Senator Leila De Lima on Friday criticized the revival of the death penalty as nothing more than what she called the desperate last stand of President Rodrigo Duterte whom she described “tired, old, narcissist,” who likely realized his temperament, skills set and parochial approach to governance could not solve the country’s problems.
Speaking in a forum on the “The Right to Life and The Death Penalty” at the Malcolm theater, UP College of Law, De Lima noted Duterte had been pushing for the re-imposition of the death penalty to hide his incompetence and failure to find real and lasting solutions to the problems of the country he swore to serve.
She ridiculed Duterte’s own brand of patronage politics and kumpadre (godfather) system, saying they were ill-suited and incapable of resolving the country’s problems.
“His go-to recourse has been to impose “final solutions” upon the very people he was entrusted to serve and protect, hoping that we are stupid and naive enough to mistake the body count for real accomplishments,” said De Lima, the President’s staunchest critic in the Senate.
In batting for the return of the capital punishment for heinous crimes, Duterte said executing hardened criminals could be an effective deterrent to criminality.
She strongly believes extreme measures are needed to curb heinous crimes.
But De Lima, who served as justice secretary in the previous administration, stressed if the primary argument for death had failed (then) it is not a deterrent.
She said very few criminals, if any, considered the penalty in the commission of crimes.
“What they consider is that they are not caught and, if they are caught, that they can be acquitted. The death penalty does not necessarily determine whether the crime will be committed or not, as there are other factors that come into play, such as need brought about by poverty, environment, education and values.”
The Deterrence Effect, De Lima said, is not something that will be achieved by slapping the severest punishment on people.
She said it required effective law enforcement: from heightened crime prevention efforts and, if those fail, successful and effective crime detection, investigation and prosecution.
“It requires more effort from law enforcers like the police force than just drawing their guns and shooting at criminals point-blank,” she said.
At the very least, she said, the police should know the elements of the crimes they are preventing and investigating—a basic skill that Senate hearings have shown which is deplorably lacking in some members of the police force, including high-ranking officials.
“The fact that our so-called leaders are selling it to us as having such non-existent deterrent effect just goes to show the utter laziness that is infecting our leaders,” said De Lima.
These leaders, De Lima said, would rather kill instead of protect.
“They would rather risk killing the innocent, rather than make the effort to increase police visibility and enhance their investigative prowess. Apparently, that is too much to ask for,” said De Lima.
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