Death Penalty in the Philippines

Santos Lamban, PAHRA

The Philippines was the first Asian country that abolished the death penalty in 1987. But six years after it has reimposed the death penalty, the Philippines has overtaken its Asian neighbors and has the most number of death convicts.

Within less than a year, however, the military establishment was lobbying for its reimposition as a means to combat the "intensifying" offensives of the CPP/NPA guerrillas. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, then Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and later elected President of the Philippines in 1992, was among those who were strongly calling for the reintroduction of the death penalty against rebellion, murder and drug trafficking.

In mid 1987, a bill to reinstate the death penalty was submitted to Congress. Military pressure was very much evident in the preamble which cited the pestering insurgency as well as the recommendations of the police and the military as compelling reasons for the reimposition of the death penalty. The bill cited recent right wing coup attempts as an example of the alarming deterioration of peace and order and argued for the death penalty both as an effective deterrent against heinous crimes and as a matter of simple retributive justice .

When Ramos was elected as President in 1992, he declared that the reimposition of the death penalty would be one of his priorities. Political offenses such as rebellion were dropped from the bill. However, the list of crimes was expanded to include economic offenses such as smuggling and bribery.

In December 1993, RA 7659 restoring the death penalty was signed into law. The law makers argued the deteriorating crime situation was a compeling reason for its reimposition. The main reason given was that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. In 1996, RA 8177 was approved, stipulating lethal injection as the method of execution.

Six years after

Last February 5, 1999, Leo Echegaray, a house painter, was executed for repeatedly raping his stepdaughter. He was the first convict to be executed since the re-imposition of death penalty in 1995.

His execution sparked once again a heated debate between the anti and the pro-death penalty forces in the Philippines with a huge majority of people calling for the execution of Echegaray. That there was a strong clamor for the imposition of the death penalty should be viewed from the point of view of a citizen who is desperately seeking ways to stop criminality.

The Estrada administration peddled the death penalty as the antidote to crime. The reasoning was that if the criminals will be afraid to commit crimes if they see that the government is determined to execute them. Oppositors maintained that the death penalty is not a deterrent and that there have been studies already debunking the deterrence theory. Legislators and politicians refused to heed the recommendation of the Supreme Court for Congress to review the death penalty riding on the popularity of the pro-death penalty sentiment.

Six years after its reimposition, more than 1,200 individuals have been sentenced to death and seven convicts have been executed through lethal injection. Yet today, there are no signs that criminality has gone down.

From February 6, 1999, a day after Leo Echegaray was executed, to May 31 1999 two leading newspapers reported a total of 163 crimes which could be punishable by death penalty. But perhaps the best indicator that this law is not a deterrent to criminality is the ever-increasing number of death convicts.

From 1994 to 1995 the number of persons on death row increased from 12 to 104. From 1995 to 1996 it increased to 182. In 1997 the total death convicts was at 520 and in 1998 the inmates in death row was at 781. As of November 1999 there are a total of 956 death convicts at the National Bilibid Prisons and at the Correctional Institute for Women.

As of December 31, 1999, based on the statistics compiled by the Episcopal Commission on Prisoner Welfare of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, there were a total of 936 convicts interned at the National Bilibid Prisons and another 23 detained at the Correctional Institute for Women. Of these figures, six are minors and 12 are foreigners.

One of the reasons as to why human rights groups oppose the death penalty is because of the weaknesses and imperfections of the Philippine justice system. This is very much evident in the review of death penalty cases made by the Supreme Court from 1995 to 1999. Two out of every three death sentences handed down by the local courts were found to be erroneous by the Supreme Court.

Out of the 959 inmates the SC reviewed 175 cases involving 200 inmates from 1995 to 1999; 3 cases were reviewed in 1995, 8 in 1996, 8 in 1997, 38 in 1998, 118 in 1999.

Of these 175 cases, the SC affirmed with finality and first affirmation only 31% or 54 cases involving 60 inmates. Of these cases 24 were affirmed with finality, while the remaining 36 were given first affirmation.

Sixty nine percent (69%) or 121 cases were either modified, acquitted or remanded for retrial. Eighty four (84) cases involving 95 inmates were modified to reclusion perpetua, 10 cases involving 11 inmates were modified to indeterminate penalty, 11 cases involving 11 inmates were remanded to lower court for retrial and 16 cases involving 23 inmates were acquitted by the SC..

