Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Gonzalez wants shoot-to-kill order issued v. Cabuyao bank robbers
IF JUSTICE Secretary Raul Gonzalez Sr. will have his way, a shoot-to-kill order should be issued against the suspects in the gruesome bank robbery in Cabuyao, Laguna on Friday that killed 10 persons.
That is, despite Gonzalez's claims that the spate of criminal activities recently, such as the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) bank robbery and the massacre in Calamba, also in Laguna, does not yet justify the re-imposition of the death penalty, as proposed by some anti-crime groups.
"This is more than heinous. There should be a shoot-to-kill order against the suspects. I really don't like what happened. Those were unjustified killings. But of course, that is just my personal opinion," he told reporters in an interview last Monday.
Gonzalez said the Commission on Human Rights should already expect that the police would go after the bank robbers tenaciously because of the emotional upheaval the killings evoked in the public.
But he said there is no study yet that would show that the upsurge in crimes committed is sufficient to warrant the revival of the capital punishment.
He said it is up to Congress if it wants to revive the death penalty, noting that there is a trend in the United States and other parts of the world upholding the validity of death for perpetrators of heinous crimes.
"There has been no sufficient study which will tell us if the death penalty was really a deterrent. What is important is to make sure there is proper reinforcement. This may be better than imposing death penalty," he said.
The death penalty was abolished on June 24, 2006 after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo approved Senate Bill (SB) 2254 and House Bill (HB) 4826, which both call for the recall of the capital punishment by death.
Gonzalez said he has not yet directed the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), an attached agency of the Department of Justice (DOJ), to step into the Cabuyao and the Calamba killings, but if they will be asked, the NBI will be able to lend its resources and skill in tracking the bank robbers and killers.
A Catholic bishop, meanwhile, expressed strong objection to the proposed revival of the death penalty law.
Pampanga Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, chairman of Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines-Episcopal Commission on Family and Life ((CBCP-ECFL), said reviving the death penalty and taking away the life of a convicted criminal will not solve the problem.
"Killing the convicted criminal is not a solution to the problem," Aniceto said.
Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri wants to revive the death penalty law after last Friday's bloody bank robbery.
The bishop also reiterated the church's position against the said law, as they believed that it is only God that can take away a life of an individual.
He said the real solution to crimes is by giving importance to the morality issues.
The President abolished the death penalty law on June 24, 2006 as her gift to Pope Benedict XVI, whom she will visit the very next day.
It was first abolished in the Philippines back in 1987 but was re-established in 1993. (ECV/FP/Sunnex)
