Here are my thoughts about death penalty and how I believe its not going to solve the rising and increasingly violent crimes in the Philippines or elsewhere.
I posted this on Facebook as a reaction to this piece of news.
I used to be for this but I realised death penalty is not an effective deterrent to heinous crime. I believe the key to solve incidence of crime it is to reduce corruption and improve living conditions. If we are able to achieve this the crime rate will go down for sure. Criminals are borne out of desperate living conditions, they are the result of oppression not the cause.
Killing an offender will not reduce the incidence of crime, rather it will cement the idea that human life is dispensable. Death penalty will take criminals off the streets on the interim but society can, and will just as easily create another criminal if corruption, poverty, inequality and other injustices are still present. A corrupt society will turn the next father or mother, or just about anyone who is struggling in life to become the next criminal, like it did to the last poor guy government just executed.
I say STOP CORRUPTION FOREMOST and if ever there is one cause where I will support death penalty is if it's started to cull the ones off the top.