While we could be distracted with the star witness regarding previous extrajudicial killings happening in the country, whether he is credible or not, the real issues of murder and killings, extrajudicial or not, could become off target. This war on drugs is not uncommon. In our country, it was then the mayor of Davao who takes pride in solving this problem in his own city. Let us not forgot however already there the problem of Death squads came into the fore. The Christian and Muslin communities have suffered a lot while the local leadership blow their trumpets of solving the drug menace.

Already in March 1, 2009 less than a decade ago, Archbishop Capalla, the then archbishop of Davao issued a revealing “Oratio Imperata” a kind of mandated prayer for the all the faithful of Davao for healing from “unabated series of summary killings.” When the then mayor became the president, we experienced the same line he is following, and perhaps Filipinos, for some, we unwittingly voted for him for this very reason.

Recently the CBCP issued a kind of twin pastoral letter last Sept. 14 and 15 respectively on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and the commemoration of the Sorrows of our Blessed Mother. The former spoke about the judicial killings which I would call intra-judicial killing since it is the so-called lawful killing in other countries, otherwise called the Death Penalty. It is exercised, as you know, within the confines of the law. The second letter is concerned more about the extrajudicial killings. In fact, it mourns for the victims since all “offenses against life” including abortion. It says even the recent bombing in Davao are sins that “cry to heaven for divine justice”. But it asks not for revenge, on the part of the aggrieved – “an eye for an eye” – which foments a culture of death in our country. Rather, justice should be sought. On the other hand it calls for healing, not killing. “Drug addicts are sick in need of healing. . . deserving of new life not death.” All, without exception is not unworthy of God’s mercy. They are encouraged therefore to “rise up and live again” to a new life – conversion.

The tone is not condemnation but very pastoral in its approach. No politics, no bias to any partisan leaning, simply a Christian truth which should be proclaimed, in season and out of season.  There is no “stone throwing.”

The real issue then, let me invite you is to focus on killing itself: murder and homicide. Life has always to be protected and sometimes to protect it, inadvertedly, one’s life is lost.  Here, the purpose is defense not murdering the other. This is called homicide. Premeditated murder, especially when it is systematic, however,  is always evil.

The first pastoral letter on Sept. 14 is more substantial and gives a more solid and legal foundation that denies and discourages death Penalty, i.e., killing the guilty, even within the confines  of the law. It puts forward that constitutionally and in this present age, death penalty is anachronistic and is incongruoius to the pursuit of justice. It could be even placed in the level of a legal revenge.

If intrajudicial killings is evil, then how much more is extrajudicial one? I put forward only three reasons from the same letter why intrajudicial killing is evil, and I quote:

1. “From the time of the 1935 Constitution to the present, our fundamental law has always insulated all from “cruel and unusual punishment”, but for a long time, it was understood – according to the moral sense at the time – that the death penalty constituted an exception to this proscription.

But our sense of what is just and our reading of the laws evolves. And while, in the past, our courts may have not found any repugnance between the imposition of the sentence of death and the constitutional proscription of cruel and unusual punishment, now, the contradiction and irreconcilability are striking and compelling.

You cannot, without contradiction, insist that the person is secure from cruel punishment and at the same time open the possibility of inflicting upon him or her the most cruel punishment possible: the calculated, planned and deliberate deprivation of life!

This was exactly the point eruditely made by Mr. Justice William Douglas in an Opinion he wrote in the case of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). He very instructively wrote:

It is also said in our opinions that the proscription of cruel and unusual punishments is ‘not fastened to the obsolete but may acquire meaning as public opinion becomes enlightened by a humane justice’. A like statement was made that the Eighth Amendment ‘must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.’”

2. Church teaching for the 3rd millennium.

Saint Pope John Paul II increasingly voiced his stance against the death penalty. In Evangelium vitae, his famous testament to the value of human life, he pointed out that cases warranting the death penalty now are “very rare if not practically nonexistent” (Evangelium Vitae, no. 56). At a mass in St Louis, USA, Pope John Paul II also made the following appeal: The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life…A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary” (Pope John Paul II, Jan 27, 1999.)

Pope Francis, together with the worldwide Bishops, stated emphatically that the Church “firmly rejects the death penalty” (see Amoris Laetitia, no. 83). This is the definitive Catholic Church teaching for the third millennium. Pope Francis also addressed the Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty on June 23, 2016 in the following words:

It is an offense to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person. It likewise contradicts God’s plan for individuals and society, and his merciful justice. Nor is it consonant with any just purpose of punishment…It must not be forgotten that the inviolable and God-given right to life also belongs to the criminal.

It is time then to rid ourselves of the obsolescent notion that a person who commits a heinous wrong “forfeits his right to life”. No one can forfeit the right to life, because life is at the free disposal of none, not even of the State!

3. An International Obligation

The Philippines is in fact under a legal obligation not to restore the death penalty. This is an obligation in law that it took upon itself when our government ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Significantly, Article I of the Protocol cannot be clearer about our legal obligations:

a) No one within the jurisdiction of a State Party to the present Protocol shall be executed.
b) Each State Party shall take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction.”

And there is nothing in the Protocol that would allow the Philippines to denounce the international agreement. In fact, it would not be in our best interests to do so, in light of the fact that in respect to other aspects of our national life, we take refuge and seek legal relief under the norms of international law and international agreements.

Killings in the so called war on drugs and drug lords are not the answer nor the solution. We need to use our creative minds and work for another way since violence is a road without exit. We are all losers in any war. Gone are the days in which it was used as a political tool and even a paradigm. On the other hand we see and hope for a new world. When the pendulum exceeds its force to its limits, it stops for some time and then it returns back. Although history is absolutely not a pendulum, men of good will, who love life and freedom, together with you, are working to make this world a better place to live in.