Repeal of death penalty may benefit Estrada

Ousted President Joseph Estrada will benefit from the repeal of the death penalty law even if the bill seeking to abolish capital punishment was not tailor-made for him.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said yesterday any law beneficial to the accused would be retroactive, and so a law setting aside the death penalty would apply to Estrada once convicted, although he was charged before the law took effect.

"We initiated this bill long before any charge was conceived to be filed against Mr. Estrada," he said. "We have always been asking for the repeal of the death penalty." Pimentel, the bill’s principal author, chided Dante Jimenez, chairman of Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC), for accusing the senators who had signed the bill of wishing to save Estrada from lethal injection.

Many senators who co-sponsored the bill had supported Estrada’s impeachment in 2000, he added.

Pimentel said these senators are Franklin Drilon, Manuel Villar Jr., Sergio Osmeña III, Ralph Recto, Juan Flavier, Francis Pangilinan and Joker Arroyo.

At Malacañang, President Arroyo told reporters she supports the move at the Senate to repeal the death penalty law but would like to see a convicted kidnapper die by lethal injection as scheduled in August next year.

"My support for the (repeal) of the death penalty law is consistent with my voting against the death penalty when I was a senator and it’s not connected to any pending case," she said.

Mrs. Arroyo said her support for the bill seeking to repeal the death penalty has nothing to do with saving Estrada from lethal injection in the event he is convicted of plunder.

"I don’t want to preempt the Sandiganbayan on what they will judge regarding this case," she said. "Too early to say."

Mrs. Arroyo said she is ready to certify the bill as urgent so the Senate and House of Representatives could speed up deliberations for the measure to be immediately passed into law.

"The fact is that I did not vote for the death penalty," she said.

"I really believe that No. 1, the penal system is supposed to be for the rehabilitation rather than for revenge and you don’t (exact) revenge on dead people. And then secondly, being able to catch them (criminals) and putting them away for life (imprisonment) is really quite a punishment."

Mrs. Arroyo said she will await a request from Congress for her to certify the bill as urgent.

"Unless the (legislators) ask me to," she said. "I’ll think about it. If it should happen that they request because we always consider the certification after it comes out of the committee. Maybe it might be good to have that first execution."

Justice Secretary Hernando Perez told reporters yesterday he does not believe the senators are working to do away with the death penalty to "save the neck" of Estrada.

"I hope not," he said. "I’m sure they have some other reasons or intentions for this. I would not like to think that way. We will respect the decision of the judge." — With reports from Marichu Villanueva, Delon Porcalla, Sandy Araneta