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Church lauds abolition of death penalty
07 May 2006 - The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said the country has finally moved from justice that kills to justice that heals.
Bishop Pedro Arigo, chairman of the CBCP-Episcopal Commission of Prison and Pastoral Care (ECPPC) commended both the Senate and the House of Representatives for approving separate bills on Tuesday that would abolish the imposition of the death penalty law.
"We congratulate ourselves as a people and nation. Divided in recent time by political differences, we now unite for a common—the cause of human life," he said.
He said the country now join the ranks of the ever growing number of countries that have chosen to abolish capital punishment from their legal system.
To date, according to the International Commission of Catholic Prison Pastoral Care, there are about 124 countries out of 194 that had abolished the death penalty law.
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz called the recent development a "victory of life," not just a triumph for the Church and other organizations that have been campaigning for the scrapping of said law.
"The victory may not be claimed by any organization or institution. It rightfully belongs to humanity, to civilization, to reason," he said.
He said the government has the power to impose punishment on convicted criminals but it has no right to take the life of human persons by death penalty.
"The life of any human person is not given by the government, is not owned by the government, and may not be wherefore taken away by the government," Cruz said.
Arigo claimed "we don't have to kill people only to show that it is bad and criminal to kill."
But Cruz also said that with the abolition of death penalty, crime will continue to happen not because of the repeal of the law "but rather on account of evil human tendencies, due to weak police work and slow wheel of justice if not triumph of injustice."
"Human justice is not always just," he said. "This is especially true in this country where the ignorant, the poor and the helpless do not only have less in life but also less in law."
"Those condemned to death by the courts of the land by and large come from practically those living in poverty and want," he added.
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