By Rene Acosta, Jovee Marie dela Cruz, Bernadette Nicolas and Joel R. San Juan
IF two former police chiefs had their way, there would be a channel on free TV airing live how the state wields its power over life and death.
Now members of the Senate, Panfilo M. Lacson Sr. and Ronald M. dela Rosa, approve of public viewing of the killing of a death-row convict. But while Dela Rosa favors death by musketry, Lacson is averse to it. Still, the two believe that showing the killing of a convicted criminal would lead to a decrease in heinous crimes. And they seem confident death penalty would be reinstated under the Duterte administration.
But while this is yet to be scheduled for debate in the 18th Congress, the polarizing effect of death penalty on Philippine society is already felt inside and outside the House of Representatives and the Judiciary.
PHILIPPINE society’s most recent memory of the death penalty was 20 years ago, seven days before Valentine’s Day of 1999, in the persona of Leo P. Echegaray.
Echegaray became the first Filipino to be executed via lethal injection after capital punishment, abolished in 1987, was reinstated in 1994 during the term of President Joseph Estrada via Republic Act (RA) 7659 or the Death Penalty Law.
Echegaray, a house painter, was executed five years after he was convicted in 1994 for statutory rape. The case was filed by his then 10-year-old stepdaughter who claimed she was raped several times by Echegaray.
The Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Quezon City in 1994 sentenced him to death.
In a unanimous decision issued on June 25, 1996, the Supreme Court rejected Echegaray’s petition to reverse the ruling issued by the Quezon City RTC.
In his plea, Echegaray maintained his innocence of the crime. He said the accusation against him was concocted and strongly motivated by greed over a certain lot situated at the National Housing Authority’s (NHA) Madrigal Estate Housing Project in Barangay San Antonio, San Francisco del Monte, Quezon City.
Echegaray was referring to the maternal grandmother of his victim, Asuncion Rivera.
ECHEGARAY accused Rivera of brainwashing his stepdaughter to file a rape case against him so that if he is meted out a death sentence, the title to the said property will be consolidated to her favor.
The subject property is co-owned by Echegaray and the live-in partner of Rivera, based on NHA records.
Thus, Echegaray tried to persuade the Supreme Court to believe that Rivera fabricated the rape charge in order to eliminate him from being a co-owner so that the live-in partners would have the property for their own.
However, the High Tribunal, then headed by Chief Justice Andres D. Narvasa, gave weight to the testimony of the victim over Echegaray’s claim, paving the way for his execution.
Estrada green-lighted Echegaray’s execution hoping it would serve as a deterrent to heinous crimes, despite pleas and calls from the religious sector and human-rights advocates to stop the execution.
However, then Deputy Speaker for Mindanao Daisy Avance-Fuentes reported that a record-high 3,164 cases of rape were reported to the police in 1999, or 131 more than the number recorded in 1998.
Avance-Fuentes said that in 1999, around nine women were raped each day.
“Ironically, that was the year when we started hauling off rapists to the lethal injection chamber,” she was quoted in the Today newspaper article of January 30, 2000.
Still, how a lethal injection snuffed out the life from Echegaray as he lay on a bunker at the National Penitentiary wasn’t publicly shown. He was pronounced dead by prison officials at 3:19 p.m. on that Friday, 329 days before a new millennium.
THE reinstatement of the death penalty in 1994 came just seven years after a general State policy against it was enshrined in the 1987 Constitution.
However, Article III, Section 19 of the 1987 Constitution did not abolish per se the death penalty, Muntinlupa Rep. Rozzano Rufino B. Biazon explained. Biazon said the article gave Congress the power to impose the death penalty for compelling reasons, involving heinous crimes.
Thus was RA 7659 (An Act to Impose the Death Penalty on Certain Heinous Crimes, Amending for that purpose the Revised Penal Laws, as amended, other Special Penal Laws, and for other purposes) passed.
By 2002, RA 9165 (An Act Instituting the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002) repealed RA 6425 (Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972) and imposed the extreme penalty of death for illegal drug traffickers and their cohorts.
However, the Thirteenth Congress during the administration of President Gloria Arroyo enacted, in 2006, RA 9346 (An Act Prohibiting the Imposition of Death Penalty in the Philippines) and repealed RA 8177 (An Act Designating Death by Lethal Injection), RA 7659, “and all other laws, executive orders and decrees, insofar as they impose the death penalty.”
