August executions to push through

Unless Congress repeals the death penalty law soon, President Arroyo said yesterday two inmates convicted of kidnapping will have to be executed as scheduled in August after the Supreme Court rejected their appeal for a reprieve.

The Chief Executive, however, reiterated that she will observe her self-imposed moratorium on the execution of death row inmates convicted of other heinous crimes.

"If there is a law, then we will commute the death penalty, but if there is none, we will proceed with the execution," Mrs. Arroyo said in Filipino during a radio interview. "But for other crimes, we will defer them."

The President said she supported a Senate bill, filed by Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and backed by 15 senators, repealing capital punishment and even expressed willingness to certify the measure as "urgent."

But she said she was willing to have the two convicted kidnappers executed to emphasize her administration’s position against kidnapping.

"We really need to stamp out kidnapping. We must use all the available weapons within the law to fight this menace and one of our weapons is the death penalty," said the President, who voted against the death penalty when she was still a senator.

Mrs. Arroyo first spelled out her renewed war against kidnappers last October when she said the government needs to "strike fear" into the hearts of criminals.

She had earlier consented to a moratorium on executions amid calls from some sectors for a review of the Heinous Crimes Law, or Republic Act 7659, that allowed capital punishment for crimes such as rape, kidnapping, murder and drug trafficking.

But criminals, particularly kidnappers, have become "more savage" and murder their victims even after the payment of ransom, she said in October after she granted more powers to the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force (NAKTAF).

There are 93 other death row inmates who were convicted for kidnapping but the President said she would also consider prioritizing the execution of drug traffickers.

The two kidnappers who would likely be executed in August are Roderick Licayan and Roberto Lara, convicted in 1998 for the kidnapping of Joseph Tomas Co and Linda Manaysay.

Licayan and Lara would be the first kidnappers to be executed since rapist Alex Bartolome was given lethal injection on Jan. 4, 2000, the seventh to be executed under RA 7659.

Six other kidnappers were supposed to have been executed in October last year but confusion over the status of their sentences forced the Department of Justice to review their cases.

The President has said she wanted the six kidnappers executed as soon as possible.

The six kidnappers were identified as Roberto Gungon, Benedicto Ramos, Zoilo Borromeo, Rommel Deang, Melvin Espiritu and Nicson Catli. Another accomplice, Venancio Roxas, remained at large.

The six were convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection for the 1994 kidnapping and frustrated murder of coed Agnes Guirindola.

The Supreme Court upheld the death sentences on Gungon and Ramos in March 1998, Borromeo’s in February 2000 and Deyang’s, Espiritu’s and Catli’s in August 1999.

Their executions were scheduled for Aug. 25, 2000 but then President Joseph Estrada issued a four-month reprieve in October.

Mrs. Arroyo claimed she had examined her conscience and insisted that she was "a very good Catholic" but criminals have been emboldened by her previous policy of "suspending" the execution of some 1,815 convicts on death row.

"I think I’ve studied religion and theology long enough for me to know that there are ranges of interpretation and I’ve taken this course because of my duties as President," she had said.