Bishop Aniceto outraged by the revival of death penalty

By Jason de Asis

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, January 22, 2011-The Pampanga clergy led by Archbishop Paciano Aniceto was outraged over the call of some sectors to re-impose death penalty in the country’s judicial system, saying that death penalty does not guarantee to solve the surging crime incidents in the country.

Aniceto cited the case of Singapore which experimentally decreed and enforced death penalty for fifteen (15) years and yet the crime incident did not succeed to diminish it.

He said that the modern and Christian way of dealing with criminals is not by killing but by giving them reparative justice, explaining that they must be given a chance to mend their ways by properly guiding them spiritually and morally thru re-orienting them towards the true meaning of life.

However he admits that there is a pressing need to cut off the cycle of violence in the society but this, according to him, can be achieved not by killing criminals, which is, in itself, a form of violence.

“There is a need to break the cycle of violence, but as Christians, more than emotions and legality, we have Christian values that should prevail,” Aniceto ended.

In 1993 the death penalty was last imposed and was abolished in 2006 by then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo which saved the lives of more than 1,200 convicts whose death penalty sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. (Jason de Asis)



(Disclamer)
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