Pubdate: Thu, 24 Feb 2005
Source: Manila Bulletin (The Philippines)
Contact:  http://www.mb.com.ph/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/906
Author: Ferdie J. Maglalang
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/areas/Philippines

BAN ON DEATH PENALTY STAYS, BUT NOT FOR
DRUGS, KIDNAPPING

Malacanang said yesterday the moratorium on the implementation of death 
penalty through lethal injection will stay indefinitely, except for 
convicted kidnappers and drug traffickers, in order to strike fear among 
criminal syndicates victimizing innocent individuals.

Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye made the 
clarification after Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita announced that 
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is poised to grant today a 90-day 
reprieve to 14 prisoners sentenced to death for rape.

"It has not changed. The President would like to impose the death penalty, 
especially on kidnapping and drug-related cases. But for other (cases), the 
President prefers to be lenient," he said of the state-imposed moratorium 
on execution among Death Row convicts.

The clamor for the death penalty resurfaced anew after some anti-crime 
groups expressed alarm over the audacity of criminal syndicates and 
terrorist groups in the country tagged in the series of bomb attacks in 
major cities in the country.

"That's a matter of policy of the President, and therefore, depending on 
prevailing situation, the President should be able to make key decisions. 
But for the moment, the President has not considered lifting the moratorium 
on the implementation of the death penalty," Ermita added.

The calls on whether to lift the moratorium on the death penalty or not 
came as former movie actor and Quezon City Representative Dennis Roldan was 
tagged as mastermind and financier of several kidnapping incidents, the 
most recent of which involved a seven-year-old Chinese-Filipino abducted 
last February 9.

Imposing a moratorium on death penalty due to the relentless lobbying of 
the Catholic Church and prolife advocates, the President has however given 
the green light for authorities to proceed with the execution of convicted 
kidnappers and drug traffickers.

Although admitting that she has no choice but to implement the death 
penalty law, Mrs. Arroyo has left to Congress leaders to determine whether 
or not capital punishment has indeed become an effective deterrent against 
crime and therefore, should be either repealed or fully implemented.

When she was still a senator, Mrs. Arroyo voted against the law re-imposing 
death penalty through lethal injection on grounds that all convicted 
criminals should be given the chance to repent and receive humane 
punishment of serving his sentence in jail where he or she may be 
rehabilitated.

However, in her State-of-the-Nation Addresses, the President has repeatedly 
ordered authorities to ready the lethal injection chamber so that those 
convicted kidnappers and drug traffickers shall be meted out with capital 
punishment affirmed with finality by the Supreme Court. 
- ---