On June 6, the Philippine Senate vot­ed with no neg­a­tive votes to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Even sen­a­tors who sup­port­ed the death penal­ty vot­ed for abo­li­tion. Life with­out parole sen­tences or 40 years in prison will be sub­sti­tut­ed for exe­cu­tion, depend­ing on the offense. President Arroyo is strong­ly in favor of the effort to end the death penal­ty. Under the bill, all death sen­tences will be com­mut­ed to life sen­tences.

One of the sen­a­tors who was hes­i­tant about end­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Sen. Richard Gordon, nev­er­the­less said, ​“It is so easy to kill a per­son to bring him to jus­tice, but the life­time suf­fer­ing of a nation when it finds out that it has made a mis­take is indeli­ble.” Some of Gordon’s fam­i­ly mem­bers had been mur­dered ear­li­er.

On the same day, the Philippine House of Representatives vot­ed 119 – 20 for a sim­i­lar bill out­law­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The two bod­ies are expect­ed to rec­on­cile dif­fer­ences in their bills and President Arroyo is expect­ed to sign the final ver­sion of the legislation.

The death penal­ty had been re-estab­lished in the Philippines in 1993. There have been 7 exe­cu­tions since then. Lethal injec­tion was the method of exe­cu­tion. There are cur­rent­ly 1,022 inmates on death row. 

(Daily Tribune and InQ7​.net, June 7, 2006). See International.

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