Drilon: Death penalty bill dead

The death penalty bill is dead in the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon came up with the assessment a week before Congress resumes its sessions, noting that 13 senators are expected to vote against the reinstatement of the death penalty in the country.

At the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum on Wednesday, Drilon said  the 13 senators who were against the death penalty bill in the 24-member Senate consisted of seven from the majority and six from the minority.

The House of Representatives on March 7 approved on final reading—217 in favor, 54 against and 1 abstention—House Bill No. 4727, which would impose the death penalty  on drug-related offenses. The bill has been transmitted to the Senate for its own deliberations.

President Duterte has urged Congress to pass the bill to fulfill his campaign promise of restoring the death penalty as part of his war on drugs.

Drilon could name only seven senators—six from the minority and one from the majority—who opposed the death penalty, as the others in the majority had told him about their opposition to the bill in confidence.

The six members of the minority are himself, Senators Francis Pangilinan, Leila de Lima, Risa Hontiveros, Bam Aquino and Antonio Trillanes IV, and one from the majority, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, who is his colleague in the Liberal Party, according to Drilon.

“I don’t see how it can pass for the next five weeks (of sessions), or for that matter during this Congress, unless a number of senators change their minds,” Drilon told reporters.

The Senate has yet to resume its hearings on the death penalty measure after just one hearing.

Senators Richard Gordon and Grace Poe became the eighth and ninth senators to declare their opposition to the death penalty measure on Wednesday.

In a statement, Gordon, who chairs the Senate justice and human rights committee that is tackling the measure, said that instead of reimposing the death penalty, it would be better to push for an improved prison system and adopt a stricter policy on life imprisonment to better deter criminality.

“It’s a bigger deterrent if you see a bad person being jailed and having a hard time. Even his family will have a hard time, because they will visit him, bring him food and they would be sad … . So this is much harder than just executing a criminal because other criminals would forget about the execution and just commit crimes,” Gordon said.

For her part, Poe, who was interviewed at SMX Convention Center, said much had to be done in fixing the justice system and law enforcement system.

“Earlier, I said that [the] death penalty [could] be imposed on heinous crimes but from what we are seeing now in our system of justice and law enforcement, … there is still much to be fixed. Who are the victims if you don’t have a good justice system and law enforcement system?” she said.