Proposition: Death Penalty should be reimposed

Necessity Speech – Negative

Arguments:

1. Reimposing death penality is proven not to be a deterrent to the commission of crimes.

- In the explanatory note of HB seeking for the reimposition of the death penalty it said
there that death penalty is a “proven deterrent coupled by its consistent, persistent and
determined implementation.”
a. According to Amnesty International, the death penalty has no deterrent effect. Rather,
in an article published by the Washington Post, it held there that effective law
enforcement is most important in preventing crime as people are more likely to break
the law when they feel they can get away with it. CERTAINTY OF APPREHENSION HAS
BEEN DEMONSTRATED TO BE THE MORE EFFECTIVE DTERRENT(this is the situation
here in the Philippines, we lack law enforcement officers, prosecutors, the reason why
many offenders go unjailed and this sends a wrong signal that they can go away with
their crimes.)
b. In a study conducted by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism on Filipinos
who were in the death row, most of them said that they were aware of the death
penalty but they did not know that the crimes for which they are sentenced were
covered by the death penalty. THESE FINDINGS PUT INTO QUESTION THE SO-CALLED
“DETERRENCE EFFECT OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
i. PCIJ even went further that in 1999, the bumper year for executions, the
national crime volume ironically increased by 15.3% or a total of 82, 538 (from
71,527 crimes in the previous year).
2. The reimposition of the death penalty is discrimination to the poor. (87.17% of of the total
death row participated in the survey)
a. According to the PCIJ, the death row strikingly represents the poor in the Philippine
society:
i. 39.9% belongs to the lowest socio-economic class (failed to complete even just
elementary education
ii. 42.8% middle class or those able to complete at least high school
iii. 16% upper class, having the privilege of completing college
b. The poor have to rely on PAO lawyers who are undermanned and overworked while the
rich can hire a battery of lawyers so that they can get away through the procedural
lapses made by the police or court.
c. Where are the drug lords? Kerwin Espinosa and Peter Lim to name a few have been
cleared of charges for lack of evidence while a poor Filipino, allegedly gets caught selling
for a few grams of shabu, gets to suffer lifetime imprisonment.