The first execution under President Gloria Macapagal...

The first execution under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's administration will likely be conducted sooner than earlier announced.
A source from the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) said the Pasig Regional Trial Court released an execution order against a taxi driver who was convicted of raping his 13-year-old daughter in 1997.
Filomeno Serrano is to be executed on Sept. 20. His death sentence, handed down by the trial court in 1999, was affirmed by the Supreme Court on February 28, 2001.
The delay in the transmittal of the SC decision was the reason why prison officials failed to include Serrano's name in the list of candidates scheduled to die via lethal injection this year, the source said.
Justice Secretary Hernando Perez had announced that the first execution will be held on October 16. The death row inmate, identified as Alfredo Nardo, was also convicted of rape.
According to BuCor records, the first in line for lethal injection is Rolando Pagdayawon, whose conviction was affirmed by SC in March 2001. The trial court, however, is yet to schedule his execution.Under the death penalty's implementing rules administered by the Department of Justice, the execution of an inmate must be carried out not earlier than one year after the conviction is affirmed by the SC but not later than 18 months of the said affirmation.
Nardo and Pagdayawon are among the 17 candidates up for execution this year.
Seven convicts have already been put to death since the revival of capital punishment in 1993, four of whom were convicted of raping their daughters.