Crime remains a serious concern in the Philippines.

News headlines are filled with crime-related

activities such as robbery, killings, drugs, and terrorism -- you name it, we got it all for you. In 2020,
the country was in the bottom 5 of the order and security index ranking across the Asia Pacific
region. Equally, the Philippines is also among those with the highest incarceration rate with 222
prisoners per 100,000 Filipinos. The current President's platform during his campaign was to tackle
the country's crime problem through his well-known iron ways and one of his major legislative
priorities is the restoration of capital punishment or commonly known here as the death penalty.
This has sparked a major debate amongst Filipinos, the population split due to varying opinions and
perspectives. Now, for the million-dollar question, is capital punishment the solution to the
Philippines' crime problem? And if it is, then, should it be restored?

Before we go forward with our points, let me present to you a brief timeline of the death penalty in
the Philippines. In 1987, the Philippines became the first nation in Asia to abolish it. Then in 1993,
Republic Act 7659 made the death penalty mandatory for 21 heinous crimes. They also changed the
method from electrocution to lethal injection. It was then abolished again in 2006 and on March 7,
2017, the House of Representatives passed a bill that restores the death penalty on the third and
final reading. House Bill 4727 limits the death penalty to drug-related crimes but once enacted, the
law may be amended to include other crimes such as murder, homicide, rape, plunder, and treason.
Now that we have sufficient knowledge of its timeline, let us now move on to our first point.

People argue that capital punishment will deter crime. They say it will lessen the chances of a crime
by deleting its criminals for good. However, current research is inconclusive as to whether the death
penalty has any effect on crime rates. Take a look at the statistics on Intentional Homicide Rates in
the Philippines from 1998-2012. Between 1998 and 2006 when the death penalty was still in place,
intentional homicide rates were at an all-time high ranging between 7.0 to approximately 9.0.
Meanwhile, after 2006 when the death penalty was abolished, there was a significant decrease in
these numbers, and in 2012, it was only measured at about 4.0, which is half the rate during the
death penalty.

For an added perspective, let us take a look at China. The average execution rate for drug crimes
between 2007 and 2011 was estimated at 510 people per year. Yet drug crimes have continued to
rise in the country, from 31,350 cases in 2006 to 69,751 in 2011. The China National Narcotics
Control Commission estimated that, by the end of 2014, there were 14 million drug users in China
despite capital punishment still being in place. This contradicts the main reason why the Duterte
administration is adamant about bringing back the death penalty -- and that is to support his war on
drugs.

This leads us to our next point -- death penalty does not dispense justice it can be a form of injustice.
"Why?" you may ask. It is because number one: it is error-prone. In the Philippines alone, the
Supreme Court said in 2004 that 71.77% of death penalty verdicts were wrongly judged. It is
traumatic to think that you can be put to death for a crime you did not commit, especially if you are
in a country where right and wrong are cards that can be shuffled like a pile of money bills. Dr.
Raymund Narag, an assistant professor of criminology at Southern Illinois University was once
detained for a campus murder case he did not commit and yet he suffered 7 years in jail -- mind you,
the death penalty was still intact during that time. What was worse than his overcrowded cell and
frequent prison riots, he says, was the "agony of waiting" for hearings. He wants Filipinos to know
the consequences of mistaken convictions, which could become mistaken executions if the law
changes, in an already struggling justice system. Number two: The death penalty is anti-poor. A
survey conducted by the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) found that a large number of death row
inmates did not go to high school. Most of them are also underemployed and generally living in
poverty. We all know how unpredictable, complex, and expensive our system is here in the
Philippines. It favors the rich, corruption is common knowledge, and as Gloria Lai, director of the
International Drug Policy Consortium, once said, "it is the poor and vulnerable who bear the harsh
punishment of criminal justice systems in grossly unjust ways."

At this point, you are probably wondering, "if capital punishment is not the answer, then what is?".
From the points I've mentioned before, I also hinted at some of the major flaws in our system and
two of the most emphasized ones are the socioeconomic status of the people and the unpredictable
justice system of the country. So, here are two statements, (1) the certainty of apprehension is a
greater deterrent than the severity of punishments, and (2) economic development is also another
deterrent of crime greater than capital punishments. The World Justice Project identifies our
criminal and civil justice systems as the worst aspects of the rule of law in the Philippines. The
country ranked 70th out of 113 countries worldwide, with a score of

0.51 OUT OF 1 in the factor that measures the criminal justice system's effectiveness, impartiality,
and absence of corruption. Delay of cases was the most significant barrier to achieving justice in our
courts. This is at least partly because of the lack of judges and the number of cases for each judge.
To achieve the first statement, all sectors of our justice system must be improved from the
implementation of laws to the efficiency of judges and prosecutors. We need to strengthen our
justice system and law implementation to ensure the certainty of getting caught, rather than just
having the fear of being punished yet being able to get away from where punishment is due.

It is no doubt that poverty and other socioeconomic factors are the biggest motivators of crime
hence, we should also work on improving our country's quality of life. Let's compare Finland and the
United States, for example. The US murder rate is 110 times more than Finland, and Finland has a
higher quality of life than them. Crime and quality of life are actually in an inverse relationship with
each other, the lower the crime, the higher quality of life, and vice versa. A comfortable way of life
prevents even the thought of doing a crime in the first place and that is the best crime-stopper move
available. No bloodshed, no money spent. No lives lost, and most importantly, no crime.

So, now ask yourself, "is capital punishment the answer?". If you still believe that the death penalty
should be restored in a country where justice is unpredictable and classist, then I'm going to ask you
-- what would you feel if someone innocent was executed and now you can't just un-alive him back?
How would you feel for someone who got sentenced to death for crimes motivated by the mere fact
that they needed to provide for their family somehow? How would you feel about someone framed
for a heinous crime just because he was poor? Are you willing to leave the people, the foundation of
a country, in a cloud of uncertainty called Philippine justice?