In Defense of the Right to Life: Analyzing Factors Affecting Filipino Opinion About Death Penalty Sandys and McGarrell (1995)22 and Vollum, Longmire and Buffington-Vollum (2004)23 suggested that the general favorability question-type may not accurately measure the public position on the death penalty, considering that the public are only offered the binary choice of for or against the death penalty. Support for the death penalty may not be as strong if the public were offered alternative punishments, such as life imprisonment terms, or if there were mitigating factors, such as age when crime was committed or mental retardation. To measure preference for the death penalty over life imprisonment terms, respondents were asked what ought to be the punishment to be imposed on people who were found to have committed each of the following drug-related crimes: 1) importation of illegal drugs, 2) maintenance of drug dens, 3) manufacture of illegal drugs, 4) murder under the influence of drugs, 5) rape under the influence of drugs, 6) sale of illegal drugs, and 7) working in drug dens. They were given four punitive options: imprisonment for 20 years, or 40 years, or life, or the death penalty. Responses were recoded, 1=death penalty, 0=prison terms. Note that these drug-related crimes tested in the survey were included solely because these were the crimes covered in the legislative bills proposed to re-instate the death penalty. The study does not, in any way, posit that the death penalty is an appropriate penalty for the crimes stated. b. Independent Variables Much research has been done examining factors that influence public opinion regarding the death penalty worldwide. Hood and Hoyle (2008) aptly stated that “no one can embark upon a study of the death penalty without making the commonplace observation that from a philosophical and policy standpoint, there appears to be nothing new to be said.”24 Although “the arguments remain essentially the same,” most of the previous research were done in Western countries, particularly the United States. There are very few studies of correlates of public opinion on the death penalty in other countries like the Philippines. The research therefore hopes to address this gap. In the literature, the factors that explain why the public support or oppose the death penalty were usually grouped into three themes – demographic background, instrumentalism and symbolic orientations.25 The study examined the role of these three factors in forming the Filipino public’s position on the death penalty, as well as a fourth explanatory theme – opinions on alternatives to the death penalty.26 i. Demographic Background Demographic variables are perhaps the most studied correlates of opinion on the death penalty. Sex and age have been found to consistently predict support for the death penalty. Specifically, women were almost always less likely than men to support the death.27 The gender gap could be explained by the “differential gender socialization” of men and women as Marla Sandys & Edmun F. McGarrell, Attitudes Toward Capital Punishment: Preference for the Penalty or Mere Acceptance?, J. Res. Crime Delinq., 32(2), 191 (1995). 23 Scott Vollum, Dennis Longmire & Jacqueline Buffington-Vollum, Confidence in the Death Penalty and Support for Its Use: Exploring the Value-expressive Dimension of Death Penalty Attitudes, 21(3) Justice Q. 521, (2004). 24 ROGER HOOD & CAROLYN HOYLE, THE DEATH PENALTY: A WORLDWIDE PERSPECTIVE (2008). 25 SATO & BACON, supra note 15; Steven Stack, Support for the Death Penalty: A Gender-Specific Model, 43(3–4) Sex Roles 163, (2000); Stack (2004), supra note 8; Tom R. Tyler & Renee Weber, Support for the Death Penalty: Instrumental Response to Crime, or Symbolic Attitude?, 17(1) Law Soc. Rev. 21 (1982). See HOOD & HOYLE, supra note 23. 26 Sandys & McGarrell (1995), supra note 21. 27 Brandon K. Applegate, Francis T. Cullen & Brandon S. Fisher, Public Views Toward Crime and Correctional Policies: Is There a Gender Gap, 30(2) J. Crim Justice 89 (2002); James D. Unnever, Francis T. Cullen, & Brandon S. Fisher, “A Liberal Is Someone Who Has Not Been Mugged”: Criminal Victimization and Political Beliefs. 24(2) Justice Q. 1 (2007); Bohm, et al. (1991), supra note 12. 22 7