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MANILA – After announcing the commutation of all death sentences to life terms and lawyers questioning whether she had the power to do so, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo hastily endorsed a bill to Congress to abolish the death penalty.
The opposition quickly branded the move as a carrot to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines which is critical of her rule, including its concern over the administration’s desire to change the Constitution in haste, without letting the people know what it is all about.
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As expected the CBCP) immediately welcomed the decision of the President. CBCP president Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo said the Catholic Church had always been opposed to the death penalty and that Arroyo’s decision to lift the death penalty on 1,000 convicts “is a positive move”.
Invoking the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, Lagdameo said “even when such penalty (death penalty) is seen as a kind of legislative defense on the part of the society", they believed that killing a criminal is not the solution to curb growing criminality in the Philippines.
Amnesty International and other foreign groups hailed the decision.
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Ms Arroyo would push for the repeal of Republic Act No. 7659 (the Death Penalty Law), “if necessary,” to further advance “the forgiveness and compassion” that she wanted to extend with her Easter message of commutation.
But Andres Bautista, dean of the Far Eastern University Institute of Law, said the commutation was an affront to the Supreme Court and Congress because it ran roughshod over the principle of separation of powers among the three branches of government.
“The move is constitutionally questionable, and the President’s legal team should rethink this plan,” Bautista, who also chairs the Philippine Association of Law Schools, told the Inquirer." Congress makes the laws; the President only implements them.
By law, the President is compelled to implement RA 7659 until it is repealed. She cannot just disregard Congress," he said. In a speech before international journalists in February, Ms Arroyo declared her intention to abolish the death penalty because it went against her Catholic beliefs. RA 7659 was enacted by Congress in 1994 to stop the rise in heinous crimes. It made the Philippines one among 91 countries implementing capital punishment. An endorsement by the President is expected to jump-start the legislation of numerous anti-RA 7659 bills that have languished in Congress because of lack of support.
While Ms Arroyo can grant pardons under the law, this power is limited to a case-to-case basis, to be applied only when there is a flaw in the system, and to be exercised in cases where the Supreme Court had made a final judgment, Bautista said. “The President has clearly shown complete disregard of the Supreme Court in her decision to summarily move to commute all death penalties to life imprisonment,” he said. The only precedent Bautista could think of would be a general amnesty given by a state leader. “But an amnesty involves giving clemency to rebels jailed for their beliefs, not rapists, murderers, kidnappers and drug [dealers],” he said.
Bunye, himself a lawyer, pointed out that the President was not forgiving or letting death convicts go. “She is just making them serve the next lower penalty,” he said.
But Bautista said that while Ms Arroyo might have decided to make the move on her own, “she did not get proper legal advice from those who are supposed to guide her on legal matters.” Bunye, however, was willing to stake his lawyer’s license that “the right given to the President is very clear under the Constitution.”
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