165 convicted kidnappers face execution — Cayetano

At least 165 convicted kidnappers, 10 of them women, are facing possible execution by lethal injection once President Arroyo lifts the moratorium on executions, Sen. Renato Cayetano said yesterday.

Cayetano, chairman of the Senate committee on justice and human rights in the previous Congress, said condemned kidnappers comprised about nine percent of the 1,864 inmates on death row of the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa City as of September.

Mrs. Arroyo said earlier she intends to lift the moratorium on executions "to strike fear" in the hearts of hardened criminals amid the rash of kidnappings that has shaken the business community.

Meanwhile, Cayetano said it would be pointless for Malacañang to review the cases of six kidnappers whose death verdicts had been commuted to life by former President Joseph Estrada in December last year.

"There’s no point in looking into their cases because the president’s exercise of clemency powers either through the grant of pardon or commutation of sentence is absolute. A presidential commutation of sentence cannot be overturned, not even by the succeeding chief executive (President Arroyo)," Cayetano said in a statement.

So far, the Supreme Court (SC) has saved only one convicted kidnapper from execution, he added.

He said Danilo Godoy, 41, a physics instructor convicted of kidnapping, illegal detention and rape of a 17-year-old student, was acquitted by the high tribunal in 1994.

Godoy was sent to death row by a Puerto Princesa City regional trial court in May 1994.

Roderick Licayan and Roberto Lara whose verdicts have been affirmed by the SC are likely to be the first to get the lethal injection among the kidnappers on death row.

The two men were found guilty of kidnapping businessman Joseph Co and his secretary, Linda Manaysay, in Marikina City in September 1999.

Cayetano also pushed for the immediate prosecution of Perry Mcneely, a 60-year-old American, who was accused of sexually abusing several teenaged Filipino girls in Cebu City.

"The full force of the law should be used in bringing the accused to swift justice," Cayetano said.

He urged Justice Secretary Hernando Perez to reactivate the DOJ’s Anti-Child Abuse Task Force which oversaw the prompt prosecution and conviction of foreign pedophiles arrested in the country in the early 1990s.

"We must show to all that the Philippines is not a safe haven for foreign pedophiles and syndicates engaged in the trafficking of women and children for sex," the senator said.

Mcneely, a retired airline pilot, was charged with sexually molesting young girls in Cebu where he operates a sports promotion club and a fleet of taxicabs.

In exchange for sexual favors, Mcneely allegedly promised the girls modeling jobs in foreign magazines. Other victims were promised trips abroad once they were matched with American pen pals.

Cayetano said court records in the United States showed that Mcneely was criminally charged with molesting five girls, aged 11 to 16, before the 22nd Judicial District of Louisiana.

Mcneely was recently transferred to the custody of the Bureau of Immigration in Cebu after Senate Majority Leader Loren Legarda sought an investigation into reports that the inmate was enjoying VIP (very important person) treatment at the bureau’s detention center in Bicutan, Taguig City.