BIAZON, one of the authors of a bill seeking to re-impose the death penalty, said that up until 2006, the Philippines was just one of a handful of countries in the world that impose the death penalty as capital punishment for criminals found guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
He said that intense lobbying from various interest groups led by the Roman Catholic Church succeeded in changing the mindset of legislators.
According to the lawmaker, the passage of RA 9346 became a statement of the Philippines to the international community that the country is abandoning death penalty to punish criminals found guilty of committing heinous crimes.
In his House Bill (HB) 741, Biazon said the impunity by which criminals carry on with their “dastardly acts makes it appear as if we are not a nation of laws.”
“We are confronted almost every day by reports in the tri-media of children still learning how to walk being raped or of senior citizens who are in their twilight years being bludgeoned to death right in their very own homes,” he said.
“These barbaric acts are, more often than not, committed by perpetrators under the influence of drugs. Such crimes leave wailing parents, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and their relatives who are scarred and traumatized for the rest of their lives crying and demanding for justice,” Biazon added.
When asked if his office has statistics on the cases of crimes, the lawmaker said the data came from the Philippine National Police (PNP).
BIAZON said it has always been argued that there is no evidence that the death penalty serves as a deterrent to deadly criminals.
“Hence, life should not be destroyed just in the hope that other lives might be saved,” he said. “There may be truth to such argument but the fear of dying is also a strong motivation to hinder an individual from doing a certain type of activity such as selling illegal drugs to people.”
Another argument against the death penalty is that imprisonment is sufficient punishment for those who commit crimes and are convicted, Biazon said, adding that it is even argued that reform is possible when a convict experiences incarceration.
“Considering that the Constitution grants Congress the flexibility to impose death penalty under certain circumstances and based on the current wisdom of the times, it is best to once again restore the penalty of death for crimes under RA 9165,” he said. “This is to put back into the consciousness of those involved in the illegal drugs trade that the ultimate punishment of death awaits them should they continue with their nefarious acts.”
IN filing House Bill 2026, Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace S. Barbers said the alarming rise of heinous crimes in the country calls for the re-imposition of capital punishment.
“Crimes disturb the order of society,” Barbers said. “The death penalty is said to be the strongest deterrent society has against such crimes.”
The lawmaker said his proposal aims to restore order and adequately punishes criminals, saying the death penalty also serves as retribution for victims and their families.
“Since the government has the highest interest in preventing heinous crimes, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter unlawful acts—the death penalty,” he said.
“If criminals charged guilty of committing heinous crimes are sentenced to death and executed, potential criminals will think twice before committing crimes for fear of losing their own life.”
For Oriental Mindoro Rep. Paulino Salvador C. Leachon, the reinstatement of the death penalty is one of the major thrusts of the Duterte administration.
IN filing his HB 3128, Leachon pushed to impose the death penalty for the heinous crime of treason, aggravated rape, plunder and certain grave violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
“There is a need to effectively carry out death penalty for criminals who do not give value to the life and security of their fellow countrymen, to serve as a deterrent against the commission of heinous crimes and to bring justice to the victims of such crimes,” he said.
“It is thus imperative for Congress, in the exercise of its mandate, to take every conceivable step to protect the honor and dignity and the very life of each law-abiding Filipino citizen, to impose the death penalty for the heinous crime of treason, aggravated rape, plunder and certain grave violation of the Dangerous Act,” he added.
During the 17th Congress, the House passed on third and final reading a bill reinstating the death penalty for drug-related offenses. The bill, however, remained unacted upon because the Senate refused to take it up.
A DECADE ago, former Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban issued a dissenting opinion insisting that RA 7659 was unconstitutional for failure to comply with the requirements of “heinous” and “compelling reasons” prescribed by the Constitution.
In the same opinion, Panganiban expressed belief that RA 7659 seemed to militate against the poor, the powerless and the marginalized.
He based his opinion on the profile of 165 death convicts submitted by the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), the group that offered legal services for the said convicts.
Of the 165 convicts that the group surveyed, 21 percent were then earning between P200 and P2,900 monthly; while approximately 27 percent had salaries between P3,000 and P3,999 monthly.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority revealed that the minimum wage in 1999 for non-agriculture workers was between P117 and P223.50 daily; up from the P115 daily to P185 daily rates in 1997.
Those earning above P4,000 monthly are exceedingly few: 7 percent were earning between P4,000 and P4,999; 4 percent had salaries between P5,000 and P5,999; 7 percent were earning between P6,000 and P6,999 ; those earning between P7,000 and P15,000 comprise only 4 percent, while those earning P15,000 and above were only 1 percent.
