Sotto: Life imprisonment not deterring crime

SOTTO. ARNOLD ALMACEN

After a seven-year gap comes a call in Congress to bring back the “ultimate penalty.”

Citing the “influx of heinous crimes,” Sen.  Vicente Sotto  III on Tuesday sought the revival of Republic Act 7659 or the death penalty law in the country, which last sent a convict to the lethal injection chamber in 2000 before it was repealed in 2006.

“The imposition of life imprisonment proves to be a nondeterrent against criminality,” Sotto said in Senate Bill 2080. “The indiscriminate and horrendous brutality happening everywhere rightfully and justifiably compels the government to resort to the ultimate criminal penalty.”

The 1987 Constitution abolished capital punishment, making the Philippines the first country in Asia to do so. But the prevalence of heinous crimes in the following years prompted then President Fidel Ramos to reenact the death penalty law in December 1993.

Rape convict Leo Echegaray became the first to be executed by lethal injection under the reinstated law in February 1999, which was also the first execution in 23 years. Six more followed within the next 11 months.

In December 2000, President Joseph Estrada issued a de facto moratorium on executions in deference to the Catholic Jubilee Year.

RAMOS. LYN RILLON

In June 2006, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo finally repealed the death penalty law.

Counting those since the post-World War II era, a total of 77 convicts had been executed under the law, including 35 during the Marcos administration.

Sotto’s bill could reopen the debate as it noted that “the influx of heinous crimes poses an alarming situation in the country nowadays.”

The senator cited the “alarming upsurge of such crimes which has resulted not only in the loss of human lives and wanton destruction of property” but also “undermined the people’s faith in the government and the latter’s ability to maintain peace and order in the country.”

In the House of Representatives, there is a pending bill imposing the death penalty on foreigners involved in drug cases—but only if the laws of their own country also prescribe capital punishment.

The bill, authored by Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and Abante Mindanao Rep. Maximo Rodriguez, states that the prescribed penalty, including death, of the national law of a foreigner’s home country would be imposed if the foreigner is found guilty of drug trafficking.

The death penalty, if applicable, would be imposed even if such a penalty is prohibited in the Philippines, according to the proposed measure.

If the act committed is not punishable in the foreigner’s home country, Philippine laws would apply, it added.

In pushing for the measure, the two lawmakers noted that many foreigners had been emboldened to engage in the drug trade in the Philippines  because they would only be imprisoned if convicted, unlike in their home countries where they could face execution for the same crime. Maila Ager, INQUIRER.net; Leila Salaverria; Inquirer Research