Capital Punishment, The Media, State and Society

But should all these too become capital crimes because some deem them to be a security threat to the state? Or would this be a retrograde step?

Given the broad definition of what some in the Philippines see as a threat to the state and thus a possible capital crime, are we not in danger of heading down a slippery slope with the calls to show what has been reported in the media as `tough love’ and severely punish the few to save the many?

God knows if I were the head of an anti-drug task force in Manila and saw what was happening to what I might have thought was a water-tight case I too might have been left very angry and frustrated. But at the end of the day, we should not necessarily cite the Chinese model of control as an example to follow – and we need to acknowledge that the phrase `a threat to the state’ is a dangerous exaggeration that the media here would do well to pick up on. Such phrases are far more often heard and used in totalitarian countries than in real democracies.

Drugs and crime –and things like corruption- undermine and hurt society – but surely not the state.

The Thai authorities literally declared war on domestic drug dealers some years ago and hundreds of people were summarily executed by military and police death squads. Nobody in the Philippines is I hope proposing that, but there is a risk of overreacting. The danger is in demanding populist measures like the death penalty when the real issue seems to be a failure of the rule and operation of law.

If people who are proven guilty escape justice because of a corrupt system, then fix the system: introducing the ultimate penalty is no panacea for a broken system and officials and politicians should be wary of adopting cheap and easy populist platforms.

This brings us back to the issue of the media and the fact that some say at the last resort it should protect society (again, not the
State) from demagoguery and dictators.

President Arroyo and the Department of Foreign Affairs deserve full credit for intervening in the case of overseas Filipino workers who stand on death row. Some would say that they are only doing their job, but how could they intervene with any real morality if capital punishment were to be reintroduced back home?

How would (and how ever did) this fit in with the Church’s view on the sanctity of life?

It is all a very interesting and crucial issue to discuss: It would good to see the media join and not simply leave it to a few wily
politicians and beleaguered officials to set the agenda and frame the debate.

(Alan Davis is the director of the Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project)