In a study prepared by the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), it pointed out that the result of the review of cases done by the Supreme Court "point all too clearly to the imperfections, weaknesses and problems of the Philippine justice system". Some decisions of the trial courts were overturned for imposing death penalty on offenses which were not subject to death penalty. Other decisions of the lower courts were set aside because of substantive and procedural errors during arraignment and trial. Still others were struck down because the lower court mis-appreciated evidences.

In a survey conducted among 425 convicts in 1998, 105 or 24.7% were agricultural workers, 103 were construction workers, 73 were transport workers, and 42 were in workers in sales and services. Only 6% finished college while 32.4 % finished various levels of high school while the remaining did not go to school or have finished only elementary or vocational education.

It is perhaps important to point out that out of these 46 crimes punishable by death, the death penalty has been applied to only 17 crimes. No one has been convicted of qualified bribery, qualified piracy and plunder. Interestingly also, no public official has been sentenced to death for crimes involving public officials.

Yet, the government maintains that it is effective in combatting crime. Under the death penalty law, 46 crimes are considered heinous and are now subject to the death penalty. It imposes the mandatory death penalty on 21 crimes while the other 25 crimes are death eligible. These are crimes for which a range of penalties including the death penalty is imposed.

Some Congressmen and Senators are proposing other lists of crimes to add to the above. Some even contemplated lowering the age of those punishable by the death penalty to include youthful offenders.

The death penalty is an easy way out for a government in the face of a strong outcry from the citizenry who wanted the government to stop criminality. It is being used to create the illusion that the government is doing something to stop the crimes when in fact it is not.

Sad though it maybe, more lives would be lost unless the death penalty in the Philippines is repealed.

SANTOS A. LABAN PHILIPPINE ALLIANCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES

Aquino administration 1987According to the 1987 Constitution, Art. III (Bill of Rights), Sec. 19.(1) Excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment inflicted. Neither shall death penalty be imposed, unless, for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter provides for it. Any death penalty already imposed shall be reduced to reclusion perpetua.In mid-1987, a bill to seeking to reinstate the death penalty for 15 'heinous crimes' including murder, rebellion and the import or sale of prohibited drugs was submitted in Congress.  1988In 1988, the military started lobbying for the imposition of the death penalty. Then Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief General Fidel Ramos was prominent among those calling for the reintroduction of the death penalty for rebellion, murder and drug-trafficking. The military campaign for the restoration of the capital punishment was primarily against the CPP-NPA, whose offensives then included urban assassination campaigns. Anti-death penalty groups including Amnesty International opposed the bill, but the House of Representatives voted for restoration by 130 votes to 25. 1989Three similar bills were put before the Senate. After a bloody 1989 coup, President Aquino certified as urgent one of these bills on the prompting of Ramos. The said bill again proposed death penalty for rebellion, as well as for sedition, subversion and insurrection. 1990The Senate suspended the vote on death penalty for a year 1991The Senate did not agree to move to a decision.

Ramos administration A series of high profile crimes during this period, including the murder of Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez, created public impression that heinous crimes were on the rise. The Ramos administration succeeded in restoring death penalty. 1992President Fidel Ramos during his first State of the Nation address declared that his administration would regard the restoration of the death penalty a legislative priority, and  urged Congress to take speedy action. 1993Ramos signed into Republic Act 7659, the new death penalty law, on December 13, 1993. 1994Republic Act 7659 took effect on January 1, 1994. 1996Republic Act No. 8177, which  mandates that a death sentence shall be carried out through

lethal injection, was approved on March 20, 1996.

Estrada administration Seven death convicts were executed during the Estrada administration before he announced a moratorium on executions.1999Leo Echegaray, 38, was executed by lethal injection on February 5, 1999. He was the first to be executed after the Philippines restored death penalty. It was the Philippine's first execution in 22 years. Six more men followed within the next 11 months.

2000On March 24, 2000, Estrada imposed a de facto moratorium in observance of the Christian Jubilee Year. He also granted 108 Executive Clemencies to death convicts.

On December 10, 2000, Human Rights Day, Estrada announced that he would commute sentences of all death convicts to life imprisonment. He expressed his desire to certify as urgent a bill seeking a repeal of the Death Penalty Law.

Arroyo administration Please see Gloria Arroyo on death penalty--a timelineWhile the Arroyo administration has been characterized by a flip-flopping stand on death penalty, no death convict has been executed under her watch. Voting separately, the two Houses of Congress on June 6, 2006 repealed the death penalty law.Arroyo signed Republic Act 9346 on June 24, 2006. The law prohibited the imposition of the death penalty.

