this Congress believes in the sanctity of human life, was that previous Congress, of which he was also a part, unmindful of and indifferent to human lives? So, were the above-quoted references in the preamble to R.A. 7659 to decency, morality, a just, ordered and civilized society, and to the alarming loss of human lives and wanton destruction of property, empty words and cynical exercises in disingenuousness?

And if this Congress believes in a concept of justice which is corrective and reformatory, rather than retributive, was that previous Congress a vengeful lynch mob whose members, again including the Speaker himself, thought nothing of throwing criminals in hellholes, there to rot until mercifully rescued by an ignominious death ?

These questions are probably rhetorical, but the point behind them is clear: When you’re trying to understand what in heaven’s name motivates legislators to do what they do, you have to look beyond what they say and decode what it is that’s really driving them. In the case of the abolition of the death penalty, you might find that’s it’s not the complex and arguable "principles" behind this divisive debate that caused the abolition, but other more pragmatic considerations.

In other words, I doubt that "human life" or "higher civilization" triumphed. Realpolitik–remember that term?– did.

Human life was probably not the central issue this time around. As the families of victims of heinous crimes have chorused, what about the stolen lives of the victims and the shattered lives of the loved ones they left behind? Weren’t they valuable too?

Nor was reformation and correction, rather than retribution, the crux of the question. If you tell me that our present prison system affords opportunities to most convicts for correction and reformation of their lives, I’ll ask you to tell me another story. If you try to feed me the crap that our current correctional system convinces lifers and death convicts of the redemptive ability of a moral life and the basic goodness of man, I’ll feed you your crap right back.

Reportedly, the Senate’s rationale for abolition is that capital punishment was cruel, anti-poor and had failed to deter heinous crimes. Those arguments are not new and were fully ventilated in the hearings leading to the re-imposition of the death penalty by R.A. 7659. If the Senate has any empirical proof that lethal injection has been, in practice, cruel and visited mostly on the poor, many of us would like to see it.

It’s probably correct that the death penalty has failed to deter heinous crimes. But the reasons for that failure will be hotly debated. Advocates of the death penalty will argue that the penalty has not failed. Rather, it has not been given a chance to work. For several years now, they remind us, there has been an effective moratorium on executions.

While non-deterrence is probably demonstrable, the death penalty may have nothing to do with it. Indeed, R.A. 7659 cited, as one reason for re-imposition, an "alarming upsurge" in heinous crimes. If crimes are on the upsurge, whether the death penalty is imposable or not, the problem may not be with the penalty but with law enforcement and, necessarily, the entire justice system.

Although I welcomed R.A. 7659, after 12 years I now wonder whether too much was expected of the death penalty, as if it were the deus ex machine which would solve all our problems of criminality. It hasn’t and it won’t. Many countries have the death penalty, many don’t. The jury isn’t in on which system is better, or whether the penalty per se is even relevant to preventing crime.

What seems clear is that it is the certainty of punishment, rather than the punishment itself, which deters heinous crime. Death and life in prison without parole can be equally effective, if the criminal knows there is no way around the punishment, whether you’re rich or poor, well-connected or powerless, blue or white collar, uniformed or not, honorable legislator or not.

Our energies as a nation are better focused on ensuring certainty and equal application of criminal penalties, rather than on the debilitating and divisive debate on the death penalty.

But I know people will continue speculating on whether the Spanish government, militant Catholic Bishops, the coming visit of the President to the Vatican, legislators recently sentenced to death, or the fate of an eventually retiring chief executive had anything to do with the abolition of the death penalty. This sort of exercise always plays better on the cocktail circuit, and distracts us all from taking the action that really matters.