Alvarez: Tyranny of minority can’t stop death penalty bill

The House of Representatives convenes a session on the death penalty bill on Mar. 1, 2017. (PHOTO BY JOAN BONDOC / PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER)

MANILA — The House of Representatives will not tolerate the “tyranny of the minority,” according to Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez in response to criticisms that the leadership strong-armed the approval of the death penalty bill on second reading on Wednesday.

Stung by complaints of anti-death penalty advocates that the chamber has turned into a “parliament of bullies and puppets,” Alvarez defended the actions of House leaders in pushing for the passage of the bill despite the strenuous objection of its opponents.

“The House journal will speak for itself,” he said Thursday. “We cannot allow the tyranny of the minority to prevail over the majority. We are a democratic country,” said Alvarez, a close friend and ally of President Duterte.

The 292-seat chamber approved the bill restoring the death penalty through a voice vote on Wednesday evening following heated exchanges on the plenary floor as the sponsors entertained individual amendments to the bill.

The approved bill was a heavily diluted version of the original measure, seeking only to punish major drug offenses, including the manufacture and sale of illegal drugs and the maintenance of a drug den or laboratory, with reclusion perpetua, a 20-40-year jail sentence, to death.

The proposal originally identified 21 heinous crimes including plunder, treason, murder and rape to be punishable by death, but the list was reduced to only drug-related offenses to make the bill more palatable to lawmakers otherwise opposed to capital punishment.

The bill will be put to third and final reading next week with Alvarez expecting more than 200 votes in favor of the administration bill.

Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas sought to turn the tables on critics who decried the “railroading” of the controversial measure by saying they were the ones “bullying the majority.”

“The House of Representatives exists to represent our people. The people want the death penalty reimposed as expressed by their representatives in our caucuses and shown by them in our sessions, but a minor group against it has been bullying the majority in expressing its will,” he said.

“We all saw how those against [the bill] bullied the majority by introducing amendments that were outrightly unacceptable since they were irreconcilable with the death penalty,” Fariñas said.

The period of amendments had been cut short after anti-death penalty opponents led by Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman attempted to filibuster by proposing changes to each line or page of the bill.

The opponents of the measure also repeatedly insisted on nominal voting, in which the House members would be forced to cast their vote individually, instead of a voice vote, to no avail.

At the height of the debate, Lagman moved for a roll call as he questioned the presence of a quorum, but Fariñas called his bluff and joined in the motion with the condition that the period of amendments would have to be terminated, and a vote would be called.

By that point, the House leaders had taken full control of the situation, calling a vote of ayes and nays, and blocking all attempts by the anti-death penalty lawmakers to prevent the approval of the bill.

“The precipitate termination of the period of individual amendments, like the premature closure of the debates, have led to the mutation of the House into a parliament of bullies and puppets,” said Lagman.  SFM/rga