Fascist Regress under Duterte

 

FASCIST REGRESS UNDER DUTERTE

BLOODLUST

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:08 AM August 08, 2020

…Twelve bills seeking to revive the death penalty are currently pending in the House, with deliberations revving up after the President called for the passage of the measure in his State of the Nation Address. What makes the death penalty so urgent at this time, when rightfully the whole of government should be seeking ways to check the COVID-19 crisis?

This is not the first time that the House, at the urging of Malacañang, has pushed for the restoration of the death penalty. In 2017, it passed such a bill but the measure failed to gain traction in the Senate.

In their seeming rush to heed the President’s demand, legislators cannot even cite statistics or science-based findings to support the need for such a law.

Last Aug. 5, after five hours of what has been described as “tense interpellation,” sponsors of the death penalty bills, the justice department, and the chief public attorney failed to present clear data on the death penalty’s deterrent effect on crime. Likewise, the House bills, said a report, offer no such data.

…As death penalty opponents have countered, however, it is not so much fear of execution that deters criminals as the certainty of their arrest and conviction. Free Legal Assistance Group chair Chel Diokno shared with the House numbers from the Philippine National Police that show that “after the abolition of the death penalty, crime volume has actually been decreasing.” Also, the Supreme Court itself has cited a judicial error rate of 71.77 percent in death penalty cases. In a December 2016 Rappler report, Diokno pointed out that in the 2004 ruling People v. Mateo, “The court revealed for the first time that the staggering 71.77% of decisions handed down by Regional Trial Courts were wrong, which meant 7 in 10 on death row were wrongfully convicted.”

But are our lawmakers prepared to listen to facts and data over the prodding of a regime fixated on kill, kill, kill?

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/132507/bloodlust#ixzz6nvLvuuLG

What does fascist mean?

A fascist is someone who supports or promotes fascism—a system of government led by a dictator who typically rules by forcefully and often violently suppressing opposition and criticism, controlling all industry and commerce, and promoting nationalism and often racism.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/fascist

Citing robust sources, Wikipedia defines fascism as follows:

Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism [1][2] characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy [3] which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. [4] The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries. [4] Opposed to liberalism, democracy, Marxism, and anarchism, fascism is placed on the far right within the traditional left–right spectrum. [4][5][6]

[1] Turner, Henry Ashby, Reappraisals of Fascism. New Viewpoints, 1975. p. 162. States fascism’s “goals of radical and authoritarian nationalism”.

Larsen, Stein Ugelvik, Bernt Hagtvet and Jan Petter Myklebust, Who were the Fascists: Social Roots of European Fascism (Columbia University Press, 1984; ISBN 978-82-00-05331-6), p. 424, “organized form of integrative radical nationalist authoritarianism”.

[2] Paxton (2004), pp. 32, 45, 173; Nolte (1965) p. 300.

[3] “fascism”. Merriam-Webster Online. Archived from the original on 22 August 2017. Retrieved 22 August 2017.

[4] Davies, Peter; Lynch, Derek (2002). The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right. Routledge. pp. 1–5.

Griffin, Roger. Fascism. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1995. pp. 8, 307.

Aristotle A. Kallis. The fascism reader. New York: Routledge, 2003. p. 71.

Hartley, John (2004). Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The key concepts (3rd ed.). Routledge. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-521-55982-9.

Wilhelm, Reich (1970). The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-285-64701-5.

[5] Mary Hawkesworth; Maurice Kogan (1992). Encyclopaedia of Government and Politics: Volume 1. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-71288-7.

[6] Wistrich, Robert (October 1976). “Leon Trotsky’s Theory of Fascism”. Journal of Contemporary History. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publishing. 11 (4): 157–184. doi:10.1177/002200947601100409. JSTOR 260195. S2CID 140420352.

Duterte’s drive to reimpose the death penalty is a symptom of fascist regress.

Fascism is associated with authoritarianism and militarism, both of which entail a predilection for the use of forcible and violent measures that undercut the regime of democratic liberalism in order to achieve a type of social order elitist in conception.

The death penalty resorts to punitive—deadly, we might add—means to accomplishing criminal justice vis-à-vis an approach that is at least partially rehabilitative.

Under the current appallingly high rate of wrongful convictions, the death penalty subverts foundational principles of democratic liberalism, such as due process, equality before the law, or protection against cruel or inhuman punishment.

We vigorously oppose reimposing the death penalty because it degrades Philippine democracy—already struggling and under grave attack for the past five years—and because it inflicts deadly vengeance on the wrongfully convicted.