Death penalty seen harder to bring back to life in Senate
REVIVING the death penalty would not be as easy in the Senate as it appears to be in the House of Representatives.
House Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez is confident there will be enough votes to secure the passage of the death penalty bill, with his chamber set to begin debates on the measure next week.
“We will allow the debate so we can hear the sides of the majority. Hopefully, matagal na siguro
’yung 30 days matapos natin dito sa House (Hopefully, 30 days is probably long enough to finish deliberations here in the House),” Mr. Alvarez said in a news conference on Tuesday, Jan. 17.
“I am very confident that we can pass it. Well, we have the coalition, we have the supermajority, kung meron mang lilihis dun siguro
mga 5 or 10 lang (if there are some who will vote against it, probably around 5 to 10 only),” he added.
Asked if there will be a “consequence” for majority members who will not support the revival of the death penalty, Mr. Alvarez said: “Wala naman ( None). They’re still congressmen.
Members of the majority who expressed opposition to the death penalty are House Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PBA party-list Rep. Jericho Jonas B. Nograles, and the seven-member Makabayan bloc. Ms. Arroyo abolished the death penalty in 2006 when she was president.
House justice committee chairman Reynaldo V. Umali said on Monday the House may pass the death penalty on third and final reading before the First Regular Session ends in June, together with another legislative priority of President Rodrigo R. Duterte to lower the minimum age of criminal liability to nine years old from the current 15.
The House deferred last year the measure’s approval on second reading to give way for full debates this month of January.
In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto C. Abella said Malacañang “respects the efforts of the House of Representatives, a separate co-equal branch of government, for prioritizing the death penalty bill.”
The European Union (EU) is observing this development in Congress. On Monday, EU ambassador Franz Jessen said a monitoring team “will come later this month” to see if the country is compliant with conditions of the Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) scheme, which has accommodated tariff- free Philippine exports to the EU since December 2014.
Compliance with 27 international conventions under GSP+ includes a commitment against capital punishment, which the EU opposes.
As for the death penalty’s approval in the Senate, its President Pro-Tempore Franklin M. Drilon told reporters before Tuesday’s plenary: “You can never predict what the Senate will do.”
The Liberal Party ( LP) stalwart reiterated that the party has taken the position against the death penalty.
“So when it comes to the floor, we will state our position, and we will accordingly express our opposition,” added the Liberal Party (LP) stalwart who, like his party allies Francis N. Pangilinan, Leila M. de Lima, Paolo Benigno A. Aquino IV and minority leader Ralph G. Recto, also oppose the death penalty.
Others against reviving the death penalty are Senate Committee on Justice Chair Richard J. Gordon, LP ally and Akbayan Senator Ana Theresia HontiverosBaraquel, and Minority Senators Francis G. Escudero and Antonio F. Trillanes IV.
Yet the death penalty bill is a priority in the Senate, according to Senator Panfilo M. Lacson, chairperson of the Senate committee on public order.
“Here in the Senate all twentyfour of us would like to be heard and would like to argue what our convictions are on a certain issue,” said Mr. Lacson, who is one of the bill’s authors.
With regard to the committee Mr. Gordon heads, Mr. Lacson suggested a separate sub- committee to tackle the bill.
“So I had a previous prior suggestion, if we can create [a] subcommittee, say, to be chaired by Senator [Emmanuel D.] Pacquiao because after all he is an author,... [t]hat would speed up hearings on the death penalty and whoever will defend the bill is really in favor of it,” said Mr. Lacson, a former chief of the Philippine National Police.
Besides Senators Lacson and Pacquiao, Senators Sherwin T. Gatchalian, Joseph Victor G. Ejercito, and Senate Majority Leader Vicente C. Sotto III favor the bill.
“It’s hard to get a read of the [other Senators], you can see that some of them are silent on the issue,” Mr. Lacson said. “Which way it will go, we do not know.” —