|
Sunday, June 25, 2006
President kills death law
MANILA -- With a stroke of her pen, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo abolished the death penalty Saturday, on the eve of her trip to the Vatican, but vowed she will not relent in battling terrorists and criminals.
"We shall continue to devote the increasing weight of our resources to the prevention and control of serious crimes, rather than take the lives of those who commit them," she said, as she signed Republic Act (RA) 9346 repealing the death penalty law.
The President signed RA 9346 despite strong opposition by anti-crime groups, the kin of victims of heinous crimes and religious organizations, who have all threatened to withdraw support from Arroyo if she proceeds with the signing.
"We have taken a strong hand against the threats to the law and to the republic, but at the same time we yield to the high moral imperative dictated by God to walk away from capital punishment," she said.
The President signed the measure in Malacañang before senators, congressmen, European diplomats, religious organizations and non-government groups, less than an hour after leaving St. Luke's Medical Center in Quezon City.
She had been confined at the hospital since Thursday night for acute infectious diarrhea.
Papal Nuncio Fernando Filono, who witnessed the ceremony in Malacañang, said the scrapping of the death penalty law is an "important step" for the Philippines in affirming its "culture of life."
Challenge
In Cebu, archdiocesan media liaison officer Monsignor Achilles Dakay welcomed the development, but said that it is high time the vigilantes, who have claimed 167 lives since December 2004, also stop their attacks and end the "cycle of violence."
"The right of people to live should be respected. We should put an end to vigilantism," Dakay said in a phone interview Saturday.
Since Congress instituted capital punishment in 1993, he said heinous crimes such as rape and murder have not stopped or lessened.
The President shook hands with the lawmakers and members of the diplomatic corps after the signing but did not make a speech.
Not that any statement would matter to people like Thelma Chiong, president of the Cebu-based Crusade Against Violence and vice president of the Manila-based Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption.
Chiong, the mother of Marijoy and Jacqueline and the private complainant against death row convicts Josman Aznar, Rowen Adlawan, Alberto Caño, Ariel Balansag and Francisco Juan Larrañaga, as well as against life-termers James Anthony and James Andrew Uy, is taking the abolition with "quiet resignation."
"She (the President) had made up her mind long ago. Nothing we can do will change it. It is not fair to us who have suffered injustices, but when is it ever fair?" said Chiong, whose daughters were kidnapped, raped and then killed in July 1997.
'I've won'
As to the conviction of the seven men the Supreme Court had found guilty of raping and killing her two daughters, Chiong said it's up to God.
"We've won as far as the Supreme Court. There is no more doubt about their guilt. I fought for my daughters and I've won. Let them live in jail," she said.
The law abolishing capital punishment automatically commuted the sentences of about 1,200 death row inmates to life imprisonment.
Arroyo said she will tell Pope Benedict XVI of the new law when she meets him during her foreign trip this week.
"When I meet the Holy Father soon in the Vatican I shall tell him that we have acted in the name of life for a world of peace and harmony," she said.
Presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor, for his part, said Arroyo will "boast" that the Philippines is the only Christian nation to have all three laws against death penalty, abortion and divorce.
Arroyo's move got the support of Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr., who belied claims that lethal injection is painless to execute death convicts.
What next?
Pimentel, one of the authors of the law that abolished the death penalty, said the execution of death convicts in the US through lethal injection is being questioned for being "a cruel and unusual punishment."
Under RA 9346, the penalties of life imprisonment and reclusion perpetua replace the death penalty.
Persons convicted of offenses punishable by reclusion perpetua, or whose sentences will be reduced to reclusion perpetua, shall not be eligible for parole under Republic Act 4013, or the Indeterminate Sentence Law.
Seven people have been executed between 1999 and 2000 before a government moratorium that was prompted mostly by pressure from the dominant Roman Catholic Curch, the European Union and human rights groups.
Defensor said they had canceled all the President's six "short working meetings" yesterday to allow her to rest.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told reporters she was "taking it easy" and "making preparations" for her departure this morning for official visits to Italy, Vatican City and Spain.
She is scheduled to meet separately with Pope Benedict XVI and Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano before traveling on to Spain, where she will hold talks with King Juan Carlos I and President Jose Luis Gonzalez Zapatero. (Sunnex/AP/AFP/KNR/AIV)
(June 25, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
|
|
[return to top]
[home]
|
|
