1. Analysing the Success of Death Penalty Campaigns in the Philippines: Strategies, Tactics and Framing.
- Author
-
Colmenares, Neri Javier
- Subjects
CAPITAL punishment ,CAMPAIGN management ,CAPITAL punishment sentencing ,ABOLITIONISTS ,TRANSNATIONAL education - Abstract
Asia remains a rich field of study for death penalty scholars because a comparatively large number of Asian countries continue to statutorily impose capital punishment, despite a worldwide trend to abolish it. Asian countries (excluding China) handed down at least one-third of the 28,670 death sentences worldwide in 2021. The Philippines, the first Asian country to abolish the death penalty (in 1987), is also of interest because it continues to be the arena for one of the most ferocious battles between the retentionists, who advocate for the retention or reinstatement of capital punishment, and the abolitionists. While the 1987 Philippine Constitution abolished the death penalty, it also granted Congress the power to reimpose capital punishment through legislation. This shifted the arena of contention to Congress, rather than the judiciary, as retentionists and abolitionists battled it out through legislative skirmishes (Kim, 2016: 606) that often spilled out to street rallies and raucous public debates. Barely a few months after the 1987 Constitution abolished the death penalty, the heated campaign for its reinstatement ensued and culminated in the reimposition of capital punishment in 1993. Immediately thereafter, a strong abolitionist campaign commenced, and successfully occasioned the second abolition of capital punishment in 2006, a clear sign not only of the contentious nature of the debate but, also, of the vacillating tendency or 'mixed feelings' of Philippine policy-makers. Since then, the abolitionists managed to successfully stave off the reinstatement of capital punishment. This article examines the specific strategies, tactics and framing narrative that may have contributed to the abolitionists' successful campaigns resisting the strong retentionist efforts to reimpose the death penalty after its second abolition in 2006, up to the period of 2016-22, when President Rodrigo Duterte attempted to reinstate it. The paper will compare the Philippine campaign strategy with those employed by transnational activists who successfully campaigned for the passage of various United Nations Resolutions, calling for a moratorium on the imposition of death penalty in 2007 and succeeding years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023