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Thursday, June 08, 2006
Congress approves bill abolishing death penalty
MANILA -- Congress approved late Wednesday a bill abolishing the death penalty despite protests from relatives of crime victims, lawmakers said.
A bicameral committee approved a consolidated bill by the Senate and the House of Representatives calling for the repeal of a 1993 law that brought back capital punishment and a subsequent law that prescribed lethal injection as punishment, Representative Edcel Lagman said.
The approved bill will be sent to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo this week for signing into law, said Lagman, the deputy House majority leader. If capital punishment were finally abolished, the strongest legal punishment would be life imprisonment, according to lawmakers.
"Death penalty has no place in any country," Lagman said, citing the absence of any scientific proof that capital punishment has deterred criminals in the country.
Lagman backed the death penalty's abolition despite the death of his brother -- a prominent left-wing labor leader who was gunned down at a Manila university in 2001.
More than 1,200 death-row convicts, including at least 11 al-Qaida-linked militants, stand to benefit from the capital punishment's removal, according to the Free Legal Assistance Group, an organization that provides free legal counsel to death row inmates.
Anti-crime crusaders immediately condemned the decision and announced they would hold a protest on Tuesday. "This government is siding with criminals and not the victims," said Dante Jimenez, leader of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, a prominent group of relatives of hundreds of victims of crime.
"Now, some victims of heinous crimes may resort to hired killers to get justice," he warned.
Jimenez suspected Arroyo's government was rushing to abolish the death penalty in an effort to please Pope Benedict XVI, whom she is expected to meet in a visit to the Vatican later this month.
Arroyo, who opposes capital punishment, said the death penalty's abolition would not be a victory for criminals and pledged to continue cracking down on criminals. "Make no mistake about it, the abolition of the death penalty will be complemented by a stricter and sterner enforcement of the law in all fronts," she said.
The 1987 Constitution abolished the death penalty, which dictator Ferdinand Marcos' government used to execute about a dozen people convicted of rape and drug charges. Congress, however, restored the death penalty in late 1993 for heinous crimes such as murder, child rape, and kidnapping.
Seven people convicted of rape and robbery with killings had been executed under the current death penalty law.
During Marcos' time, death row convicts were executed mostly by electric chair. But the country's only electric chair facility was destroyed by lightning, prompting lawmakers to approve legislation prescribing lethal injection as the mode of execution.
"We are now consigning the lethal injection chamber to the museum, where it rightfully belongs," Lagman said.
The debate over the death penalty has divided many Filipinos. Advocates of capital punishment say it would deter crime by threatening would-be offenders.
Opponents led by Catholic church leaders say there is no proof of that deterrence, adding there is a high probability an innocent man could be sent to death because of widespread corruption among law enforcers and in the judiciary. (AP)
(June 8, 2006 issue)
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