Abstract:
The abolition of the death penalty in the Philippines raised significant
questions as to what influenced the administration to abolish a law that was
rarely applied in the country and in record speed inconsistent with the almost
always deadlocking character of the Houses of the Philippine legislature. With
the abolition law signed on the eve of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's
departure for a visit to the Pope in Rome and Spain, speculations arose that the
abolition of the death penalty was a move to get the support of the Catholic
Church and to gain favors from the Spanish Government.
This research investigates the underlying factors that affected the
government's decision to abolish the death penalty.
It assesses the other
policies of the government related to the death penalty and human rights and in
doing so proved that the state policy on human rights is not the policy of life
heralded in the abolition of the death penalty, but rather a policy of death
demonstrated by the rapidly growing cases of extrajudicial executions embodied
in the government's all-out war policy against the so-called Communist
insurgency.