In terms of occupation, most of the death convicts were workers in the agricultural, construction, transport and service sectors or vendors.
In terms of education, most of the death convicts were either elementary or high-school graduates, while none of them use English as their medium of communication.
Almost half of the death convicts speak and understand Filipino.
THE move to reinstate death penalty for heinous crimes, especially those related to drugs as well as plunder, took its cue from President Rodrigo Duterte.
In the President’s fourth State of the Nation Address, he said he is “aware that we still have a long way to go in our fight against this social menace.”
This is the reason “I advocate the imposition of the death penalty for crimes related to illegal drugs. Our citizens have begun to do their part in the war against drugs, and through the barangay formation of anti-drug councils, and also actually surrendering bricks of cocaine found floating in the sea into our islands. I call this responsibility,” Duterte said. “However, the drugs will not be crushed unless we continue to eliminate corruption that allows this social monster to survive.”
While Congress has yet to define and identify the crimes which the death penalty would cover and how the execution would be carried out, Lacson and Dela Rosa already have formulas, albeit differing ones.
Lacson wants capital punishment to cover crimes involving the following: illegal drugs; piracy; bribery; parricide; murder; rape; kidnapping and serious illegal detention; arson; plunder; terrorism; human trafficking and arms smuggling, for which he favors lethal injection as the means of execution.
DELA Rosa said he wants the execution to be carried out by firing squad, which he considers the best method if the objective of the government was really to instill fear among criminals and big-time drug offenders.
It was under dela Rosa’s helm of the PNP where the anti-illegal drugs campaign was initiated, and which is now being sustained by the leadership of Police General Oscar D. Albayalde. The anti-drugs drive remains among the thrusts of the Duterte government.
Lacson agreed with dela Rosa that a firing squad would deliver the most chilling effect, noting that when Chinese drug trafficker Lim Seng was executed by musketry in Fort Bonifacio in 1973, crimes involving drugs totally disintegrated, but he said a firing squad would be too “brutal.”
Dela Rosa’s proposal is to carry the firing squad in a plaza and have it covered live by the media.
GIVEN that the death penalty has to go through full deliberations by Congress, Albayalde said the focus of the PNP is how to address the imperfections of the justice system, wherein law enforcement is at the forefront.
He said the PNP must help ensure that it would be “guilt-free,” or has done its job properly when a convict is sent to death row. And one way of doing it is to make sure that convicts are really guilty of the crimes that were committed, he added. This is the reason internal cleansing is being stepped up in the organization.
Albayalde declines to cite his preferred manner for carrying out capital punishment, deferring to what the law would dictate. But being in a civilized country, he believes that lethal injection would be enough.
He agrees that having a law imposing death penalty would be a crime deterrent.
For De La Salle University economics professor Maria Ella C. Oplas, reimposing the death penalty is not the solution to the country’s problems.
Oplas said it does not help that the justice system is flawed. “Although I would like to still have faith in our justice system, the problem is justice is still pro-rich whatever side we look at,” Oplas said in a text message to the BusinessMirror. “I believe death penalty will not solve the many problems in the country.”
But should there be a death penalty, she said she is fine with having this imposed on rapists.
“Because rape is a psychological problem. You have a problem psychologically if you can rape. I think that is the most gruesome thing you can do to another person,” she said.
Nonetheless, she said it would be better for the government to focus on implementing other solutions, such as addressing poverty, often the root cause for people to commit crimes.
“[The government] should encourage investments so that there would be employment opportunities because if people are employed, crimes will be lessened,” she said. “This is because they now have the means to live decently.”
While rich countries like Singapore impose death penalty, Oplas doesn’t see the imposition of capital punishment as a factor for their economic growth.
“If they have economic growth, it’s not because they have death penalty,” she said. “Singapore is just small, hence, relative to the Philippines, it is manageable. Its location is also strategic, that is why it is a hub.”
Moreover, Singapore’s justice system is also way better than the Philippines and their leaders also lead by example.
“For example, people who are violating traffic rules are really caught and fined. I think they really do not need death penalty because the people are already afraid of violating the rules because they know that they can be fined and be caught. I think that is…why we [Filipinos] follow traffic rules in Singapore and not when we go back to the Philippines,” she explained.
In terms of addressing jail congestion in the country, she said she would have been okay with the pardoning system. However, she got concerned especially after the controversy on Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) broke out, starting with the foiled release of convicted rapist and murderer Antonio Sanchez, a former mayor of Calauan, Laguna.
