Bitte lest die original Berichte!
Bishops fear
more summary killings
MANILA, Sept. 19,
2016 — Catholic bishops fear an increase in cases of summary executions after
President Rodrigo Duterte asked for a six-month extension for his war on drugs.
Lipa Archbishop
Ramon Arguelles said he is worried that fighting fire with fire is likely to
fail.
“But I am also
worried about more extrajudicial killings,” said the prelate.
6 months more
Duterte yesterday
said he needs another six months on top of his self-imposed deadline of three
to six months to solve the country’s drug problem.
He said there are
too many people, including politicians, involved in the illegal activity and he
“cannot kill them all.”
“There is
narco-politics on the lowest government unit, and that will be the start of our
agony,” explained Duterte in a press conference Sunday evening in Davao City.
Manila Auxiliary
Bishop Broderick Pabillo also said Duterte’s approach to the drug problem would
not work.
Anti-poverty campaign
“It should be
rehabilitation and stronger anti-poverty campaign,” stressed Pabill.
He said Duterte
should instead root out corruption within the government and not be selective
in his anti-illegal drugs campaign.
“In the campaign,
he categorically said that the drug problem would be solved in 6 months or he
will step down, but of course he is not a man of [his] word,” Pabillo said.
He added: “Anybody
in his right mind cannot claim that. Can’t he see that his method is not
effective?” (Ysabel Hilado / CBCPNews)
CBCP Ethical
Guidelines on Proposals to Restore the Death Penalty
Our beloved people
of God:
“The Lord, the
Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and
fidelity, continuing his kindness for a thousand generations, and forgiving
wickedness and crime and sin; yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but
punishing children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for
their father’s wickedness.” (Ex. 34:6-7)
The Extraordinary
Jubilee of Mercy declared by Pope Francis is an auspicious time for the church
to draw strength from the merciful love of God and address issues of vital
importance in the life of the church in our country. As bishops entrusted with
pastoral care, it is our moral duty to draw reflections on the gospel of life
as it touches the burning issues of our day. In season and out of season, we
take our shepherding role seriously before Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
We ask all Filipino
Catholics and all men and women of goodwill to read these words borne out of
our collegiality as your bishops to reflect on them and to create “circles of
discernment” so that we can reflect together, decide together, work together
and pray together that the truth may prevail!”
Why the Church Must Speak
It was when God had
created man and woman, bringing human life upon the earth that God rested from
the work of creation. In every human person is that incomparably precious
breath of life from God himself, as we read in the book of Genesis, “the Lord
God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the
breath of life, and so man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).
It is this Divine
gift of life, sublime and unsurpassable, that the death penalty takes away. It
is the breath of life, the gift of the Creator, that every judicial execution
snatches and cuts short.
To every man and
woman is open, by the Savior, Jesus Christ, the invitation to the fullness of
life. Every man and woman is a person redeemed by God’s own Son, made an
adopted son or daughter of God, and heir to the promise of the Resurrection.
This is the dignity
of the human person. It is this dignity that the death penalty transgresses!
Our Moral Sense Evolves!
For many centuries,
the death penalty was unquestionably accepted by most including the Church.
However, with time our understanding evolves and we learn to become more human
in our behavior according to the dignity bestowed upon us and our moral sense
evolves. In the last century, due also to a better understanding of the human
person, the input from psychology and a deeper understanding of human frailty,
many began to question the need for the death penalty. The Spirit blows in the
world and we are also asked to read the signs of the times (see Matthew 16:3):
a growing consensus against the use of the death penalty.
From the time of
the 1935 Constitution to the present, our fundamental law has always insulated
all from “cruel and unusual punishment”, but for a long time, it was understood
– according to the moral sense at the time – that the death penalty constituted
an exception to this proscription.
But our sense of
what is just and our reading of the laws evolves. And while, in the past, our
courts may have not found any repugnance between the imposition of the sentence
of death and the constitutional proscription of cruel and unusual punishment,
now, the contradiction and irreconcilability are striking and compelling.
