Ric Saludo is one writer I have long respected—and frequently read. And he has just written on a topic that seems to be as lethal in the debate it has engendered as in its implementation: the death penalty. Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was terribly vilified, most of the time, precipitously and unjustly to my mind. But how many so far have applauded the courage of her convictions—giving up the deputy speakership of the Chamber to be able to vote a resounding “no” to the death penalty measure? The same tribute is due to those who were made aware of the political costs of voting against the bill—and still chose to do so!
Ric starts his column rather provocatively: citing a catena of ecclesiastical authority that does teach the moral permissibility of the death penalty. Then he raises the crucial questions and urges us—the legislators particularly—to be more studious, assiduous and sincere about asking the questions that must be raised and finding convincing answers to them before oiling the death machine once more!
Indeed, traditional Church catechism taught about “just wars” and society’s “defense of itself” in inflicting the death penalty against unrepentant and virulent offenders. Sometimes, the argument toed the “whole—part” line: “cortar por lo sano”: severing the diseased part in order to save the whole. Fortunately though, the Church matures—goaded by the Spirit—and is able to rethink its position on different moral issues: the death penalty among them.
When one argues that the death penalty is the only satisfactory “expiation” for grievous crimes—those that Philippine penal law classifies as “heinous”—how does one distinguish that from revenge that an evolved moral sense prescribes? In fact, there is every reason to argue that the system of law and the institution of courts in the context of crime and punishment have, as a distinct end, the emplacement of a “rational distance” between offense and penalty so that the latter may not be revenge. And what is wrong with revenge is that it is viciously circular, and destructively so.
“Cortar por lo sano” fares no better. The analogy between part and whole when applied to the individual and to society limps very badly that one wonders whether it is a proper analogy at all. There is hardly any sense in comparing the individual’s relation to the society to the relation between the human body and its appendages. The difference is summed up in the challenging but necessary philosophical and legal concept of “person.”
I agree with Ric. The deterrence argument is really no argument at all. Because even if the death penalty did deter —which it really does not (as there is no effective deterrent to criminal inclination)—it begs the question to maintain that the death penalty is moral because it deters. The question is precisely whether or not the chosen deterrent is right, worthy of our humanity, moral!
It is interesting that in the recent teaching of the Church, there is no repudiation of former church teaching. There is, however, the clear position that present-day circumstances give no more reason for the imposition of the death penalty. That is to say of course that society has sufficient means to protect its values—and its members— so as to render unjustified depriving any offender of his life. It is really saying: Of course we can be more creative about the way we deal with transgression, more humane in our dealings with each other that no war really is just today, except when one fends off an aggressor, no matter the supposedly noble and holy ends of the war, and no crime ever warrants death!
