Lines now being drawn in Congress
LINES are being drawn in the Senate and in the House of Representatives on the death penalty bill being pushed by the administration. Fourteen senators have signed a resolution declaring that it is the sense of the Senate that any treaty ratified by the Senate “becomes a part of the law of the land and may not be undone without the shared power that put it into effect.” In other words, the Senate must concur in any decision to set aside a treaty.
At issue in this case is the death penalty bill which, if approved, would go against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the subsequent Protocol, which called on all approving and ratifying states to adopt a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. The Philippines is among 109 countries that approved the Protocol in 2010.
In the House, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has asked anti-death penalty congressmen to desist from using delaying tactics such as questioning the quorum and delivering long privileged speeches everytime the bill is scheduled for debate on the floor
It may be recalled that the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which the Aquino administration pushed determinedly in Congress, failed to make it despite the overwhelming majority of Liberal Party solons, Everytime the BBL bill was scheduled, there was no quorum.
It does not help the proponents of the bill that so many crimes are proposed to be penalized with death. Among them: treason, piracy, mutiny, qualified bribery, parricide, murder, infanticide, rape, kidnapping and serious illegal detention, robbery with violence, destructive arson, plunder, importation, production, and distribution of drugs, planting of evidence, and carnaping.
Even if most of these crimes are removed from the bill, leaving only the most heinous ones, the penalty of death goes against the Christian tradition which lies at the core of this nation. “Thou shall not kill” says one of the Ten Commandments. “He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone,” Christ said when some people wanted to stone to death a woman found in adultery.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has issued a pastoral statement on this issue and sermons in many churches today are likely to touch on this. The battle over the bill will be in Congress and here the battle lines are being drawn. By March 18 when Congress takes a break, the House should have reached a decision, and then it will be the turn of the Senate.