Lawmakers were urging President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo...

Lawmakers were urging President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to suspend the execution by lethal injection of convicted kidnappers Robert Lara and Roderick Licayan on January 30, following the arrest of two key suspects in the original kidnapping case. The lawmakers, coming from opposing sides of the death issue, also urged Arroyo to order a review of the cases to determine if the two were innocent or the least guilty. Meanwhile, the Public Attorneys Office asked the Supreme Court, which had affirmed the convicts' sentences, to defer the executions, reopen the case and order a new trial at the lower court to evaluate the new evidence. "There has to be a suspension of the execution of these death convicts due to doubts of their guilt," said Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., one of 16 senators who supported a Senate resolution seeking to abolish the death penalty law. Senator Robert Barbers, a former policeman who was opposed to the abolition of capital punishment, agreed that the President should delay the execution until a review of their case is completed.