Death penalty revival spooking British investors

The British business community is concerned that a Philippine government willing to breach an international agreement to pass the death penalty would find it “much easier to walk away from a commercial treaty,” the United Kingdom envoy said.

Outgoing UK Ambassador Asif A. Ahmad told reporters that British investors were raising questions regarding the state of Philippine politics, following the trail of bodies left by the government’s bloody drug war.

One issue that troubles British investors is the plan to revive the death penalty, an indication that the Philippines would backtrack from an international commitment to do otherwise.

“I think there will be a severe blow. It basically says that the Philippines can walk away from international treaties. If you can walk away from an international treaty, it’s much more easy to walk away from a commercial treaty,” Ahmad told reporters late on Monday.

“What I’m saying is the distractions that we see now, the noise as we call it, is almost un-Filipino. It’s not the bet we were making,” he said.

This may hurt the confidence on the Philippines of British investors, who see the country as a “natural place” to set up shop as they expand in Southeast Asia, according to Ahmad, who is set to leave his post as ambassador in July.

The Congress under the Arroyo administration passed a law in 2006 that abolished the death penalty. This stand against capital punishment was carried over to the United Nations in 2007 when Manila ratified the Second Optional Protocol of the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

International law experts say that ratifying the protocol binds parties to their commitment against restoring the death penalty. They say that since there is no opt-out mechanism in the agreement, passing the bill will mean breaching the covenant.

On top of this, critics fear that the Philippines may also risk losing the Generalized System of Preference Plus (GSP+), which allows zero tariff for over 6,000 Philippine products that are exported to the European Union.

This economic benefit is conditional to the government’s compliance to key
international covenants, including the second optional protocol.

In January, Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said that losing the GSP+ was an acceptable consequence of breaching the second optional protocol because the government’s anticrime efforts were of a higher priority.

The United Kingdom is one of the top trading partners of the Philippines in the European Union, which stands against the death penalty.