THE PHILIPPINES. MOVE TO REPEAL DEATH PENALTY REVIVED, EDITORIAL

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo breathed new life to an old proposal to repeal the death penalty. The President, who was never comfortable ordering the execution of death row convicts, indicated that if the bill abolishing the death penalty obtained majority support from lawmakers, she would seriously consider going along with them.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., a staunch pro-life advocate, urged the President to heed the clamour for a repeal of the death penalty.
"Since it is obvious that the President has no intention whatsoever to send any death convict to the lethal injection chamber, it would be better if she would support the repeal of the death penalty," said Pimentel, principal author of the bill seeking to abolish the death penalty law in the Senate.
He noted that the bill seeking to abolish the death penalty had the support of the majority of members of the Senate and House of Representatives. However, the bill had little chance of approval without the support of the President.
The minority leader said the proposal to repeal the death penalty was based on empirical studies that capital punishment did not really deter the commission of crimes.
He said most countries had done away with the death penalty because it was inhuman and un-Christian. He said it was also constitutionally impermissible in the Philippines because of the constitutional mandate that prohibited unusually cruel punishment.
In Congress, pro-life advocates Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago, as well as Akbayan Reps. Loretta Ann "Etta" Rosales, Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel and Mario Aguja called for the return to life imprisonment as a substitute to death. In addition, the Akbayan Representatives urged the President to certify as urgent House Bill 1320, which sought the repeal of the Death Penalty Law. HB 1320, authored by Rosales, Hontiveros-Baraquel and Aguja, had been filed in July 2004.
"The death penalty is the worst form of human rights violation as it violates the very freedom of life, in its finality and irreversibility. It deprives an offender of this opportunity to be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society. A possible miscarriage of justice becomes irrevocable," said Rosales, chairman of the House committee on civil, political and human rights.
Santiago urged the President not to merely suspend the execution of the condemned criminals but also to exercise her constitutional prerogative to commute their death sentences to life imprisonment.
Presidential spokesman Bunye said Santiago's suggestion was well taken even as he clarified that the President has not totally junked her policy to allow the execution of death convicts "if absolutely necessary." Bunye said that although the President's policy of selective execution remained, she felt that "the implementation of capital punishment at this time is not imperative."