Execute Justice, Not People

FR. SILVINO L. BORRES, JR., SJ

I was assigned to New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) in Muntinlupa in 1996, my first assignment as a newly-ordained Jesuit priest. Though I have done social involvement work before, both as a student in Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro and a young Jesuit scholastic, I have never done any prison work. I have not gone to any jails or prisons before my mission to NBP. So, imagine the shock my family and I had over my assignment!

Nonetheless, although it was unexpected, it was an assignment for which I will always be grateful. What was supposed to be a pastoral year in Bilibid turned to be four (4) years. It was a tough assignment. Not only was it demanding. The living condition was relatively poor. Our house was right where the candle-making factory was. Our office Philippine Jesuit Prison Service (PJPS), started a livelihood project for ex-convicts and their families. It was so toxic there was never a day the whole time I was there that I would not get headaches. Water was scarce. There was only one water drum in the bathroom serving the factory workers and the staff of the house, about 35 persons in all! I did the unthinkable. I could take a bath with just a tabo (dipper) of water!

We ministered to the inmates among three camps: Maximum, Medium, and Security Compound. We conducted masses and confessions. Aside from the sacraments, spiritual formation work is an essential component in our ministry since there is no meaningful rehabilitation program for inmates at NBP.

It was a joint effort of all-volunteer organizations, regardless of religious affiliations. I think we did not articulate it enough. Still, it was a common understanding among us prison volunteers that a recovery of their humanity and a development of spirituality is crucial in rehabilitation among inmates. To this end, we recognize the need to assist their families in getting them focused on their rehabilitation. Hence, the establishment of the scholarship program for the children of inmates which continues to this day. We also acknowledged the need to tap prison personnel as our partners in this rehabilitation work. When I moved there in 1996, there was a thriving prayer community among some prison personnel. They called themselves the Wednesday Group, well, because they meet on Wednesdays.

However, our work in Bilibid had a particular focus: the death row (DR) inmates in Maximum Security Compound. Over a thousand of them were in Building One back in 1996, which could accommodate supposedly only 200. Unlike other inmates who could roam around the compound at scheduled times, the prison forbids DR convicts to leave their building. Water was rationed twice a day, at one hour each. You can imagine the stench emanating from this building.

We celebrated Masses and other sacraments in this DR community, usually on Sundays. Our chapel workers, however, would conduct regular prayer meetings among the death row inmates.

Barely a year into my work as a chaplain, I found myself dividing my time between ministering to the inmates and doing advocacy work against the death penalty. I inherited the Coalition Against the Death Penalty (CADP) leadership from another Jesuit who moved to another assignment. Organizations and individuals opposed to the death penalty established CADP in 1994 at the height of the revival of the death penalty in the Philippines.

I embraced my role as CADP President even though I had no prior experience in national advocacy work and my understanding of the issue at hand was ambiguous. However, over time, as I got to spend time with the inmates in DR, talk to their families and work with anti-DP penalty advocates, I gained a broader appreciation of the issue which led to an enduring commitment to the value of life, even the life of a notorious criminal. Until then, my notion about the importance of life was somewhat fanciful, but it would soon take a more pragmatic view as I engaged the death row inmates and their families.

I remember asking myself one day: When I say “I value and cherish life,” does that include the life of a notorious criminal? Does rehabilitation make sense when you begin executing prisoners?

At the height of the executions in 1999, when seven people were put to death by lethal injection, the popular sentiment of this supposedly most Catholic nation was execution for the offenders. The faithful profess to value life as taught by the Church yet have no qualms about executing criminals. Never mind if it is common knowledge that some people sent to prison or sentenced to death are innocent. Most of the people on death row were poor and had no access to legal services. People would continue to support capital punishment as a way to curb crime even if a justice system like ours, which is downright punitive, is prone to error and biased against the poor. To this day, when the culture of death sweeps the entire nation, there remains indifference to extra-judicial killings.

A big part of my advocacy work is to give talks to schools and religious communities, holding press conferences, giving interviews, and attending talk shows on TV. We saw the need to organize the inmates themselves and their families whom we trained in lobbying work. As we partnered with other human rights groups, notably the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), we found a collective voice to advocate against the death penalty and call for prison reforms that rehabilitate offenders, not execute them.

Our cry was not always welcome, and we had encountered repeated attempts to intimidate and silence us. Once, one columnist made the preposterous call to have another advocate and me raped to jolt us out supposedly of our love and affection for rapists and criminals alike! Other intimidations were somewhat subtle. A few benefactors withdrew their support for our program because of the stance of PJPS against the death penalty.

The Phil. government under then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo abolished the death penalty in 2006, an extraordinary feat that we never thought possible. Since then, the Coalition decided to continue working for reforms in the justice system, promoting the restorative justice system as an alternative to capital punishment. In recent years, however, we hear of movements in the government to restore the death penalty. As if the widespread killings in the cities and countryside are not enough amid the pandemic that has already claimed thousands of lives and continues to inflict death-dealing situations on the Filipinos, Pres. Rodrigo Duterte has called for state-sanctioned killings.

With the abolition of the death penalty in 2006, the Philippines reclaimed its moral standing among the world’s nations. We joined the growing number of countries which seek to preserve the sanctity and dignity of human life in the pursuit of justice. We hope we do not squander this honor accorded us. We appeal, therefore, to everyone to take an enlightened action: to show the world that the pursuit of justice is not incompatible with mercy and compassion.