Filipinos have nothing to lose in re-implementing the death penalty

I’m pro-death penalty for economic reasons. We’re talking extreme types of criminals here, the ones who pose a serious threat to society, the ones who are impossible to reform. The ones who rape three-month-old babies or hack their fathers to death and eat their internal organs because they’re high on shabu. Why should a poor country like the Philippines waste government funds to house, feed, and guard monsters like these, when that money can be used to help poor young children instead, who can still be molded into responsible and productive members of society?

When the debates on the death penalty start at the Senate, I hope someone (maybe Manny Pacquiao) will show data on how much the government spends each year on the prison system, and compute how many children can be fed and sent to school with that amount of money. Our taxes should be used to benefit law-abiding citizens, not to keep inhuman criminals alive.

I also hope the senate gives a voice to survivors of heinous crimes (or the relatives of victims who died), because they’re the ones who can credibly speak on the death penalty, not clueless yellow morons like Kiko Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros, and Bam Aquino who have no idea what it’s like to live with the risk of getting raped, robbed, or killed in the most brutal way by crazed shabu addicts everyday.

If Hontiveros has another one of her idiotic little girl monologues about the worst criminals changing for the better, please send her to the Abu Sayyaff’s lair in Mindanao by herself with no media, no alalays, no guards. If she can do that, then maybe we can listen to her.

Another thing, please leave the God-God arguments out of the debates. You are the Senate, dammit. Demonstrate to the country what separation of church and state means. Don’t use religion to argue your case. Religion is your personal choice, not the law of the land.

If the Catholic priests start yakking again, draft a provision to tax them and include it in the constitutional amendments. If priests want to have a say in government, they need to pay like the rest of the taxpayers in this country. The Catholic church makes millions every day collecting alms from people, but where’s the money? How come so many people are still poor and helpless in their parishes? The priests keep saying the government should show mercy to criminals, but have they ever donated some of their millions to build better prisons? Have they ever done anything concrete to reduce drugs and crime in their communities?

A person’s right to life comes with the responsibility to respect the right to life of others. If you violate the right to life of another person, you forfeit your own right to life.

The only exception is if the victim of your crime (or their relatives) pardons you and gives the justice system permission to let you live.

As a citizen, I don’t think the death penalty should be used lightly, but I do want to see it there in the law as an extra option that the courts and the police can use in extreme cases.

Simple logic lang yan–there’s nothing to lose by having it there. If it doesn’t turn out to be an effective deterrent, we’re not worse off from where we are now. But if it does turn out to be effective, we gain a lot.

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