abs-cbnNEWS.com | 01/09/2009 12:18 PM
"Death penalty won't solve drug menace"
The Philippines - A dysfunctional judicial system and a weak police force are among the reasons for the growing drug menace in the country, a bishop said Friday as he reiterated the Catholic Church's strong opposition to death penalty.
"The problem in our country is a dysfunctional judicial system and also a very weak police force application. The drug traffickers escape because our judicial system is not working and our police agencies are not equipped to deal with crimes like these," Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz told ABS-CBN's morning show, "Umagang Kay Ganda."
Cruz was reacting to Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri's proposal to reinstate death penalty against convicted drug traffickers and multiple murderers.
Zubiri came up with the proposal amid the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency's (PDEA) verbal encounter against rich families of the so-called "Alabang Boys."
The senator said death penalty has been proven as an effective drugs and crime deterrent. He said drug syndicates' activities in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are slowly being confined by the authorities because of the fearsome death penalty.
"In Malaysia, death by hanging and in Saudi Arabia, death by guillotine... Ask overseas Filipino workers. However bad they are in the Philippines, they become good in Saudi and Malaysia because they know that if you steal something, your hands will be cut and if you commit rape, you will be beheaded," he said.
He added: "They abide by the law because they are afraid of being severely punished."
Cruz, however, said that if death penalty is really effective, it should have been made a universal law and zero heinous crimes should be recorded in all countries that are implementing the punishment.
The PDEA and the Dangerous Drugs Board on Thursday asked lawmakers to reinstate death penalty as they revealed latest data that indicate the Philippines has become the No. 1 drug country in Southeast Asia.
PDEA agent, Marines Major Ferdinand Marcelino, who led a team that arrested the Alabang Boys, had said that some officials of the Department of Justice (DOJ) could have taken millions of bribe money from one of the suspects' rich relatives.
The DOJ has issued a resolution ordering the release of the Alabang Boys -- Richard Brodette, Joseph Tecson, and Jorge Jordana Joseph -- and the dismissal of the drug complaint filed against them by the PDEA.
The PDEA, however, contested the resolution citing a DOJ memorandum circular that says cases involving heinous crimes should go through an automatic review by the DOJ secretary before its implementation.
DOJ Secretary Raul Gonzalez had promised during an inquiry in the House of Representatives last Wednesday to finish the review in 10 days.
