President Duterte has urged Congress to reinstate the death penalty for drug offenses, dropping the crime of plunder that he specifically pushed for last year. But lawmakers acknowledge the strong opposition to capital punishment.

When President Duterte first called on lawmakers to pass a law that would reinstate the death penalty in the country, what he wanted was to impose it on all heinous crimes, “especially on the trafficking of illegal drugs.”

 “Capital punishment is not only about deterrence. It is also about retribution. Make no mistake about that,” he said in his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) in 2017.

Two years later, in his 2019 SONA, the President specifically identified another crime – along with drug-related offenses – that he wanted to be punished by death: plunder, or large-scale accumulation of ill-gotten wealth.

“I respectfully request Congress to reinstate the death penalty for heinous crimes related to drugs, as well as plunder,” he said last year. “The drugs will not be crushed unless we continue to eliminate corruption that allows this social monster to survive.”

His former aide, Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, was among those who filed measures that included the crime of plunder as those punishable by death.

“Bong said he wants death penalty for plunder. I am for it,” Duterte said during the inauguration of the Candon City bypass road in Ilocos Sur days after his SONA last year.

At the time, he said he wanted state execution by hanging instead of firing squad or lethal injection.

In his latest SONA, however, Duterte appears to have backtracked on his previous call for plunder to be included in the roster of crimes that would warrant capital punishment.

“I reiterate the swift passage of a law reviving the death penalty by lethal injection for crimes specified under the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002,” he said in his penultimate SONA on Monday, July 27.And unlike his previous declarations on capital punishment that were met with enthusiasm by his allies, the response to his latest remark was markedly subdued – something that did not escape his notice.

 “I did not hear so much clapping so I presume that they are not interested,” he added, prompting those in attendance to give a round of applause.

 A measure reinstating the death penalty was approved by the House of Representatives in 2017, but it did not prosper at the Senate until the end of the 17th Congress last year.

 Several bills are pending at the committee levels in both chambers.

 Aside from opposition that mounted when Duterte pitched for the revival of capital punishment, the inclusion of the crime of plunder was also seen as a factor that discouraged lawmakers from acting on it.

Plunder is a specific crime in the Philippines, defined in a separate law enacted in 1991. It penalizes any public officer who accumulates or acquires ill-gotten of at least P50 million "through a combination or series of overt or criminal acts." It was punishable by reclusion perpetua to death until death penalty was abolished in 2006.

Under the plunder law, any person who participated with the public officer in the commission of an offense contributing to the crime of plunder shall be punished for such offense. The court shall consider the degree of participation and the attendance of mitigating and extenuating circumstance in the imposition of penalties.

In 2007, former president Joseph Estrada was convicted of plunder and was sentenced to reclusion perpetua by the Sandiganbayan. He was pardoned by his successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Then senators Ramon Revilla Jr., Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada were also charged and arrested for plunder in 2014 in connection with the Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel scam.

Revilla again won a Senate seat in the 2019 elections after being acquitted of the charges while Enrile and Estrada, who are out on bail, lost their bids for reelection to the upper chamber.

Breach of international law

The latest push of the President for the reimposition of the death penalty has prompted the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to remind the administration of its commitment to international law.

 CHR spokesperson Jacqueline de Guia said it also runs counter to the two affirmations made by Duterte during his latest SONA – putting human lives above all and not dodging the obligation to fight for human rights.

 “Any move to reinstate capital punishment in the country conflicts with the tenets of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the Philippines ratified in 2007,” she said. “Bringing back death penalty will be a breach of international law.”

 The Philippines ratified the treaty a year after the country abolished the death penalty during the Arroyo administration.

 The second optional protocol recognizes that abolition of the death penalty contributes to enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights.

 Its signatories agree that no person would be executed within its jurisdiction, with state parties committing to abolish the death penalty after ratification of the optional protocol.

 Following the congressional approval in 2017, the monitoring body of the ICCPR urged the Philippine government to refrain from taking “retrogressive measures” with regard to the reimposition of the death penalty.

 United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee chairperson Yuji Iwasawa cited a provision of the international treaty that bars state parties from reintroducing capital punishment after abolishing it.

 According to CHR commissioner Karen Gomez-Dumpit, the “very nature of the treaty does not allow for withdrawal or denunciation.”

