XAVIER University president Fr. Robert Yap yesterday led a group in staging street protests even as they decried the Lower House’s move in passing the Death Penalty Bill on Tuesday. Yap led about 40 Xavier employees and students in a noise barrage outside the Jesuitun university before taking to the streets. The protesters blew whistles and urged motorists to blow their horns while waving placards with anti-death penalty slogans. They called it “noise for life.” The group then staged a march protest to dramatize their opposition to the Duterte administration’s move to restore capital punishment in the country. Elsewhere, the passage of the controversial bill on third reading in the Lower House was greeted with condemnations. The militant League of Filipino Students (LFS) issued this statement: “In the strongest possible terms, we condemn the passage of death penalty bill in the House of Representatives. The Duterte regime just approved the death of every poor Filipino people... Duterte’s regime has gone berserk! It is using all its machinery to launch an all-out offensive against the Filipino people.” LFS noted that more than 7,000 people were in the Duterte administration’s war on drugs, and then the all-out war declaration against communist rebels. “Now, Duterte wants to legally kill everyone it goes against his ways by easily branding them as criminals.” The Kabataan Party-list group stated: “We gravely condemn this all-out offensive against the people! Death penalty will only exacerbate the already corrupted and skewed justice system, where the poor and oppressed languish in jail for trumped up crimes while the rich, the dictators, fascists and drug lords are coddled. On the other hand, in its bid to consolidate power and quell the increasing dismay of the people, the Duterte administration is swiftly resorting to heightening fascist moves. Even without a legalizing bill, death penalty is already in full swing in the countryside under the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) Oplan Kapayapaan and all-out war. The Duterte administration should be held accountable for its crimes and attacks on the people! Duterte insists on touting death penalty as the ‘change’ that is coming, while conveniently hiding its irresponsibility and grave negligence in addressing the real roots behind the growing prevalence of poverty and crime, such as contractualization and the worsening neoliberal policies on education and trade.” Reads part of the Anakbayan statement: “Ultimately the death penalty is simply another instrument to sow terror and silence dissent. That plunder is excluded from the bill is very telling of the way death penalty is directed primarily against the poor, the dispossessed, and the voiceless,” Cristina Palabay, secretary general of the human rights watchdog Karapatan, said,  “Apart from violating the right to life and absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which the country has enshrined in its Constitution and the international covenants it is party to, re-imposing death penalty as punishment is a political nightmare for the poor and the victims of State repression such as the political prisoners. Success with regard to eradication and elimination of crimes do not come in the railroading of bills to facilitate the ‘lawful’ killing of persons, but in long-term, comprehensive and fundamental solutions. Karapatan reiterates that the upholding of people’s economic, social and cultural rights is a far more effective deterrent than scare and fear tactics. This oppressive and repressive system is what breeds crime and addressing its root causes is what will ultimately solve criminality,” (nitz arancon)