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Atty. Presida Acosta
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PAO chief now supports death penalty
revival
By Edu Punay23 December 2016
Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) chief
Persida Rueda-Acosta yesterday expressed support for the proposed restoration
of death penalty in the country.
Acosta, who was instrumental in the
earlier abolition of capital punishment, admitted that she has changed her
position on the issue.
Her change of heart comes amid reports
that she is being considered for appointment to the Supreme Court.
“I noticed that heinous
criminals like killers, rapists of children and drug traffickers have become
bolder nowadays, as if they fear nothing at all. If the crime is extra heinous
and the evidence is strong, why not revive the death penalty?” she explained.
It was Acosta who argued before the
Supreme Court for the moratorium on the death penalty in the kidnapping for
ransom case against Roderick Licayan and Roberto Lara in 2004.
Being lawyers of indigent litigants,
Acosta said that the PAO would make sure that those who would be executed are
really the guilty ones.
“If those to be executed are
innocent or if we have new evidence to prove it, I will personally ask the
President to stay the execution,” she vowed.
The PAO chief believes that the public
should not worry about the revival of the death penalty because there would
surely be safeguards to protect the innocent.
“We should instead be assured
that only guilty heinous criminals would be punished. Otherwise, our society
will not be safe,”
she argued.
Congress should be allowed to pursue
such measure, which Acosta said would have comprehensive debates anyway.
The House justice committee recently
approved the committee report of the substitute bill for the restoration of the
death penalty, which proposes three modes of execution – hanging, firing
squad or lethal injection.
Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez earlier
committed to pass the bill to restore the death penalty before their Christmas
break.
During his campaign for the May 2016
polls, President Duterte vowed to restore the death penalty as part of his
anti-criminality platform.
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Rodrigo Duterte on being a terror to evildoers
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‘Even hardened convicts are scared of death’
Posted on
Monday Dec 12th at 5:00am
By Delon
Porcalla
MANILA,
Philippines – Even hardened convicts are scared to die, an administration
lawmaker argued in defending the proposed reimposition of the death penalty.
House
Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, one of the authors of the bill re-imposing the
death penalty, cited the admission of convicted drug lord Jaybee Sebastian in a
congressional inquiry that he is most afraid of dying.
Sebastian
sustained several wounds in the chest and back in a recent stabbing incident in
the New Bilibid Prison. He accused Sen. Leila de Lima of being behind the
attempt on his life.
De Lima is
being accused by President Duterte of receiving money from drug lords in
exchange for protection when she was justice secretary.
Duterte is
pushing for the death penalty, a move slammed by human rights advocates and the
Catholic Church.
While a
majority of members of the House of Representatives are leaning toward the
reimposition of death penalty, the supermajority coalition have decided to hold
off debates until January 2017.
“Speaker
(Pantaleon) Alvarez agreed to pass the death penalty bill on third and final
reading next year (January 2017) after a month of full-blown debates in the
plenary,” Fariñas told reporters.
Alvarez
earlier hinted that the House would pass on third and final reading the bill
reimposing the death penalty before Congress goes on a month-long Christmas
break on Dec. 16. Pro-life legislators accused Duterte’s allies of
“railroading” the death penalty bill.
Quezon City
Rep. Alfred Vargas said the reimposition of capital punishment must be debated
extensively in the plenary.
“We
must evaluate and assess the pros and the cons because we don’t want to waste
the value of human life. It must be studied thoroughly,”
he added.
Oriental
Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, chair of the House committee on justice,
maintained that the House would fine-tune the death penalty bill.
The justice
committee last week voted 12-6 with one abstention, approving the report on a
substitute bill that seeks to restore the death penalty for heinous crimes like
rape, murder, arson, kidnap-for-ransom.
Umali said
under the bill, only those found guilty of committing grave violations of the
Dangerous Drugs Act will be punished by death.
Pro-life
lawmakers Edcel Lagman of Albay and Kaka Bag-ao of Dingat Islands objected to
the railroading of the death penalty bill, saying there are no statistics that
can be considered as “compelling reason” to revive capital punishment.
But Umali and
Compostela Valley Rep. Ruwel Peter Gonzaga said the crime index provided by the
Philippine National Police leadership to the justice committee is compelling
enough reason to revive the death penalty.
Loretta
Rosales, former chair of the Commission on Human Rights, said that the
restoration of the death penalty in the country would still be a violation of
the United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which the Philippines is a
signatory.
Yesterday,
thousands of Catholics held a prayer rally in Bacolod City to express strong
opposition to the reimposition of the death penalty. – With Gilbert Bayoran
INTERNET SOURCE: http://m.philstar.com/314191/show/92dd5fd2536e940ebc34b7dd1ea2e77d/
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The Donald Trump of The Philippines wants to
bring back hanging.
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OTHER LINKS:
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PRESIDENT
DUTERTE’S FIRST STATE OF NATION ADDRESS (JULY 25, 2016)
THE PUNISHER OF DAVAO IS OUR HERO!
The Punisher of Davao versus ISIS
RODRIGO
DUTERTE VERSUS THE I.C.C
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