(Eagle News)– The House justice committee on Wednesday (December 7) approved its substitute bill seeking to revive the death penalty as punishment for heinous crimes.
Twelve voted to approve the bill, six voted against it, and one abstained.
The committee approval of the measure implies it might meet the deadline for its passage before Congress goes on holiday break.
President Rodrigo Duterte has said the death penalty is needed for his war against illegal drugs.
Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, committee chair, cited the killing of a judge-friend who was ambushed after convicting a carnapping suspect as compelling reason to restore the death penalty.
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman and Rep. Kaka Bag-ao both insisted they saw no compelling reason to bring back capital punishment, as required under the Constitution.
Congress abolished the death penalty in 2006.
Leyte Representative Vicente Veloso, justice committee vice chair, said the death penalty is needed against heinous crime offenders.
“If in front of you is Satan, what can courts do? None, because the maximum penalty provided for in our penal system is life imprisonment. Kung ang nasa harapan mo ay si Satanas na mismo, oh my God! Bigyan mo naman ang gobyerno ng option para patayin na ‘yan. Satanas na ‘yan ah (If the person in front of you is Satan himself, oh my God! Give the government the option to kill him. That is Satan already)!,” Veloso said.
Majority Leader Rodolfo Farinas, a co-author of the bill, said although the 1987 Constitution prohibits the death penalty, it allows Congress to reinstate the punishment for “heinous crimes.”
The bill reads: “In the interest of justice, public order and rule of law, and the need to rationalize and harmonize the penal sanctions, the Congress finds compelling reasons to impose the death penalty for heinous crimes that are hereby defined as grievous, odious and hateful offenses, which by reason of their inherent or manifest wickedness, viciousness, atrocity and perversity are repugnant and outrageous to the common standards and norms of decency and morality in a just, civilized and ordered society.”
A list of 22 crimes have been proposed to be meted the capital punishment. They are the following:
1. Treason
2. Piracy in general and mutiny on the high seas or in Philippine waters
3. Qualified piracy
4. Qualified bribery
5. Parricide
6. Murder
7. Infanticide
8. Rape
9. Kidnapping and serious illegal detention
10. Robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons
11. Destructive arson
12. Plunder
13. Importation of dangerous drugs and/or controlled precursors and essential chemicals
14. Sale, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution and transportation of dangerous drugs and/or controlled precursor and essential chemicals
15. Maintenance of a den, dive or resort where any dangerous drug is used or sold in any form
16. Manufacture of dangerous drugs and/or controlled precursors and essential chemicals
17. Possession of dangerous drugs
18. Cultivation or culture of plants classified as dangerous drugs or are sources thereof
19. Unlawful prescription of dangerous drugs
20. Criminal liability of a public officer or employee for misappropriation, misapplication or failure to account for the confiscated, seized and/or surrendered dangerous drugs, plant sources of dangerous drugs, controlled precursors and essential chemicals, instruments/ paraphernalia and/or laboratory equipment including the proceeds or properties obtained from the unlawful act committed.
21. Criminal liability for planting evidence
22. Carnapping
The bill proposes hanging, firing squad and lethal injection in carrying out the punishment.