You cannot, without
contradiction, insist that the person is secure from cruel punishment and at
the same time open the possibility of inflicting upon him or her the most cruel
punishment possible: the calculated, planned and deliberate deprivation of
life!
This was exactly
the point eruditely made by Mr. Justice William Douglas in an Opinion he wrote
in the case of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). He very instructively
wrote:
It is also said in
our opinions that the proscription of cruel and unusual punishments is ‘not
fastened to the obsolete but may acquire meaning as public opinion becomes
enlightened by a humane justice’. A like statement was made that the Eighth
Amendment ‘must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that
mark the progress of a maturing society.’”
Church teaching for the 3rd millennium
Saint Pope John
Paul II increasingly voiced his stance against the death penalty. In Evangelium
vitae, his famous testament to the value of human life, he pointed out that
cases warranting the death penalty now are “very rare if not practically
nonexistent” (Evangelium Vitae, no. 56). At a mass in St Louis, USA, Pope John
Paul II also made the following appeal: The new evangelization calls for
followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life…A sign of hope is the
increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away,
even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has
the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the
chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas
for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary”
(Pope John Paul II, Jan 27, 1999.)
Pope Francis,
together with the worldwide Bishops, stated emphatically that the Church
“firmly rejects the death penalty” (see Amoris Laetitia, no. 83). This is the
definitive Catholic Church teaching for the third millennium. Pope Francis also
addressed the Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort and the World Coalition Against
the Death Penalty on June 23, 2016 in the following words:
It is an offense to
the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person. It likewise
contradicts God’s plan for individuals and society, and his merciful justice.
Nor is it consonant with any just purpose of punishment…It must not be
forgotten that the inviolable and God-given right to life also belongs to the
criminal.
It is time then to
rid ourselves of the obsolescent notion that a person who commits a heinous
wrong “forfeits his right to life”. No one can forfeit the right to life,
because life is at the free disposal of none, not even of the State!
An International Obligation
The Philippines is
in fact under a legal obligation not to restore the death penalty. This is an
obligation in law that it took upon itself when our government ratified the
Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Significantly, Article I of the Protocol cannot be clearer about our legal
obligations:
1. No one within
the jurisdiction of a State Party to the present Protocol shall be executed.
2. Each State Party shall take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction.
2. Each State Party shall take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction.
And there is
nothing in the Protocol that would allow the Philippines to denounce the
international agreement. In fact, it would not be in our best interests to do
so, in light of the fact that in respect to other aspects of our national life,
we take refuge and seek legal relief under the norms of international law and
international agreements.
Not only the
operative provisions of the Protocol, however, are instructive, but also the
perambulatory clauses.
Believing that the
abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity
and the progressive development of human rights, convinced that all measures of
abolition of the death penalty should be considered as progress in the
enjoyment of the right to life, these are some of the premises underlying the
obligation of State-parties, among them the Philippines, not to execute anyone
and not to restore the death penalty to our statute books.
Quite
significantly, on December 21, 2010, the General Assembly of the United Nations
adopted Resolution No. 65-206. In part, it reads:
Mindful that any miscarriage or failure of justice in the implementation
of the death penalty is irreversible and irreparable;
Convinced that a moratorium on the use of the death penalty contributes to respect for human dignity and to the enhancement and progressive development of human rights and; Considering that there is no conclusive evidence of the deterrent value of the death penalty.
3. Calls upon States to (d) establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty; 4. Calls upon States which have abolished the death penalty not to reintroduce it.
Convinced that a moratorium on the use of the death penalty contributes to respect for human dignity and to the enhancement and progressive development of human rights and; Considering that there is no conclusive evidence of the deterrent value of the death penalty.
3. Calls upon States to (d) establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty; 4. Calls upon States which have abolished the death penalty not to reintroduce it.
