Duterte, Robredo on collision course over death penalty

Presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte (left) and vice presidential candidate Leni Robredo. INQUIRER, CDN PHOTO / TONEE DESPOJO, NINO JESUS ORBETA

NAGA CITY—Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo, who leads the nearly completed vice presidential vote count, said her opposition to the death penalty should not be a source of conflict between herself and presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte.

Talking to reporters here on Tuesday, Robredo said reinstating capital punishment was not the answer to the high crime rate.

“I have been very vocal about this. I will continuously voice [my opposition to] its imposition even though it will be Congress that will decide [whether or not to bring it back],” Robredo, a lawyer, said.

She does not believe the death penalty deters heinous crime, citing the experiences under the Marcos and Ramos administrations when capital punishment was enforced.

Robredo came home to this city on Tuesday, arriving on a passenger bus, to attend to the wake of a member of Lakas ng Kababaihan, a people’s organization comprised of women she formed before she entered politics.

Robredo said their opposing views on the reimposition of the death penalty should not be a point of conflict between herself and Duterte.

“In general, I will be supportive of him. In our impending partnership, there will be things that we will agree and disagree on,” Robredo said.

Duterte’s plan to restore the death penalty was also opposed by the local Catholic Church, officials and analysts said on Tuesday.

After putting to death seven convicted criminals by lethal injection in 1999 and 2000, the Philippines abolished the death penalty in 2006 following stiff opposition from the Catholic Church, the religion of 80 percent of Filipinos.

“As people of faith, we do not adhere to capital punishment because we do not have the right to judge who should live and who should die,” said Father Lito Jopson, head of the Catholic bishops’ communications office.

Duterte’s landslide May 9 election victory does not sway the bishops’ stance, Jopson said.

“It is not based on popularity… but rather on complete moral principles of the Catholic faith and faith demands that we respect all persons’ human dignity,” Jopson added.

Duterte had said he would ask Congress to reinstate capital punishment for drug trafficking, rape, murder, robbery and kidnapping for ransom, among other grievous offenses.

If the death penalty were brought back, it should be handed down for only a very limited number of crimes, and only the most heinous, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III said on Tuesday.

Pimentel is president of PDP-Laban, the party of Duterte who has said he favors capital punishment by hanging.  With a report from Leila B. Salaverria and AFP