Life is the most precious gift God gave to every human being.

Our Supreme creator demonstrates how valuable life is when he gave his son Jesus to be
a living sacrifice to save humanity from death. From the time we are conceived up to the time we
are born and raised, God shows how significant every human being is to him. He knows every
details of our life, even the number of strands of our hair.

The state also gives important to the sanctity of life of every individual. It is provided
under the 1987 Constitution that No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without
due process of law. Our government legislated laws in order to protect the life of every
individual.

Nonetheless, due to rampant criminality that is happening all over the country, our
government opts to implement the death penalty for heinous crimes .In 1993, the Congress
enacted RA 7659 An act to impose the Death Penalty on certain heinous crime. The law was
enacted due to the alarming upsurge of crimes which has resulted not only in the loss of human
lives and wanton destruction of property but also affected the nations efforts towards sustainable
economic development and prosperity while at the same time undermined the peoples faith in
the government and the latters ability to maintain peace and order in the country. As the
Machiavellian principle An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

In 2006, RA 9346 An Act Prohibiting the Imposition of Death Penalty in the

Philippines was enacted. It laid down alternative penalties instead of imposing the death
penalty. However, debates have been conducted in the congress arguing the re imposition of
death penalty.

Personally, I am against the re imposition of death penalty in the Philippines. As

faithful Christian, I believed that killing an individual to compensate his wrong act is against the
divine law. For it is only God, the life giver, who can get it back from us.

Also, the very purpose of punishing the criminals is to rehabilitate them. The government
cannot rehabilitate the convict by killing him/her.

Dissuading the commission of a crime is one of the very purposes of the imposition of
death penalty, but statistics shows that rampant killings and murders are still happening in our
country. It seems that the capital punishment of death does not appear to be an effective way to
minimize criminality. It does not seem to be changing every criminal mind to perpetrate the act
of killing innocent people. If it does not deter criminality, then it serves no purpose.

As citizen of the Philippines, I am one of those who are appealing to our legislators not to
revive the death penalty of our country. Rehabilitation and not retribution should be the primary
purpose of our justice system. Imposition of death penalty is not an effective solution to rampant
criminality.