4 death penalty bills filed at Senate

At least four senators, three of them close allies of President Rodrigo Duterte, have filed bills seeking the reimposition of death penalty in the country.

While Senators Manny Pacquiao, in Senate Bill 189, and Ronald dela Rosa, in Senate Bill 226, focused on crimes involving illegal drugs, Senator Christopher ‘Bong’ Go added plunder in Senate Bill 207.

On the other hand, Senator Panfilo Lacson, in filing Senate Bill 27, included more crimes in which death penalty will be imposed.

Included are:

• treason;
• qualified piracy on the high seas or in the Philippine waters or whenever they have seized a vessel by board or firing upon the same; whenever the pirates have abandoned their victims without means of saving themselves; or whenever the crime is accompanied by murder, homicide, physical injuries, or rape;
• qualified bribery or any public officer entrusted with law enforcement and refrains from arresting or prosecuting an offender who has committed a crime punishable by reclusion and/or death in consideration of or asks or demands any offer, promise, gift, or present;
• parricide;
• murder;
• infanticide;
• rape;
• kidnapping and serious illegal detention;
• robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons;
• destructive arson;
• plunder;
• violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002;
• terrorism and conspiracy to commit terrorism;
• violation of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, and;
• arms smuggling.

In the explanatory note, Lacson said the alarming surge of heinous crimes in recent years has shown that reclusion perpetua, in lieu of death penalty, is not a deterrent to grave offenders.

Lacson and Go proposed lethal injection as the means to impose death penalty. Dela Rosa, in media interviews, said he wants public firing squad but it was not included in the bill he filed. He said he will allow the implementing agency to determine which means of execution would be better. 

Go and Dela Rosa are close allies of Duterte, having served as special assistant and national police chief, respectively, during the first half of his term. Pacquiao, meanwhile, is among Duterte's allies in the Senate.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III expressed belief that, with the Senate now dominated by administration allies, there is now a chance that death penalty will be discussed in Senate, particularly the proposal to impose it to high-level drug traffickers.

“Ang tingin ko, kung meron mang may pag-asa, yung high-level drug trafficking lang, at ang sitwasyon ngayon, masasabi ko lang, nadagdagan yung boto in favor, so far,” Sotto said.

“Depende pa yun sa deliberasyon, tingnan pa natin kung kakayanin o hindi, pero sa akin mas kumportable ako na malamang malaki ang pag-asa kung high-level drug trafficking lang ang reimposition ng death penalty,” he added.

Death penalty was abolished in the Philippines during the Arroyo administration. —KBK, GMA News