Senate bill abolishing death penalty nears approval

The Senate bill abolishing the death penalty is on its way to being approved after several years of delay.

Senate committee on justice and human rights chairman Joker Arroyo said a committee report on the proposed bills abolishing capital punishment would be out sometime in the next 14 days.

Arroyo said the report would consolidate the three bills filed by Senators Manuel Villar Jr., Sergio Osmeña III and Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr., which all seek the abolition of the death penalty.

The report would also adopt the previous committee report prepared by Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan during the 12th Congress when he was chairman of the committee on justice and human rights.

Malacañang has certified as urgent all bills calling for the abolition of the death penalty and President Arroyo signified her position on the issue with the commutation of all death sentences to life imprisonment on Easter Sunday.

"The President has espoused the abolition of the death penalty. In spite of that, we do not expect smooth sailing in the plenary. There are those who are opposed to the abolition of the death penalty and they say so with sincerity and conviction," Senator Joker Arroyo said.

"I think we would have the numbers in the end. I think that a majority are for the abolition of the death penalty because that is the right thing," he added.

Villar welcomed Arroyo’s statement, saying it would pave the way for plenary discussions and its final approval soon.

Villar’s bill seeks to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment.

"Death, as a penalty for crime, has no place in a society that claims to strongly uphold freedom and human rights," Villar said.

"The death penalty, besides being inhuman and cruel, has never been proven to deter crimes more effectively than other punishments. For countries with perverted justice systems, the said penalty might even be imposed on the innocent," he added.

According to Villar, 88 countries and territories have already abolished death penalty for all crimes.

There are 37 countries that have retained the death penalty but have not carried out executions for a decade or more.

Another 10 countries have abolished the death penalty for all except for exceptional crimes such as war atrocities.

"If the abolition of the death penalty will be passed into law, thereby repealing Republic Act 7659, the Philippines is set to become the first country in Asia to abolish the death penalty," Villar said.

Arroyo argued that the issue should be tackled in the plenary as an important piece of legislation.

"Most of those on death row are poor people and very rarely do you find the well-off on death row which indicates that those who are sentenced to death have had very inadequate legal representation because they cannot afford adequate representation, meaning good lawyers," Arroyo said. "So this thing could alleviate that kind of imbalance."

In an Easter announcement, President Arroyo commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment but did not say whether she would move to abolish the death penalty, which has not been carried out in the Philippines since 2000.

The Roman Catholic Church welcomed the commutation in the spirit of Holy Week, calling it a "visible manifestation of a heightened moral consciousness."

Filipinos are divided on the death penalty issue. Supporters say it was necessary amid rising criminality.

Opponents argue that the death penalty has not curbed crime and claim that more efficient law enforcement and a speedy justice system are the solutions.

The death penalty was abolished after the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986 but the 1987 Constitution gave Congress the option of restoring it.

Capital punishment was restored in 1994 for heinous crimes such as rape, kidnapping-for-ransom, murder and drug trafficking.

Seven convicts were put to death between 1999 and 2000, but then-president Joseph Estrada declared a moratorium on judicial executions amid pressure from the Roman Catholic Church and rights groups.

Leo Echegaray was the first to be executed in 1999 for raping his daughter. Six other death row convicts were executed until Estrada ordered a moratorium in 2000.

Despite the separation of church and state, the Catholic Church wields strong influence in the country.

A devout Catholic, Mrs. Arroyo continued the moratorium but then lifted it in October 2001, saying the freeze emboldened criminals, particularly kidnap-for-ransom gangs. No executions have occurred since the moratorium was lifted.

In September 2002, Mrs. Arroyo indefinitely suspended executions when lawmakers began debates on whether or not to repeal the death penalty law.

The law can only be repealed if Congress passes the necessary legislation.

Mrs. Arroyo reversed the moratorium a month after the body of kidnapped Coca-Cola executive Betti Chua Sy was found stuffed in a trash bag last November.

There are over 1,000 convicts on death row and over a dozen of them women according to government data. The Supreme Court has upheld at least 160 of these convictions.

The Commission on Human Rights hopes Mrs. Arroyo’s Easter decision would be the start of moves to abolish capital punishment.