A SENIOR deputy minority leader of the House of Representatives last Sunday said he believed that the Duterte administration has already lost interest in reviving the death penalty in the country.
In a statement, Buhay Rep. Lito L. Atienza said “the administration may have already come to terms with the reality that it is now impossible for anybody to be executed via a court order throughout President Duterte’s tenure, simply because at best it takes around five years for any potential [death-penalty] case to go through due process of law, and his term also ends in five years”.
Duterte has publicly said he intends to send hundreds of convicts to the gallows once Congress reintroduces the death penalty. The death penalty was abolished in 2006.
“Owing to lack of time, the President won’t get to have his show after all, so it seems that the administration is no longer keen on producing the show,” Atienza said.
The bill reviving the death sentence was passed by the House in March. But, Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon said the measure is already “dead” in the Senate, where at least 13 members are committed to vote against it.
Atienza said there is now no chance at all that the law reimposing the death penalty would be enacted this year.
“The Senate is clearly not going to pass the bill before the end of the first regular session of the 17th Congress on June 2,” he said.
Congress will adjourn sine die on May 31, and will resume on July 23 for the second regular session.
According to Atienza, both the House and the Senate would be preoccupied with the proposed General Appropriations Act for 2018 from August to December.
“We reckon the Senate, in particular, will also be extra busy deliberating the proposed comprehensive tax-reform package, assuming the bill gets through the House before June 2,” he said.
Atienza said the death penalty was “killed” by a series of dreadful police atrocities, starting with the October 18 tokhang for ransom and murder of South Korean business executive Jee Ick-joo inside the National Police general headquarters—Camp Rafael Crame in Quezon City—itself.