 “Death penalty is wrong and futile. A state that makes killing a form of punishment loses the moral ground to stop killings. The obligation to deliver justice must not breed further injustice,” she said during the 17th World Day Against Death Penalty in October last year.

 “Curbing crimes and its root causes require effective solutions. Our country and its government instrumentalities must endeavor to address the deeper problems that cause commission of crimes, implement alternative programs to prevent offending through a restorative justice framework and ensure certainty of punishment through due process, rule of law and utmost respect for the right to life of all,” she added.

 De Guia called on the government to engage in a frank and factual discussion on the ineffectiveness of the death penalty in curbing crimes.

 “We, too, believe that crimes must be punished. But the call for justice should not result to further violations of human rights, especially the right to life,” she said.

 “We believe in the need for a comprehensive approach in addressing drug sale and use, as well as all other crimes, anchored on restorative justice instead of merely imposing punishments without regard for human lives and human rights,” added de Guia.

 Congress divided

 With the President’s renewed push for the death penalty, proponents are hopeful that the measures would finally hurdle the legislative mill.

 But heated debates are expected in both Houses, where a number of lawmakers have already raised their opposition to the measure.

 Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, one of those who filed a bill seeking the reimposition of the death penalty, said the President’s statement would give the proposal a big boost.

 “I’m happy that he appealed to Congress for the passage of the death penalty law for drug trafficking because my death penalty bill has been languishing at the referred committee for one year already without actions taken,” Dela Rosa said.

 At the House of Representatives, Majority Leader Martin Romualdez assured the public that the measure would be thoroughly deliberated at the plenary.

 Several congressmen have expressed opposing positions on the proposal.

 Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, chairman of the House dangerous drugs committee and one of the principal authors of the bill, underscored the impact of illegal drugs in pushing for the measure.

 “Reimposing the death penalty now on drug-related offenses will surely stop the criminals on their tracks and deter them from further plying their trade, thus giving our youth the much needed breather as we put in place more measures to secure their future, free from drugs and protected from criminals,” Barbers said.

 “We have the responsibility of ensuring the future of our nation in our hands. Why are we having second thoughts about it? All our laws are useless against these criminals. Look at them destroying our children every day. During the quarantine alone, look at the amount of drugs confiscated by our law enforcers. Even COVID-19 did not deter them. Are we to wait until our children become victims, too, one way or another?” Barbers added.

 Muntinlupa City Rep. Ruffy Biazon, another author of the bill, said the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for high-level drug traffickers.

 But he stressed the need to strengthen prosecution of drug cases by fortifying law enforcers’ gathering of evidence.

 “The penalty is important. But even before the penalty, a successful prosecution is much more important,” Biazon stressed.

 Party-list representatives Lito Atienza (Buhay) and Carlos Zarate (Bayan Muna) were among those who are opposing the measure.

 “The revival of the death penalty as a deterrent to crimes, especially those related to drugs is a sham claim, especially coming from an administration that already launched a bloody anti-drug campaign, and, yet, until now drugs is still a brisk and lucrative business in the country today,” Zarate said.

 Atienza, for his part, argued that the revival of the death penalty would only strengthen the hands of those who are abusing their power in government.

 Not a solution

Bishops of the Catholic Church have also denounced the move to revive the death penalty, citing studies showing that it is not effective in deterring crimes.

 Manila Auxiliary and apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Manila Bishop Broderick Pabillo said that they would exhaust all efforts and lobby against the death penalty to protect and value the lives of the Filipino people.

 “We will continue to educate the people and to lobby against it,” Pabillo, who is under quarantine after he contracted COVID-19, said in a text message on July 28.

 He said the Catholic Church would always be against the death penalty as he emphasized that the solution to criminality is not capital punishment but an “efficient and disciplined police force and a no-nonsense judiciary.”

 Albay Bishop Joel Baylon contended that the death penalty would never be the solution to criminality as it will only serve as a punishment.

 “The Church has always maintained that capital punishment, in whatever form it comes, is never a deterrent to crime. Studies have proven this time and again. With the death penalty, justice is nothing but punishment and never a way to reform the offender. But true justice is restorative, never punitive,” he argued.

 Retired Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes echoed the same sentiment, adding that the Philippines would lose the distinction of being one of the countries that condemned capital punishment.

