Suarez pitches death penalty only during Duterte administration
House minority leader Danilo Suarez. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/LYN RILLON
Minority leader Danilo Suarez proposed a “sunset provision” for death penalty to be imposed only within the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.
In a press briefing at the House of Representatives on Wednesday, the Quezon representative said he just might include such a provision in the bill he co-authored with Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez to restore capital punishment for heinous crimes.
Suarez quipped that the death penalty could just be imposed during Duterte’s term, because by the end of it, all drug pushers and users will have been exterminated.
READ: Death penalty bill lacks the numbers; House debates reset
“A sunset provision that death penalty (will be) up to the term of President Duterte. Pagkatapos ng term, ma-li-lift. Baka by that time, ubos na eh (It will be lifted after his term. Maybe by that time, they will be finished),” Suarez said.
Article continues after this advertisementBut other members of the Suarez-led minority bloc voiced opposition to the moves to restore capital punishment, calling on their colleagues to vote based on conscience instead of party affiliation.
Article continues after this advertisementBuhay Rep. Lito Atienza expressed fear the death penalty would spawn “a violent generation of children exposed to violence on the streets.”
He said the problem that should be solved first is the corrupt criminal justice system.
“I have high regard for my colleagues that they will use their conscience. Many of them are Catholics. What about your moral issues? Can you accept the fact that life can now be treated as if it were a commodity of government?” Atienza said.
READ: House Justice committee approves death penalty bill
Ako Bicol Rep. Alfredo Garbin Jr. added that the criminal justice system should be “reformatory” in character.
Suarez agreed that the bill once it is scheduled to the plenary, it would be voted by plurality instead of a majority.
The lower House failed to fulfill Speaker Alvarez’s deadline for the chamber to approve on third and final reading the bill restoring death penalty before Christmas.
READ: House to approve death penalty bill before Christmas break
The House would adjourn for the Christmas break this Wednesday with the bill yet to undergo debate under second reading.
The bill just hurdled the justice committee last Dec. 7.
Alvarez filed the bill seeking to reimpose the death penalty after former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo abolished capital punishment in 2006 for its failure to deter crime.
The filing of the bill is pursuant to President Duterte’s campaign promise of returning capital punishment against heinous criminals.
READ: First bill in Congress seeks reinstatement of death penalty
Alvarez’s bill sought to reimpose the death penalty for heinous crimes listed under Republic Act 7659, including murder, plunder, rape, kidnapping and serious illegal detention, sale, use and possession of illegal drugs, carnapping with homicide, among others.
In the bill he co-authored, Alvarez said there is a need to reimpose the death penalty because “the national crime rate has grown to such alarming proportions requiring an all-out offensive against all forms of felonious acts.”
“Philippine society is left with no option but to deal with certain grievous offenders in a manner commensurate to the gravity, perversity, atrociousness and repugnance of their crimes,” according to the bill.
Duterte won the elections on a campaign promise to restore the death penalty by hanging, even making a snide remark that the convict’s head should be severed by hanging. Alvarez said Congress would look into the cheapest way for the death penalty, either by firing squad, lethal injection or by hanging. JE
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