Gordon won’t give up death penalty bills

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Richard Gordon won’t relinquish 10 pending bills on the death penalty to Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, who offered to chair a subcommittee panel to tackle the measures.

Gordon said Dela Rosa must follow clear-cut rules and debate on the death penalty bills within the Senate justice and human rights committee. The committee is chaired by Gordon.“No. We have rules. It’s clear that we are handling the committee on justice and human rights,” Gordon said over dzBB on Sunday.

“If he will say I am biased because I am against the death penalty, I will not give it to him since he is the one who is biased and aggressively for the death penalty,” he said.

Gordon said Dela Rosa should debate within the committee, of which the former Philippine National Police chief and death penalty advocate is a new member.

The Senate is scheduled to tackle on Monday Dela Rosa’s inclusion in the committee, and his suggestion to lead a subcommittee to tackle discussions on reviving the death penalty.

Dela Rosa got a seat in Gordon’s committee after Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian gave up his membership.

‘Why talk about this now?’ Gordon noted that the Senate could not just revive the death penalty issue because the Philippines is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1976.“I am curious. Why do we need to talk about this now? I mean, can you not disagree with the President? The priority is the people’s suffering and for us to fix the response, the stimulus package,” he said.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, agreed that the COVID-19 response should be the priority at this time.

“I hope our colleagues in the Senate will think twice and realize that this is not the priority. COVID-19 is the problem, death penalty is the issue,” he said over dzRH.

Rep. Lito Atienza of the pro-life Buhay party-list on Sunday said the government should focus on saving lives from COVID-19 rather than killing convicts.