No Senate OK seen for death bill

Sen. Panfilo Lacson on Tuesday said he saw no sufficient support yet at the Senate for bills seeking to revive the death penalty as a committee led by Sen. Manny Pacquiao was set to resume hearings on the proposed measures.

Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III denied that the resumption of hearings on the bill was an offshoot of pressure from Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, who had complained of Senate inaction on the revival of the death penalty.

In a text message, Lacson said the Senate should not just follow what the House of Representatives did.

If there were bills from the House pending at the Senate, Lacson said he was sure “we will vote on it.”

But “in the case of the death penalty bill, for now it appears it cannot get a majority vote,” Lacson said.

Opposition Sen. Francis Pangilinan, a member of the Liberal Party, said he would continue heeding the LP stand against reviving death penalty.

But Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, a leading proponent of reviving the death penalty, said he believed death penalty would get a majority vote in the Senate if the penalty applied only to high-level drug traffickers.

Senate hearings on reviving the death penalty, a campaign promise of President Duterte and key component of his anticrime plan, were shelved to allow Malacañang time to clarify if reviving death penalty would not violate any international treaty against capital punishment.