A PROLIFE party-list legislator on Thursday hailed Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon’s declaration that the bill reviving the death penalty is dead in the Senate, with at least 13 senators expected to vote against measure.
“If Senator Drilon’s claim is true, then that is very good news. We’ve always maintained the death penalty is useless in fighting crime—it does not serve any purpose that is not already being served by the punishment of long-term imprisonment,” Party-list Rep. Lito Atienza of Buhay said.
“The certainty of capture and incarceration of criminal offenders is our best deterrence to other would-be felons,” said Atienza, the House senior deputy minority leader.
Atienza was among those who fought hard against the passage of the death-penalty bill in the House of Representatives, arguing forcefully that the extreme punishment is antipoor and violates the sanctity of human life.
Voting 217 in favor, 54 against with a lone abstention on March 7, the House approved on the final reading of House Bill (HB) 4727 that impose the death penalty on drug-related offenses.
“Our sense is, even Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III will likely vote against the death penalty in the event of a deadlock in the Senate,” Atienza said.
Pimentel’s father, former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr., is a staunch human-rights crusader, and vehemently opposed the death penalty during his time, Atienza pointed out.
The young Pimentel has repeatedly said the bill reinstating capital punishment is not among the Senate’s priority measures.
President Duterte has publicly said on several occasions he intends to send hundreds of convicts to the gallows once Congress brings back the death penalty.
“The death penalty is a travesty. Only indigent citizens inadequately represented at trial will receive death sentences.
Wealthy defendants who are able to retain the best criminal- defense lawyers will always escape conviction, or get the lesser punishment of life imprisonment,” Atienza said.
HB 4727 would give trial judges the leeway to hand out either the lighter sentence of 30 years imprisonment, or the heavier punishment of death, to those found guilty of drug-related crimes.
“If their expensive lawyers are not enough, the rich will simply buy their way out of death sentences, or even out of prison, by bribing
corrupt prosecutors and judges,” Atienza said.
“If they can’t buy their way out of incarceration, they will surely buy themselves extravagant lives in detention, as we’ve clearly seen in the cases of convicted big-time drug traffickers having the time of their lives at the New Bilibid Prisons,” he said.