By LITO RULONA
Correspondent
SEN. Risa Hontiveros on Thursday called for judicial reforms in order to make criminal acts highisk undertakings instead of reviving the death penalty which she said won’t prevent crimes from being committed.
She said this the same day the Lower House approved the death penalty bill on second reading.
Hontiveros told reporters here that other countries have realized that the death penalty did not solve their problem on heinous crimes, including illegal drug trade.
She cited Iran where she said authorities have admitted that the death penalty doesn’t work even after the execution of thousands of drug traffickers.
Hontiveros said the Duterte administration is taking a “dangerous shortcut” in its campaign against illegal drugs, asserting that the proper approach would be to start no-nonsense reforms in the country’s judicial system.
Without such reforms, she said, poor people accused of crimes who cannot afford the best legal defense would end up being sentenced with death.
“The government must bring the campaign versus the drug lords, and not to the poor. Side by side with a public health approach to the drug problem, our drug law enforcement strategy must shift focus to organized drug syndicates. We must focus on crimes associated with big drug operations such as money laundering and extortion. We must also strengthen border control in international airports and seaports, and heighten operations against cross-country narco-trafficking,” Hontiveros said.
Hontiveros said capital punishment is “inhumane, degrading, cruel punishment, and anti-poor.”
Through viva voce, the Lower House passed on second reading on Wednesday House Bill 4727, or an act imposing the death penalty on certain heinous crimes.
The bill seeks to repeal RA 9346 that prohibits the imposition of death penalty. It also seeks to further amend the Revised Penal Code and the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
Under the bill, the mode of capital punishment could either be through hanging, by firing squad or lethal injection.
The new version of the bill limits the crimes punishable by death to only drugelated offenses in a bid to strengthen the Duterte administration’s relentless war on drugs.
The substitute bill delists the crimes of plunder, rape, and treason from its coverage. (with reports from pna)
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