History of death penalty in the Philippines

The history of the death penalty was extensively discussed by the Supreme Court in People

vs. Echegaray.[1] As early 1886, capital punishment had entered the Philippine legal system

through the old Penal Code, which was a modified version of the Spanish Penal Code of

1870.

The Revised Penal Code, which was enforced on 1 January 1932, provided for the death

penalty in specified crimes under specific circumstances. Under the Revised Penal Code,

death is the penalty for the crimes of treason, correspondence with the enemy during times

of war, qualified piracy, parricide, murder, infanticide, kidnapping, rape with homicide or

with the use of deadly weapon or by two or more persons resulting in insanity, robbery with

homicide, and arson resulting in death. The list of capital offenses lengthened as the

legislature responded to the emergencies of the times.

In 1941, Commonwealth Act (C.A.) No. 616 added espionage to the list. In the 1950s, at the

height of the Huk rebellion, the government enacted Republic Act (R.A.) No. 1700, otherwise

known as the Anti-Subversion Law, which carried the death penalty for leaders of the

rebellion. From 1971 to 1972, more capital offenses were created by more laws, among

them, the Anti-Hijacking Law, the Dangerous Drugs Act, and the Anti-Carnapping Law.

During martial law, Presidential Decree (P.D.) No. 1866 was enacted penalizing with death,

among others, crimes involving homicide committed with an unlicensed firearm.

In the aftermath of the 1986 revolution that dismantled the Marcos regime and led to the

nullification of the 1973 Constitution, a new constitution was drafted and ratified. The

1987 Constitution provides in Article III, Section 19 (1) that:

Excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment inflicted.

Neither shall death penalty be imposed, unless, for compelling reasons involving heinous

crimes, the Congress hereafter provides for it. Any death penalty already imposed shall be

reduced to reclusion perpetua.

Congress passed Republic Act No. 7659 (entitled "An Act to Impose the Death Penalty on

Certain Heinous Crimes, Amending for that Purpose the Revised Penal Code, as Amended,

Other Special Penal Laws, and for Other Purposes"), which took effect on 31 December

1993.

Constitutional challenge

This is extensively discussed in the case of People vs. Echegaray. (For editing)

Abolition of death penalty

On 24 June 2006, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed into law Republic Act No. 9346,

entitled "An Act Prohibiting the Imposition of Death Penalty in the Philippines".

Effectivity of the new law

Section 5 of R.A. No. 9346 specifically provides that it shall take effect immediately after its

publication in two national newspapers of general circulation. This is pursuant to Article 2 of

the Civil Code which provides that laws shall take effect after 15 days following the

completion of their publication either in the Official Gazette, or in a newspaper of general

circulation in the Philippines, unless it is otherwise provided.

R.A. No. 9346 was published in Malaya and Manila Times, two national newspapers of

general circulation on 29 June 2006. Accordingly, R.A. No. 9346 took effect on 30 June 2006.[2]

Illustrative cases

As a result of the abolition of the death penalty, existing penalties for death were reduced

to reclusion perpetua, within the possibility of parole. Here are illustrative cases:

The case of People of the Philippines vs. Quiachon[3] involves an accused who raped his

8-year old daughter, a deaf-mute. Under Article 266-B of the Revised Penal Code, the

imposable penalty should have been death. With the abolition of the Death Penalty,

however, the penalty was reduced to reclusion perpetua, without the possibility of parole

under the Indeterminate Sentence Law.

The case of People of the Philippines vs. Santos[4] involves the rape of a 5-year old child.

The accused was meted the penalty of death because rape committed against a ‘child below

seven (7) years old’ is a dastardly and repulsive crime which merits no less than the

imposition of capital punishment under Article 266-B of the Revised Penal Code. The

sentence was also reduced to reclusion perpetua, without the possibility of parole.

The case of People vs. Salome[5] involves a rape of a 13-year old girl (who got pregnant),

committed in a dwelling and with the aid of a bladed weapon. The imposable penalty should

have been death, but with the abolition of the Death Penalty, the Supreme Court reduced

the penalty toreclusion perpetua, without the possibility of parole.

The case of People of the Philippines vs. Tubongbanua[6] involves the murder of a

victim who suffered 18 stab wounds which were all directed to her chest, heart and lungs.

Considering the existence of the qualifying circumstance of evident premeditation and the

aggravating circumstances of dwelling, and taking advantage of superior strength without

any mitigating circumstance, the proper imposable penalty would have been death.

However, with the abolition of the death penalty law, the penalty imposed was reclusion

perpetua, without the possibility ofparole.