‘No rush in taking up death penalty revival’

There is no urgency to take up proposals to revive the death penalty and thus the measure will have to wait until the next regular session of Congress in July.

Sen. Richard Gordon, chairman of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, said yesterday there is no more time to resume hearings on the death penalty since the first regular session of Congress will adjourn sine die at the end of the month.

He said Sen. Manny Pacquiao asked him to resume the hearings on death penalty bills, a number of which he filed.

Since Pacquiao is now busy training for his upcoming fight abroad, Gordon explained that he would not be available for the proceedings anyway.

Gordon noted that the Department of Justice has also not yet submitted its official opinion on the issue of whether or not there is a need for the Senate to act on the second optional protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the treaty which requires all signatory states to abolish the death penalty in their respective jurisdictions.

The first and only hearing on the death penalty bills in the Senate was suspended after the issue of the ratification of the ICCPR was raised and some confusion arose on the matter.

Gordon reiterated that he is personally against the death penalty and that he agreed with members of the United Nations Human Rights Council who called on the Philippine government to refrain from reintroducing capital punishment in the country.

“I think right now it’s still too close to call. As far as I’m concerned, I’m not in favor of it and I will speak against it,” he said.

Sen. Francis Escudero, who is also against the death penalty, said there is still a good chance that the bill could be passed by the Senate, adding that a good number of them are open to approving it.

This was contrary to a claim by Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon that the death penalty bills are already dead in the Senate.

Escudero said Drilon and other anti-death penalty advocates should not be overconfident and relax because the vote on the bills could still go either way.

He said, however, that some European Union ambassadors told him that the revival of the death penalty could have repercussions, including the removal of the preferential tariff rates for the Philippines.

Even if Congress ends up passing the bill, Escudero told the ambassadors to hold off any adverse action against the Philippines until an actual execution is carried out in the country.

Based on the slow justice system in the country and the legal challenges that would crop up on the revival of the death penalty, it is highly unlikely that any executions would be carried out under the Duterte administration, he said.