Should the Philippines Legalize the Death Penalty?

Lately there have been many individuals in the Philippines discussing whether or not the death penalty should be re-instated. They feel that it'll happen sooner or later, but not until after the elections.

Firstly, I'd like to clarify that I'm completely against the death penalty for any reason. Every Catholic should be. I'm of the belief that if the government kills someone, then I'm killing someone, because the people in the government represents me.

With that being said, I understand why certain people want the death penalty to exist. They see horrible crimes being committed daily on the news. They read about people under the influence of drugs raping and murdering children. They read about men killing families.

Then, they look at other countries with the death penalty: China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, USA, and think that since they have it, the Philippines should as well.

Here's the problem: the Philippines is not China, Singapore, the USA, or Saudi Arabia.

Furthermore, even in the United States, with all its technological advances, they execute the wrong people constantly. And that's after 20 years of appeals, lawyers combing through "evidence" and highly trained detectives and police officers, who, sadly, are much better trained than in the Philippines. As well, executions are more expensive than having the prisoner spend their life in jail (yes, that's the United States, but the Philippines still has to pay the prosecutors, the detectives, judges, and everyone else during the appeals process and pay for the method of execution). As well, it's been proven that the death penalty is not a deterrent.

Knowing that, do you still want the death penalty?

Notwithstanding, the Philippines has many issues to deal with before dealing with executions. Drugs, for example, need to be dealt with seriously. People know where they are bought. People know how others get them. Yet the police does absolutely nothing. When I, as a foreigner, know where jeepney and pedicab drivers buy their drugs, then I'm quite positive the law enforcement officials know as well.

Then, you have to consider the poverty issue. Drugs are, sadly, used mostly by people in poverty to take away their stresses of everyday life. If you look around the world, you'll see that the people who are doing the drugs are mostly in poverty. Yes, you hear about celebrities doing it as well, but that's very few and they are only mentioned because of their high profile status. In the United States, for example, drug users of marijuana and methamphetamine are poor people. So let's solve poverty first.

Take a look at income disparity in countries who have high crime and those who have low crime. You'll find that the countries who have a wide income gap have more crimes and the ones who have a small gap have less crimes.

Let's solve that issue first before talking about whether or not the death penalty should be put in place (and fix the judicial system).