(Eagle News) – The first bill filed in the 17th Congress under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte is one seeking to reimpose the death penalty on heinous crimes, not through hanging as what the President suggested, but through lethal injection.
House Bill no. 1 is authored by Davao del Norte Representative and incoming House Speaker Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez and Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro.
According to this bill, there is a need to reimpose death penalty because “the national crime rate has grown to such alarming proportions requiring an all-out offensive against all forms of felonious acts.”
In the bill’s explanatory note, it said that the prevalence of heinous crimes and illegal drugs in the country today is enough reason to reimpose capital punishment.
If the bill is approved, all laws inconsistent with this measure would be repealed.
The bill also sought to repeal Republic Act 9346, which is the law signed by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2006 that abolished the death penalty.
Under the bill, capital punishment would be imposed for the following crimes: human trafficking, illegal recruitment, plunder, treason, parricide, infanticide, rape, qualified piracy, bribery, kidnapping, illegal detention, robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons, car theft, destructive arson, terrorism and drug-related cases.
“There is evidently a need to reinvigorate the war against criminality by reviving a proven deterrent coupled by its consistent, persistent and determined implementation, and this need is as compelling and critical as any,” part of the House Bill no. 1 read.
“The imposition of the death penalty for heinous crimes and the mode of its implementation, both subjects of repealed laws, are crucial components of an effective dispensation of both reformative and retributive justice,” it said.
“It is thus, imperative, that this Congress, in the exercise of its mandate to take every conceivable step to protect the honor and dignity and the very life of each and every law-abiding Filipino, pass in the most expeditious manner such laws reimposing the penalty of death for the most abhorrent of offenses and provide for its execution,” the authors of the bill added.
The bill also sought to reenact into law Republic Act 8177 designating lethal injection as a way to carry out capital punishment.
