Kids call for death penalty abolition

With five days to go before the executions of convicted kidnappers Rodolfo Lara and Roderick Licayan, the children of death row inmates have joined the appeal for the abolition of capital punishment.

Some 20 children, including the eight-day-old son of a man sentenced to death for robbery with homicide in Bacolod City, attended Mass for their fathers at the Ina ng Awa Parish Church in the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) compound in Muntinlupa City yesterday afternoon.

A small group of inmates from the NBP maximum security compound served as the choir for the Mass.

Since most of the children were barely of school age, their hand prints on a white cloth served as their signatures for their short appeal to the government to spare their fathers’ lives, said Bing Diaz of the Coalition Against Death Penalty (CADP).

The seven-year-old son of a convicted kidnapper was chosen to deliver a short speech during the Mass.

"He and his younger brother are very close to their father," the boy’s mother, Janet Patcho, said.

She said Lara and Licayan, whom her husband considers his friends, appeared sad and a little scared over their impending executions.

"But it looked to me that they have already accepted their fate," she added.

The Supreme Court is set to hear today the oral arguments filed by the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) for the urgent motion for the reopening of the kidnapping case, in which Lara and Licayan were convicted.

The alleged mastermind of the 1998 kidnapping of a Filipino-Chinese businessman and his secretary was arrested and has cleared Lara and Licayan of any involvement in the crime.

Licayan and Lara were convicted by the Marikina City regional trial court of kidnapping Filipino-Chinese businessman Joseph Thomas Co and his assistant Linda Manaysay on Aug. 10, 1998.

The mastermind of the kidnapping, Lara’s uncle Pedro Mabansag, has been arrested and has cleared Lara and Licayan of involvement in the abduction.

The CADP, along with the Samahan ng mga Pamilya ng mga Death Row convicts (SPDR) and the Alliance of Death Row Inmates (Alis DR) organized yesterday’s Mass to mark the fourth day of a nine-day vigil to urge the stay of the kidnappers’ executions at the end of the month.

Today, CADP will stage a noise barrage dubbed "Kalampagan for Life" followed by "Solidarity for Life" on Tuesday, "Fasting for Life" on Wednesday and "Concert and Motorcade for Life" on Thursday.

All the events take place from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., a significant hour for death row inmates.

"The executions are scheduled at 3 p.m. The hour before that is crucial. That is when a move (from Malacañang) should be made if the President would want to stop the execution," CADP spokesman Rodolfo Diamante said.

A wife of one death row convict said NBP inmates also held prayer vigils, lit candles and staged a noise barrage last week to express their support and concern for Lara and Licayan.

Written on one of the banners at yesterday’s Mass was the battlecry of the death row inmates’ organization: "Why kill people who killed people in order to show that killing is wrong?"

"Life imprisonment is a much better punishment for those who have committed crimes against others," the inmate’s wife told The STAR as she held her eight-day-old infant in her arms.

Diaz said the families and supporters of the death convicts hope that the capital punishment law will be abolished during the next Congress.

"More than a hundred congressmen already supported the abolition bill," Diaz said. However, the bill seeking the abolition of capital punishment "was relegated to the sidelines" by recent events, he said. "We have to start over again in the new Congress."

It will be recalled that, in a signed affidavit dated Jan. 9, Lara professed his innocence of charges he was part of the kidnap gang that abducted Co and his secretary and held them for a P10-million ransom.

Co’s abductors were part of a kidnap gang led by Mabansag.

In his affidavit, which was written in Filipino, Lara said he was forced by personnel of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) to admit to the kidnapping.

Lara sought the help of NBP Director Dionisio Santiago on Dec. 8, 2003 in an effort to make public the truth regarding the Co kidnap case.

Copies of the affidavits of Lara and Licayan were obtained by The STAR. They revealed some information that may be used in defending the two men.

In his affidavit, Licayan, 32, said he was arrested by police on Aug. 12, 1998 in San Mateo, Rizal for his involvement in the Co kidnapping.

Licayan admitted his involvement in the kidnapping and identified one Noel delos Reyes as one of his cohorts.

He also identified Mabansag as the financier of the kidnapping gang and said a certain Luisito Adolfo masterminded the kidnapping.

Licayan identified his other cohorts as Allan Placio, Alex Placio, Jojo Sajorga and Jonard Adolfo.

He also said it was at Mabansag’s house in Marikina City where Co and his secretary were detained against their will.

In Filipino, Licayan wrote in his affidavit that the victims were abducted from the Goodies Pares and Mami House in Sampaloc, Manila "and loaded into their own vehicle and brought to Marikina, where they were brought to the house of Pedro Mabansag, aka Putol, the uncle of Roberto Lara."

Licayan said he and Lara "were made to watch over the kidnapped Chinese."

He also said the victims escaped on the second day of their captivity, prompting him to flee to San Mateo, where he was arrested.

"All I am asking is that the real perpetrators of this crime be captured as well, because if they did not commit this crime, we would not have had to keep watch over anybody, which is why were sentenced to die," Licayan said in his affidavit.

If there is no reprieve, Lara and Licayan will be the eighth and ninth convicts, respectively, to be executed by lethal injection.

Prior to the lethal injection, death convicts were executed by electric chair.

Capital punishment was abolished by former President Corazon Aquino in 1987, a year after the EDSA revolution that ousted strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

The death penalty was reimposed in 1994, during the term of then President Fidel Ramos, in response to widespread crime.

Before he was ousted, former President Joseph Estrada imposed a moratorium on judicial executions in 2000, bowing to pressure from the religious sector and other anti-capital punishment groups.

Last year, Mrs. Arroyo, a devout Catholic, lifted the moratorium on the death penalty in the wake of public outrage over a rise in kidnapping for ransom and drug trafficking activities — crimes punishable by death under the existing law.