A day before Mary Jane Veloso’s return to the Philippines, her home country voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that seeks to abolish the death penalty.

Veloso is the overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who flew to Indonesia in a bid for a better life, but was instead convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to death after she was caught with illegal drugs. She had always maintained her innocence.

During the UNGA session on Tuesday, December 17, 130 countries backed the resolution which seeks to establish a moratorium to stop the death penalty among UN member-states. Thirty-two opposed, while 22 abstained.

Along with the Philippines, neighboring countries Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Timor-Leste voted in favor of the resolution. Other Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam abstained, while Brunei and Singapore voted against the resolution.

Before Veloso in Indonesia, another OFW had been on death row in Singapore. But unlike Mary Jane, Flor Contemplacion, the Filipino domestic worker convicted for the killings of fellow OFW Delia Maga and her four-year-old ward, was not saved and was executed in 1995. The incident strained diplomatic ties between the two countries before they were fully restored in 1996.

Meanwhile, influential countries like Australia and Canada joined the Philippines in rallying behind the UN move against the death penalty, while Japan and the United States voted against.

Veloso returned home on December 18 after the Philippines and Indonesia struck a deal to transfer her custody back to the Philippines. She is now detained under the Bureau of Corrections’ Correctional Institution for Women and will serve the rest of her life sentence, pending her appeal for clemency.

Her family celebrated Veloso’s return to the country because it was a clear signal that she had been saved from death row.

What does the UN resolution say?

Since majority or more than two-thirds of the member-states voted in the affirmative, the UNGA had adopted the resolution that contains the following:

• A call to all states to establish a moratorium on the death penalty, with a view to abolish it.
• A call to states who have abolished the death penalty not to reintroduce it, and to states which have a moratorium to maintain it. The resolution also urges states who have yet to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, that aims to abolish the death penalty, to back the protocol.
• The moratorium against the use of the death penalty “contributes to respect for human dignity” and the development of human rights since there is no conclusive evidence proving the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent to crimes.
• The need to ensure that people on death row have access to justice without any discrimination, and that they are treated with humaneness and respect, based on human rights law and international standards for persons deprived of liberty.
• Expressing “with deep concern” that despite the decreasing number of death penalty cases, “there has been a recent surge in reported executions.”
• “Noting with deep concern” that frequently, poor and economically vulnerable persons, foreign nationals, persons exercising their human rights, and persons belonging to religious or ethnic minorities” are disproportionately represented among the people sentenced to death, according to the UNGA secretary-general’s report.
• The General Assembly also noted the negative impact of the death penalty on the rights of children, whose parents or relatives face a death sentence.
• “Mindful that any miscarriage or failure of justice in the implementation of the death penalty is irreversible and irreparable.”

By voting in favor of the UN resolution, the Philippines also supports these key messages.

Background, impact

For human rights group Amnesty International, the latest voting means that the UN member-states, including the Philippines, are moving closer to reject the death penalty as lawful punishment.

“This vote marks a major turning point for countries around the world and proves that UN member-states are steadily moving closer to rejecting the death penalty as a lawful punishment under international human rights law. The support from states for the death penalty looks very different from when international treaties allowing for its retention were first adopted,” said Chiara Sangiorgio, Amnesty International’s expert on the death penalty.

“These resolutions carry considerable moral and political weight, ensuring that the way in which this cruel punishment is used will continue to be scrutinized. Those voting in favor of the call for a moratorium on executions now represent a two-thirds majority of all countries, having risen from 104 in 2007 to 130 this year,” she added.

The UNGA first adopted a resolution for a moratorium against the death penalty on December 18, 2007, according to independent body International Commission Against the Death Penalty (ICDP). Since then, the UNGA discusses biannually a new resolution on the said moratorium. The ICDP has been keeping track of the countries’ voting records on the death penalty moratorium since 2007.

The Philippines has always voted in favor of the resolution, except in 2016 and 2018, when Rodrigo Duterte was president. His administration believed in the death sentence as an effective deterrent against crimes. The Philippines under Duterte, however, later backed the resolution in 2020.

Amnesty International said the resolution was originally proposed by Argentina and Italy on behalf of an Inter-Regional Task Force of member-states, and had been co-sponsored by 70 states. In total, UNGA has adopted at least 10 resolutions for a moratorium on the death penalty since 2007.

“The number of countries classified by Amnesty International as abolitionists for all crimes has grown from 90 in 2007 to the current figure of 113,” the human rights group said.

Death penalty in the Philippines

The death penalty is illegal in the Philippines. It has been at least in the last decade.

Many important figures in Philippine history were victims of capital punishment, including our very own Jose Rizal under Spanish colonial rule. The Philippines again resorted to capital punishment via electric chair under the Americans.

Post-American colonization, six Philippine presidents saw executions during their term: Elpidio Quirino (13); Ramon Magsaysay (6); Carlos Garcia (14); Diosdado Macapagal (2); Ferdinand E. Marcos (32); and Joseph Estrada (7). On June 24, 2006, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, with backing from the Catholic Church, signed Republic Act No. 9346 that abolished the death penalty.

There were moves to reinstitute it under Duterte, but these failed.

As if prior attempts were not enough, Duterte Youth Representative Drixie Mae Cardema filed House Bill No. 10910 just this September, seeking the restoration of the death penalty (through firing squad for government officials and lethal injection for civilians) for plunder, rape, murder, illegal drugs, and other heinous crimes.

Even Marcos allies from the quad committee — which has been probing into illegal drugs, extrajudicial killings, Chinese syndicates, and Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGO — back the revival of the death penalty, according to 51-page progress report submitted by the mega-panel on December 19, a copy of which was obtained by Rappler.

The recent moves under Marcos to reimpose the death penalty have yet to prosper, but they will surely be met with strong opposition both from the Church and the human rights community.

In 2019, then-Commission on Human Rights commissioner Karen Gomez Dumpit noted that reinstitution of capital punishment would only lead to violence: “This perpetuates the cycle of violence and despair as the children of those executed bear the stigma from the community, experience psychological trauma, and may carry the emotional burden into adulthood which may be passed on to their own children.”

Besides, the Philippines is bound by its affirmative vote on the UNGA death penalty resolution. Reinstitution of the death penalty would mean violation of an international pact.

“In November 2007, when the Philippines became a state party to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the country committed to renouncing capital punishment forever — a decision bound by international law,” former UN human rights commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said in 2016. – Rappler.com