Lisa Largoza-Maza - Philippines

Secretary-General of GABRIELA (A National Women's Coalition of Organizations)

ABSTRACT: The death penalty has been approved in the Philippines. The author says that in the Philippines the legal system favours the rich, because these remain unpunished despite the crimes committed.

("HANDS OFF CAIN", 1 February 1994)

The founder congress of the International League for the abolition of the death penalty by the year 2000 took place at a crucial moment for the Philippines, where the reintroduction of the death penalty was passed. Under the new law, capital punishment will be used for cases of rape, parricide, homicide, infanticide, kidnapping and for grave illegal behaviours such as theft with violence or intimidations against people, aggravated theft, destructive arson, treason, piracy and mutiny at sea or in the waters of the Philippines, looting and other crimes related to illegal drugs.

In the Philippines no one can intervene on the juridical-legal system, and the population will suffer the effects of the reintroduction of the death penalty. Our legal system favours the rich, who - along with the government officials and the military - carry out the highest number of crimes, remaining unpunished. Many of the people we consider political prisoners are instead accused of ordinary crimes and will be sentenced to death.

The death penalty has been applied in my country from 1932 to 1986. The new law, after a suspension lasted until December '93, changed the method of execution: from the electric chair to the gas chamber.

The Philippines have become a Member States of the United Nations International Covenant on civil and political rights in January 1987, and on that date it pledged to abolish the death penalty. In December 1989, the Philippines signed the Second Optional protocol to the United Nations Covenant. This protocol states that "each Member State must adopt all measures necessary to scrap the death penalty from its jurisdiction".

The reintroduction of the death penalty is a patent violation of the Protocol and a negation of human rights, whose safeguard is the basis of many international conventions signed by the Philippines.

There are groups of the religious world that believe that the teachings of Christ allow for the application of the death penalty in extraordinary cases and as a last remedy.