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Friday, March 29, 2024

Lacson: Death penalty for heinous crimes

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Senator Panfilo Lacson has filed a bill that will make a wide range of heinous crimes, including drug-related offenses, treason, terrorism and human trafficking, punishable by death.

But while President Rodrigo Duterte is pushing for death penalty by hanging, Lacson wants the use of lethal injection as mode of execution.

The death sentence shall be carried out not later than one year after the judgment has become final and executory, but without prejudice to the prerogative of the President to exercise executive clemency powers.

Lacson, who headed the Philippine National Police from 1999 to 2001, noted that the alarming surge of heinous crimes in recent years has shown that life imprisonment is not a deterrent to grave offenders.

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“Hence, to reinstate public order and the rule of law, there is an impending need to revisit and re-impose the death penalty on certain heinous crimes,” Lacson said.

Citing PNP data in 2015, he said 75 percent of most heinous crimes were drug-related while 65 percent of inmates in prisons were either accused or convicted of drug-related crimes.

The PNP’s Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management has documented 9,646 murder cases; 31,741 cases of robbery; and, 10,298 rape cases in 2015. These translate to an average crime incidence of a murder every 54 minutes, a robbery every 16 minutes, and a rape case every 51 minutes.

From January to May 2016, Lacson noted the PNP recorded “a staggering number” of crime incidents, including 3,615 murder cases, 3,996 rape cases, and 9,971 robbery cases.

Meanwhile, Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza urged Congress to push for reforms in the justice system instead of backing efforts to revive the death penalty.

“We should just concentrate on effectively suppressing rampant crime by stamping out endemic corruption in law enforcement, the prosecution service, the courts and in prisons. Instead of reviving the death penalty, it would be better for the new Congress to push for criminal justice system reforms—to ensure that every felon is instantly nabbed, successfully prosecuted, convicted and caged forever. This is our best strategy to fight crime—to dissuade other would-be offenders,” Atienza said.

“Let us forget about reinstating capital punishment. The best criminologists around the world have long established that the death penalty does not serve any purpose that is not already being served by lifelong imprisonment,” he added.

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