Our position
against the death penalty therefore rests not only on considerations of human
dignity but has legal foundation. In the country’s legislature R.A. 9346, the
act repealing the death penalty and granting universal commutation to life
imprisonment and reclusion-perpetua (June 24, 2006)
We Cannot Give Up on Anyone!
Nowhere does the
Gospel grant us any authority to write anyone off as “unsalvageable human
material”, one who can be disposed of by execution. The Gospel is the good news
of redemption – that no one is ever completely beyond the reach of Divine
mercy.
When the State
kills in the name of justice, it is in fact saying that the condemned person
has no right to live, is undeserving of the basic right to life, and that there
is no saving quality or attribute in him or her whatsoever.
This is a position
that the Christian cannot and must not maintain. The Gospel by which we all
live and in which we all find hope is one that proclaims the inestimable value
of human life and the inexhaustible love and mercy of God that constantly
renews, even when it seems that no renewal is likely or possible!
The Unconscionable Cruelty of the Death Penalty
Aside from the
almost unbearable anguish that the condemned person experiences awaiting the
fated hour of death, there is the cruelty visited on the members of the
condemned person’s family. Have we not, as a nation, experienced the anguish
while awaiting news of the fate of a condemned compatriot sentenced to suffer
the ultimate penalty?
And as we heed with
greater sensitivity the rights of children, is it not clear that by
stigmatizing the children of an executed person with the almost indelible
scarlet marking of “children of an executed criminal”, we inflict cruelty on
innocent children way beyond our present laws make criminal and punish? We find
it noteworthy that it may be hypocritical for us to seek the death penalty on drug
related crimes in the country while seeking for clemency for Filipinos
convicted of drug-related capital crimes in other countries.
Restoration, not Retribution
While it is true
that the concept of “retribution” has been central to many theories of penalty,
it is, at best, a nebulous concept that is hardly distinguishable from a
stylized and sanitized form of vengeance. When the State kills, it kills with
no less reprehensibility as when a criminal kills, for the same violence is
involved, and the result is the same: the curtailment of human life and the
violation of its inalienable value and worth!
If retribution
means something akin to “paying back”, how can suffering death “pay back” for
the offense committed, except by some primitive sense that engenders the
discredited “eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”!
Not really
retribution then but the restoration both of the victim as well as society and
the offender to optimal, human, humanizing and just relations! This is the
positive moment of justice.
We then:
1. Ask Catholic
law-makers to withhold support from any attempt to restore the death penalty;
2. Call on our Catholic jurists to study the issue and to oppose, through proper judicial proceedings, the re-introduction of capital punishment;
3. Appeal to our Catholic judges to heed the teaching of the Church and to appreciate every possible attenuating or mitigating circumstance so as not to impose the death penalty.
2. Call on our Catholic jurists to study the issue and to oppose, through proper judicial proceedings, the re-introduction of capital punishment;
3. Appeal to our Catholic judges to heed the teaching of the Church and to appreciate every possible attenuating or mitigating circumstance so as not to impose the death penalty.
We appeal to the
patron Saint of lawyers, St Thomas More, who admirably combined his earthly
duties with his heavenly ones. A brilliant lawyer, orator and statesman, he
served his king and country faithfully. He would not however compromise his
principles and was even willing to die for the truth. His last words were “I am
the King’s good servant, but God’s first.” May all Catholic lawyers be inspired
by his courageous example and along with the whole Church, firmly reject the
death penalty. In this Year of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, it is our
prayer that we will all realize that the world is saved by the Infinite Mercy
of God, and by the mercy by which we forgive each other’s faults, in the
realization that we too stand in continual need of forgiveness.
From the Catholic
Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, September 14, 2016, Feast of the
Exaltation of the Cross,
+ SOCRATES B. VILLEGAS
Archbishop of Lingayen Dagupan
President, CBCP
Archbishop of Lingayen Dagupan
President, CBCP
