Conscience vote pushed on death penalty bill

MANILA, Philippines — Majority Leader Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri said senators should be allowed to vote on the bill seeking to revive the death penalty based on their conscience, and not along party lines.

Zubiri, an ally of President Rodrigo Duterte who wants the death penalty imposed on drug traffickers and plunderers, said he would not support the measure.

‘Not a party vote’

As a member of the Philippine Red Cross, Zubiri said he valued all forms of life.

“It should not be a party vote,” he said over dwIZ.

He said he had relayed his desire to cast a conscience vote on the measure to the President, and the latter was amenable to it.

“He was OK with it. He did not see a problem with it,” Zubiri said.

What is important is that as majority floor leader, he would not block the bill, he said.

Zubiri said he would allow other lawmakers to sponsor the measure on the floor and the debates to continue.

“As majority floor leader, I commit not to delay the proceedings,” he said.

He would allow the vote to take place so that the voice of the majority would be heard, Zubiri added.

Several bills have been filed in the Senate to revive the death penalty, but they differ on which crimes should be covered.

There are those who favor it only for high-level drug trafficking, while another proposal lists several crimes.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III has said it would be easier to approve the bill if it would only cover high-level drug trafficking. But he noted that it would not look good if the senators would oppose its imposition on plunder.

Vice President Leni Robredo, however, opposes the proposed reimposition of the death penalty.

The Vice President, in a visit to Siayan, Zamboanga del Norte, on Friday said she was sad about the President’s vigorous push to revive the death penalty.

‘It has not deterred crime’

“For a very long time, we have been against the death penalty,” she stressed.

“It’s not for the sake of opposing,  but if you remember, we already had death penalty before and data showed that it has not deterred the commission of a crime,” Robredo told reporters.

“We believe that capital punishment is not the solution to crime,” she added.

Abolished, reimposed

Robredo emphasized the need to reform the justice system to ensure proper implementation of the law and the certainty of punishment for those who break it.

Capital punishment was abolished by the 1987 Constitution although the Charter gave Congress the power to impose it for heinous crimes. But in 1993, citing an “alarming upsurge” of heinous crimes, Congress reimposed capital punishment through electrocution and gas poisoning through Republic Act No. 7659, which was approved in December that year.

In 2006, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo scrapped the death penalty.