A new Constitution abolished the death penalty in 1987, but gave Congress the option of restoring it for

A new Constitution abolished the death penalty in 1987, but gave Congress the option of restoring it for "heinous" crimes. Alarmed by a rise in crime, lawmakers did just that in 1994. Forty-six crimes have been made subject to the death penalty by the 1994 law, including 21 for which capital punishment is mandatory. Capital offences punishable by death under the 1994 law include non-violent crimes such as embezzlement of 50 million pesos or more of state funds. Drug laws were later made more stringent.
On June 7, 2002, Arroyo signed Republic Act 9165. This act instituted the Dangerous Drugs Act 2002 that replaced the Dangerous Drugs Act 1972 and lowered the quantities of drugs for which offenders can be condemned to death. By the terms of this new law, anyone caught with 10 grams or more of opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine or cocaine hydrochloride, marijuana resin or marijuana resin oil; 50 grams or more of methamphetamine hydrochloride or "shabu" and marijuana is punishable by death. The new act introduced possession of 10 grams or more of "ecstasy” and “those similarly designed or newly introduced drugs and their derivatives” as a capital offence. Importation, sale, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution, transportation and cultivation of Dangerous Drugs and/or Controlled Precursors and Essential Chemicals are punishable by death regardless of the quantity involved.
The new drug law states that: “the Revised Penal Code (Act No. 3814), as amended, shall not apply to the provisions of this Act, except in the case of minor offenders. Where the offender is a minor, the penalty for acts punishable by life imprisonment to death provided herein shall be reclusion perpetua to death.”
Article 68 of the Revised Penal Code does not allow for the imposition of the death penalty on individuals below 18 years of age. But on May 6, 2005, Senator Ralph Recto stated that there were still 20 minors on death rows in the Philippines.
Article 47 of the same Code states: “the death penalty shall be imposed in all cases in which it must be imposed under existing laws, except in the following cases: (1) when the guilty person be more than seventy years of age; (2) when upon appeal or revision of the case by the Supreme Court, all the members thereof are not unanimous in their voting as to the propriety of the imposition of the death penalty.”
Under Philippine law, all death sentences have to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. The law provides that a convict's execution should be carried out not earlier than one year but not later than 18 months after his sentence has been upheld with finality by the Supreme Court. Cases decided by the Supreme Court have to be reviewed by the Presidential Conscience Committee, which was created by former President Joseph Estrada.
The Philippines have one of the highest death row populations in the world in proportion to population. Research has shown that many convictions in capital cases have been made on the basis of coerced confessions and many of those on death row - often the poorest and most disadvantaged members of society - have not received fair trials, heightening the risk of executing the innocent.
On September 30, 2002 Philippines' President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a devout Roman Catholic, imposed a moratorium on executions as congress debated a bill to abolish the death penalty.
At the beginning of her mandate, early in 2001, Arroyo had commuted a number of death sentences, though she did not issue an official policy on the death penalty, considering it “a matter for congress to determine.” However in October 2002, Arroyo declared the moratorium did not apply to kidnappers, and called for the execution of convicted members of kidnap-for-ransom gangs to rid the country of its image as Asia's “kidnap capital.”
On December 5, 2003, after a series of contrasting declarations on her stance on the death penalty, Arroyo decided to lift the moratorium on executions. Her decision came after a surge in kidnappings for ransom and other violent crimes which led to an outcry from the business community, particularly the economically-influential Filipino-Chinese who were being targeted.
The Philippines has executed seven convicts by lethal injection, four for rape and three for robbery, since it reinstated the death penalty in 1994. The first execution was carried out in February 1999, the last took place in January 2000.
Despite the executions Philippine National Police statistics showed nationwide crime volume increased from 82,538 in 1999 to 85,778 in 2003. Cases of robbery, for which three convicts were put to death in July 1999, actually increased from 5,740 in 1999 to 5,884 the following year. The numbers increased even more to 6,164 in 2001 and 7,708 in 2002. When rape convict Leo Echegaray was put to death by lethal injection on February 5, 1999, rape cases actually increased to 3,177 in 1999 from only 3,031 in 1998.
In November 2004, President Arroyo stated that she would not impose a moratorium on all executions but assured that she would grant a reprieve on a case-to-case basis while Congress was deliberating on House Bill 1320 seeking to abolish the death penalty in the Philippines.
On February 22, 2005, Arroyo said the moratorium on the implementation of death penalty through lethal injection would stay indefinitely, except for convicted kidnappers and drug traffickers.