Death penalty not in senators’ agenda, says Drilon

Senator Franklin Drilon. INQUIRER FILES

How can the proposed death penalty measure be included in the administration’s legislative agenda when majority of senators are against it?

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon raised this question on Wednesday, still responding to Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez’s criticisms that the Senate was slow, citing as example the upper chamber’s failure to immediately act on the death penalty bill.

“Sa akin, I will repeat, we should look at the statement beyond the alleged failure to execute the legislative agenda, which, by the way, does not include death penalty – in both the Ledac (legislative-executive development advisory council) and in our inter-chamber legislative agenda,” Drilon said in an interview over CNN Philippines.

“Senator Ping (Pafilo Lacson) says today that there is not majority of the senators voting for the death penalty. How can we include that in our legislative agenda?”

Drilon said he was “not certain” the death penalty bill could get a majority vote in the Senate committee on justice which is tasked to deliberate on the issue.

The committee already conducted hearings on the measure but its chair, Senator Richard Gordon, later designated Senator Manny Pacquiao to continue with the deliberations in a subcommittee level.

Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III said the committee would resume this month its hearing on the issue.

READ: Pacquiao to resume death penalty hearing this month

“Let the majority in the committee endorse the death penalty bill. I do not know. I am not certain that you can get a majority in the committee to endorse the death penalty bill on the floor,” Drilon said.

The minority leader also reiterated his earlier statement that the death penalty bill is “dead.”

As early as April last year, Drilon has declared the measure “dead” with 13 senators likely to vote against it. /cbb

READ: Death penalty is dead — Drilon