A move to abolish capital punishment has suddenly snowballed...

A move to abolish capital punishment has suddenly snowballed in both chambers of Congress as some of its most vocal proponents have changed their minds.
Anti-crime crusaders and relatives of victims of heinous crimes have attacked the lawmakers, saying the move is political - to save jailed ousted president Joseph Estrada from lethal injection.
Estrada is being tried for plunder, a capital crime. But more congressmen from both the administration and opposition parties signalled their intention to back the repeal.
Senator Loretta Ann Rosales - who chairs the house committee on civil, political and human rights, which will sponsor the measure on the floor - said she was now optimistic of its passage because advocates of the death penalty had changed their minds and now preferred life imprisonment for sex offenders. Most of the nearly 2,000 occupants of death row are convicted rapists.
Its repeal in the Senate is a foregone conclusion since 16 of the 24 senators filed the measure, saying capital punishment had failed to curb the rising criminality. They included Senator Luisa Ejercito, Estrada's wife.
Ironically, five of the sponsors voted "yes" on February 5, 1996, to using lethal injection as the execution method. The five did not mention nor explain their change of heart.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo offered to certify the abolition as "urgent" to enable the legislature to approve it in a matter of days instead of months. She denied she was trying to save Estrada's neck.
"My support for the abolition of the death penalty law is consistent with my voting against the death penalty when I was a senator and it is not connected to any pending case," she said.