Lacson withdraws bill reimposing death penalty

Sen. Panfilo Lacon– Senate PRIB photo / Voltaire F. Domingo

MANILA, Philippines — After earlier raising doubts over proposals to revive the death penalty, Sen. Panfilo Lacson on Tuesday formally withdrew his principal authorship of the Senate bill seeking to reimpose capital punishment for heinous crimes.

In a letter to lawyer Myra Villarica, Senate secretary, Lacson also requested that his bill, Senate Bill No. 27, no longer be considered for deliberation by the Senate panels concerned.

Lacson, chair of the Senate committee on national defense and security, last week declared he was inclined to withdraw his support for the death penalty for heinous crimes, saying it was better to spare the life of a criminal than to wrongly execute an innocent person.

“It is better that the guilty be imprisoned for life than to have innocents executed because of a wrong judgment,” he said in a statement.

The senator reiterated the stand he made days ago when he changed his stance on the death penalty for heinous crimes, saying that life imprisonment and penal reforms were better alternatives.

Lacson had said that his change of heart came after watching the 2003 Hollywood film “The Life of David Gale,” convinced that better solutions are available other than execution of those convicted of heinous crimes like drug-related offenses.

He, however, stressed the need to reform the country’s jail system supposedly to stop the practice of granting favors to moneyed convicts.

Lacson also expressed support for the proposal of Senate President Vicente Sotto III to confine drug lords in a “super max” prison facility, with no means of communication with the outside world. INQ