Philippines: Anti-death penalty senators unfazed by prospects fighting uphill battle

Manila: Senators opposing the return of the death penalty are undeterred by the strong backing for the return of capital punishment from among their peers.

“It will be a tough fight considering that it is an administration-backed legislation and a number of senators have openly endorsed its passage. Let alone our diminished number in the Senate,” Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said.

“It has been proven time and again that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to crimes. Only the poor will be made victim of this measure,” he added.

Majority of senators in the 24-member upper chamber support bringing back capital punishment as punitive recourse especially for offenders charged with drugs-related crimes.

President Rodrigo Duterte, at the start of his administration in 2016, had already made the passage of death penalty as top priority.

The death penalty measure is also not likely to encounter stiff resistance in the House of Representatives, which majority are Duterte supporters.

Pro-death penalty legislators include Senate president Vicente Sotto III and senators Manny Pacquiao, Ronald Dela Rosa, Panfilo Lacson, and Christopher Go. Supporting the measure are senators Sherwin Gatchalian, Cynthia Villar, Imee Marcos, Aquilino Pimentel III, Juan Edgardo Angara, Pia Cayetano, Bong Revilla, Francis Tolentino, and Lito Lapid.

Lacson said the passage of this law is necessary due to “the alarming surge of heinous crimes in recent years.”

“It has shown that reclusion perpetua (life imprisonment), in lieu of death penalty, is not a deterrent to grave offenders,” he said.

Dela Rosa, the former national police chief, who had been accused of being Duterte’s prime implementer of the bloody drug war, said he wants the “firing squad” for high profile drug offenders such as drug traffickers.

Opposing the return of the death penalty aside from Drilon, in the Senate, are Senators Francis Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros and Leila De Lima.

Drilon said that while they may not have the backing of the majority of Senators, they are counting on the support from Filipinos at large in opposing the capital punishment’s return. A survey conducted last year by the independent pollster, the Social Weather Stations, stated that seven out of 10 Filipinos are against the return of the death penalty.

The Philippines has an on and off proclivity with the death penalty.

In the 1970s when the entire archipelago was under martial law and crime was a serious concern, it carried out judicial executions. The 1987 Constitution abolished death penalty but in 1993 it was reintroduced in 1998.

Then President Gloria Arroyo, in 2006, abolished the death penalty.