DDB urges revival of death penalty for drug traffickers

MANILA, Philippines - Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) chairman Antonio Villar urged lawmakers yesterday to restore the death penalty in the country on those convicted of drug trafficking.

Villar made the call during the burning of some P167-million worth of dangerous drugs in Norzagaray, Bulacan.

The burning was witnessed by Sen. Vicente Sotto, Iligan City Rep. Vicente Belmonte, chairman of the House committee on dangerous drugs; Manila Rep. Ma. Theresa Bonoan-David, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) director general Jose Gutierrez Jr., and DDB executive director Edgar Galvante.

He lamented that foreign nationals arrested on drug offenses are “enjoying the liberal legal environment in the country while some Filipinos suffer death penalty in foreign countries after being convicted of drug trafficking.”

Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, 32, Ramon Credo, 42, and Elizabeth Batain, 38, were executed in Xiamen, China last March despite several appeals for clemency by the Philippine government.

The three were arrested separately in 2008 carrying packages containing at least four kilograms of heroin and were convicted the following year. They were among the 227 Filipino nationals jailed in China for drug offenses. Smuggling more than 50 grams of heroin or other drugs is punishable by death in China.

“It is sad to think that when foreign nationals are arrested in the country allegedly on drug offenses they are just imprisoned and some are even able to go scot-free,” Villar said.

“Many Filipinos are now languishing in Malaysian and Indonesian jails for drug offenses who might also suffer the fate of the trio in China,” he said as he told lawmakers that “it is high time for us to review death penalty as deterrence to this heinous crime of illegal drug trade.”

There was no immediate comment from Belmonte and Bonoan-David on the DDB chief’s call. Some lawmakers have recently pushed for stiffer penalties on drug trafficking in the country but many of their colleagues have balked at the proposal, saying the country’s criminal justice system must first be overhauled.

Last May, a Chinese national was arrested in a buy-bust operation in Sta. Cruz, Manila. William Dee, a.k.a. Ian Chao Qui, was arrested for possessing 44.5 kilograms of white crystalline substance suspected to be methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu and one kilogram of marijuana with an estimated street value of P222 million, Villar said.