CBCP: No to death penalty
THE Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) reiterated its opposition against the death penalty, asserting it is “for life and against death” after advocacy groups pressed for the restoration of capital punishment.
In a statement titled The CBCP and the Proposed Restoration of the Death Penalty dated July 2, 2014 by Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, CBCP president said, death penalty is cruel and inhumane in two senses:
“First, the terrible anxiety and psychological distress that come on one who awaits the moment of execution constitute the cruel and inhuman punishment that most legal systems today proscribe, including the Constitution of our country. It has been rightly said that the anticipation of impending death is more terrible a torture than suffering death itself!” the statement said.
“Second, the members of the family of the condemned persons, many times including children, are, for their life-times, stigmatized as members of the family of an executed person, bearing with them the price of a crime they never committed.”
Villegas cited a Biblical verse that says, “I came that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Villegas said justice does not demand the death penalty. He said a mature sense of justice steers as far as possible from retribution in the realization that visiting on an offender the same injury he inflicted on his victim makes matters no better at all for anyone.
Villegas cited the imperfection of the judicial system but he stressed that while the CBCP has every respect for judges, the fact is that the judicial system–including the process of evaluating and weighing evidence—is prone to error.
“There is furthermore the sadder fact that some judges, betraying the dignity and nobility of their calling, allow extra-legal considerations to taint their judgments, rendering judicial disposition of cases less reliable still,” he said.–Tita Roces
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