The Senate committee on justice began on Tuesday its deliberations on the proposed reimposition of the death penalty in the Philippines.
Invited as resource persons in the first hearing of the committee are Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, representatives of the Department of Interior and Local Government, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Bureau of Jail and Management and Penology, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, and non-government organizations such as the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Integrated Bar of the Philippines, and Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, among others.
There are at least six bills in the committee seeking the imposition of the capital punishment, mostly on drug-related cases.
Three were filed by Senator Manny Pacquiao, while the three others were filed separately by Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, Senator Panfilo Lacson and Senator Sherwin Gatchalian.
Unlike the six measures, Senator Leila de Lima’s bill, Senate Bill No. 368, seeks to prohibit the imposition of the death penalty.
So far, at least nine senators have openly expressed their opposition to the bill and they are Senate President Pro Tempore Franklin Drilon, Senators De Lima, Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, Bam Aquino, Risa Hontiveros and Senator Richard Gordon, all from the majority bloc, and three from the opposition group—Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto and Senators Francis “Chiz” Escudero and Antonio Trillanes IV.
Aside from the four authors of the death penalty bills—Pacquiao, Sotto, Lacson, and Gatchalian, three others were either supportive or “open” and they are Senators Joseph Victor Ejercito, Joel Villanueva and Sonny Angara. CDG/rga