Plunderers also deserve death, House leaders now say

Depriving the poor of urgent medical services should be one of the grounds for government officials to be liable for plunder, which deserves the penalty of death, the leadership of the House of Representatives said.

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said he is determined to retain plunder among the list of heinous crimes punishable by capital punishment under the proposed measure reimposing the death penalty.

This came after he received reports that former Pagcor officials are allegedly involved in a P3.2-billion anomaly.

“In response to the inquiry on what legislation should propose, now with more reason, I will pursue that the offense of plunder be included in the death penalty,” Alvarez said.

Parañaque Rep. Gus Tambunting, chair of the committee on games and amusement, agreed.

“If our consciences are clear, then we have nothing to worry about. This would also fit well with the administration’s thrust to battle graft and corruption in government,” he said.

“We are short- changing them of the service that they should be getting. As public servants, we have an obligation to serve them, protect their interest and make sure that government expenditure should go where it was intended to go to in the first place. The money shouldn’t end up in someone’s pocket for his personal benefit,” he added.

Leyte Rep. Roger Mercado, chair of the committee on constitutional amendments, believes that excluding plunder from the death penalty bill is patently wrong.

“Why is that when we are the ones who steal we cannot be executed? We were trusted by the people,” he said in Filipino.

Congress, not Church, to decide

Various Catholic lay organizations staged a prayer rally dubbed “Walk for Life” in Manila and other parts in the country on Saturday to protest moves to revive the death penalty and the mounting cases of extrajudicial killings linked to the government’s war on drugs.

But Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III said it is Congress, not the Catholic Church or any other religious organization, which will decide on whether or not the state will reimpose the death penalty for heinous crimes.

“The final decision will be made by the elected public officials. Their sentiments do not make it the law or the law changes only because of them,” Pimentel told radio dzBB.

But he does not see any clash between the Church and the state, saying the former, “composed of bishops, priests and lay people, can really comment on public issues.”

He said everyone has the right to express their opinions as well as to peaceably assemble “just like any religious organization, non-government organization or union.”

Pimentel said he is against the death penalty but not on religious grounds. He is open to reimposing the death penalty “because of the call of the times.”

“Is this ( death penalty) timely to send a message to criminals who engage in heinous crimes? I’m open to that,” he said.

He also admitted that the 24- member Senate is more or less evenly divided on the issue.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, president of the Liberal Party, joined the Walk for Life in Cebu on Saturday.

Pangilinan, who was in the city to stand as sponsor at the wedding of an election volunteer, spoke against the Duterte administration’s attempt to revive the death penalty in the country.

“Death penalty does not work. It does not deter the commission of crimes. What works is certainty of punishment, not its severity,” the senator said in Filipino.

He cited government statistics showing 10,000 more crimes were committed when capital punishment was still in place from 1996 to 2006, and the crime rate has continued to drop between 2009 and 2015 after the death penalty was abolished.

Pangilinan also cited the Supreme Court, which said that in its review of capital punishment cases, judges in the lower courts were wrong 71.77 percent of the time.

“This means that the lower courts made a mistake imposing the death penalty to seven of 10 Filipinos in these cases,” he said, adding the death penalty is anti-poor.

To partially but substantially address the injustice in the country, the judicial system must be modernized, he added.

He also urged Duterte to convene the Joint Judicial Executive Legislative Advisory and Consultative Council to respond to the slow progress in cases and fill the vacancies among judges and prosecutors, which is the reason why most court hearings are postponed.

Meanwhile, Makati City Rep. Luis Campos Jr. is calling for the creation of a Capital Defense Unit composed of topnotch private lawyers whom the state will pay to defend indigent defendants “who may be charged with death penalty eligible offenses in court.”

“The state should at the very least guarantee that nobody gets wrongfully doomed on account of his or her simply being poor and unable to obtain superior legal representation,” Campos said. –