 Balanga Bishop Ruperto Santos, meanwhile, pointed out that the revival of capital punishment would weaken the Philippines’ appeals on behalf of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are in death rows abroad.

 “With the death penalty, we lose moral authority and credibility to beg for life, to save lives of our imprisoned OFWs,” he said.

Santos urged the government to reform the justice system rather than push for a measure that he said could destroy the basic foundations of society.

50-50 chances

The proposal to reimpose the death penalty has a 50-50 chance of getting the Senate’s nod if capital punishment is limited only to high-level drug traffickers, Senate President Vicente Sotto III said Tuesday.

Sotto, who has filed a bill seeking to revive the death penalty, admitted there is still strong opposition to the measure among senators, but said things could change especially with Duterte giving it a push during his SONA.

He said he had been involved in debates on capital punishment since it was proposed in 1992 and passed in 1993 during the Ramos administration. In 1996, Republic Act (RA) No. 8177 was passed, prescribing the use of lethal injection as the method of carrying out the death penalty.

Joseph Estrada during his presidency called for a moratorium on state executions in 2000 to honor the bi-millennial anniversary of Christ’s birth, but executions were resumed a year later. Estrada’s successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was against capital punishment and supported the passage of RA 9346 in 2006 scrapping the death penalty.

“I have been quoted to have said that it stands a better chance now because the President himself endorsed it but limited to the crimes in the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, which is (RA) 9165,” Sotto said.

“As of now, I think its (passage has) about 50-50 chance – there could be just one (senator) who will not be able to vote – it’s very difficult to say. But for high-level drug trafficking, we stand a good chance of getting 13 votes minimum,” Sotto told reporters via videoconference.

He stressed that his bill limits the punishment only to high-level drug traffickers, not street-level pushers.

There are similar bills filed in the chamber seeking to reimpose capital punishment, including those filed by Senators Panfilo Lacson and Manny Pacquiao, but they include other heinous crimes such as rape.

Sotto cited his nearly 30-year experience in debating on the death penalty, wherein he was convinced by opponents of the proposal that imposing capital punishment could cause injustice to poor suspects, who may be convicted because they cannot afford good lawyers.

“There’s no poor high-level drug trafficker. In fact, we have many high-level drug traffickers in the Bilibid and they still do business from prison,” he said, referring to the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa.

Sotto noted that the Supreme Court had upheld the repeal of the death penalty law as being constitutional and humane. He said Duterte’s push for lethal injection was classified as humane by the high court.

Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Gordon, who chairs the committee on justice that will hear the bills, reiterated his strong opposition to the proposal and said he was not keen on conducting hearings on the matter.

“I’m gonna be fair and they can do that while I’m hearing it. I promise you, if we do hearings, we’ll hear everybody. And if they think I could not do the job fairly objectively then I’ll say so,” Gordon said in an online press conference.

Sotto volunteered to chair the hearings if Gordon is not eager to do so.

Gordon expressed alarm that Duterte was pushing for the death penalty when he and other administration officials and allies remain quiet on the thousands of unsolved killings that happen almost on a daily basis.

“The silence is deafening, there (are) too many killings,” Gordon said. “My position is always clear: I don’t think the death penalty works. We get used to drug pushers being killed and we say ‘let it be’. That’s macho talk. What if it happens to our children?”

He said he is dismayed that such a proposal is being pushed amid the COVID-19 pandemic that must be addressed first.

Sen. Grace Poe also expressed strong opposition to the death penalty, saying “without the needed reforms in our justice system, the innocent poor with scant resources to wage a decent defense in court will be the ones at risk in any attempt to revive the death penalty in the country.”

“We have gone to great lengths to save lives and prevent more deaths during this COVID-19 pandemic. We must also protect the lives of the defenseless and disadvantaged from the peril of injustice,” Poe said.

The Senate minority also questioned the push for the revival of capital punishment at a time when the country is facing the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Sobrang nagseselos na ang COVID-19 kasi kung saan-saan na napunta ang atensyon ng gobyerno. I can’t believe I need to say this, pero hindi po solusyon sa pandemya ang death penalty,” Sen. Risa Hontiveros quipped.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said the government should first reform the justice system, while Sen. Francis Pangilinan said death penalty is useless in addressing health and economic problems that the country is facing due to the pandemic.

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