Death penalty may be approved before June

BEFORE the First Regular Session ends in June, the House of Representatives may pass on third and final reading the bills reviving the death penalty and lowering the age of criminal liability, a committee chairman of the House said.

In a news conference on Monday, Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo V. Umali (2nd district), who heads the House committee on justice, said his “personal target” for the bills’ passage is before the end of the First Regular Session on June 3.

The Second Regular Session starts on July 23, when President Rodrigo R. Duterte delivers his State of the Nation Address.

Mr. Umali said the measures in the House may “coincide” with the Senate’s timeline.

The congressman said the House committee on rules has included his committee’s report in the House agenda on the way to its being sponsored in the plenary.

“[ T] his is on top of our priority because of the priority given by no less than the President on the matter and, of course, the Speaker of the House and the Rules Committee,” Mr. Umali said.

But he noted, too, that the House will still discuss which heinous crimes should be determined as punishable by death.

More than 20 crimes were listed on the substitute bill which the justice committee approved last year.

The House deferred last year the second reading approval of the measure to give way for full debates this month.

The bill on lowering the age of criminal liability is pending before House subcommittee on correctional reforms.

“This is precisely the reason why we created subcommittees to continuously hear on this simultaneously, so that we can also produce output simultaneously in time for the presentation of this and approval before the First Regular Session of Congress,” Mr. Umali said. —