Sanchez was supposed to be released supposedly after earning enough GCTA credits, which will be deducted from jail time.
MEANWHILE, Jose Enrique A. Africa, executive director of nonprofit IBON Foundation Inc., said they oppose the revival of death penalty in any form.
“The reality that the country’s justice system doesn’t treat the poor fairly and justly is more than enough reason to oppose the proposal. The courts system will tend to let influential elite political and economic interests off easy, including from capital punishment, while coming down hard on the poor, including many innocent poor,” Africa said. “The country’s unreformed justice system and its institutions are the worst conditions for deciding whether an alleged criminal lives or dies.”
Africa agreed with Oplas that criminality in general, including heinous crimes, will only be reduced by improving socioeconomic conditions and not by just imposing severe penalties.
“Proponents argue that capital punishment will have a deterrent effect. Even if this were true, it still doesn’t mean that it should be used because whether that’s enough reason for the State to willfully take a life is still a moral and ethical matter. But even that argument is not really well-established and is questioned by scientific studies and many criminology experts,” he said.
IN the event that the death penalty is re-implemented, judges are expected to hand them down on convicts who deserve capital punishment even though it goes against their religious or political beliefs.
This is because, in a ruling issued by the Supreme Court in October 1995, it remanded to the sala of then Manila RTC Branch 47 Presiding Judge Lorenzo B. Veneracion—for him to impose the penalty of death—the case of Henry Lagarto and Ernesto Cordero whom he found guilty of the crime of rape with homicide.
The two were found responsible for the rape and killing of 7-year-old Angel Alquiza, whose body was found on August 2, 1994, wrapped in a sack and yellow table cloth tied with a nylon cord floating along Delpan Street in Binondo, Manila.
Instead of imposing the capital punishment against Logarto and Cordero, Veneracion merely imposed reclusion perpetua, which drew criticism from the families of the victim as well as various anti-crime groups.
Veneracion argued that he has no right to send convicts to death as “it’s only God who can do that.”
The case was elevated to the SC for consideration, which ruled that Judge Veneracion erred in not imposing the corresponding penalty for the crime.
The Court emphasized the need for judges to strictly obey the rule of law, “which forms the bedrock of our system of justice.”
It said that laws would become meaningless if judges are influenced by their religious or political beliefs in exercising their duties.
“While this Court sympathizes with his predicament, it is its bounden duty to emphasize that a court of law is no place for a protracted debate on the morality or propriety of the sentence, where the law itself provides for the sentence of death as a penalty in specific and well-defined instances,” the SC pointed out.
“A government of laws, not of men, excludes the exercise of broad discretionary powers by those acting under its authority. Under this system, judges are guided by the Rule of Law, and ought ‘to protect and enforce it without fear or favor,’ resist encroachments by governments, political parties, or even the interference of their own personal beliefs,” the High Tribunal further explained.
A well-positioned member of the SC who begged off from being named, however, expressed belief there is a compelling reason to restore capital punishment.
He explained that the country’s penal system works on the deterrence angle, thus, the re-imposition of the death penalty would certainly be in light with such objective.
“Yes, there is a compelling reason. The drug problem which is widespread—that is a social problem, more than a criminal problem,” the magistrate said.
The magistrate said the illegal drug trade is one of the compelling reasons for the restoration of the death penalty.
He said he was among the judges who convicted to death several individuals who committed heinous crimes.
The SC member said it was wrong to say that the death penalty is anti-poor considering that there were “ spoiled brats” who were also then convicted and sentenced to death.
The magistrate cited the sensational case of Maggie de la Riva, who was abducted and raped on June 26, 1967, at Swanky Hotel in Pasay City by four individuals all belonging to affluent families.
On February 6, 1971, the SC sentenced her four assailants to death via electric chair.
“It’s really a matter of law enforcement going after these people; and prosecution that follows after that will always succeed if there is evidence,” the magistrate said.
Law enforcers manufacturing evidence against an accused should not be used as a reason to oppose the re-imposition of the death penalty, according to the magistrate.
“It is easy to detect for an experienced judge if the evidence is fabricated,” the magistrate said.
SPEAKER Alan Peter Cayetano said the lowering cases of crime in the country could influence the House of Representatives to abandon the call to re-impose death penalty for heinous crimes related to illegal drugs.
However, Cayetano urged all groups opposing death penalty to “pray and work hard” on the proposal that would make crime rates to continuously go down.
Cayetano also assured the public of a healthy debate on the measure in the 18th Congress, saying all stakeholders would be “given enough time to speak on the issue.”
