Should the death penalty be restored?

For the past 40 years our government has flip-flopped in abolishing and re-imposing the death penalty. The heinious crime of the gang rape of Maggie De la Riva in the late 60's brought back interest in the effectiveness of the electric chair as deterence against the commission of henious crimes.Are there truly human beings who really do not deserve to live?And how effective and infalliable is our criminal justice system that innocent people may be executed by mistake?A conviction in a criminal case requires proof beyond reasonable doubt. This does not mean absolute certainty. Rather all that is required is a MORAL CERTAINTY that the person is guilty. In practice, judges being human beings, mistakes can be made. That is why we have the two step appeal process to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court to review possible errors in judgment in the lower courts. And the review process is quite extensive since in death penalty cases, the Supreme Court breaks its traditional role by reviewing also questions of fact, not only questions of law. A criminal sentence does not therefore come out of the blue, rather there is basis. A conviction which is affirmed by three different courts is almost certainly justified.Life imprisonment is not really for life. "Reclusion perpetua", is not perpetual, it is only for 30 years. Thus if you are convicted in your 20's or 30's you can get out when you're 50 or so - which is still plenty of time left to do more henious damage to society. And there is the now infamous power to pardon or commute sentences by the President. As GMA has proven, this power can be abused. Note how celebrated convicted murderers and rapists such as Claudio Teehankee Jr, Romeo Jalosjos, and the Aquino-Galman soldiers, have been released after serving measly prison terms of about only 15 years. Convicted Chiong sisters rapist Paco Larranaga was released and spirited out of the country based on a treaty that was entered into with Spain AFTER his conviction. Eventually, the punishments imposed, though merciful, were insufficient and not commensurate to the crime committed.Now, we have the Maguindanao massacre.I am not a Calvinist. Neither am I an existentialist. But somehow, I have come to the realization that some people were truly destined and born to be damned, in the same way that some criminals who commit henious crimes are born, not made. We cannot always blame society for henious crimes committed by criminals. There comes a point that we must attribute fault to the person himself and not his family, upbringing, lack of education, or society. Ultimately, moral choices are made by the person himself and not by society. Thus, the choices of right or wrong are attributable to the moral conscience of the person, which every person possesses regardless of the level of intellect. The sense of natural law is present even in the most savage individual.Consequently, I have come to the conclusion that some criminals really do not deserve to live and that the death penalty is a fitting and just punishment for henious crimes. It is their choice, let us give it to them.