A timeline of death penalty in the Philippines

THE PCIJ BLOG

April 18, 2006
THE imposition of the death penalty in the country has had a repressive history. For the most part
(from 1848 to 1987), it was used to curtail the liberties, freedoms and rights of the Filipino
people. In recent history, however, the death penalty was reimposed as a knee-jerk response to
what has largely been seen as rising criminality in the country. The following, with help from the
Mamamayang Tutol sa Bitay-Movement for Restorative Justice, traces the death penaltys
historical roots and context in Philippine society:

Spanish Period (1521-1898)

Spanish colonizers brought with them medieval Europes penal system, including
executions.
Capital punishment during the early Spanish Period took various forms including burning,
decapitation, drowning, flaying, garrote, hanging, shooting, stabbing and others.
Capital punishment was enshrined in the 1848 Spanish Codigo Penal and was only
imposed on locals who challenged the established authority of the colonizers.
Between 1840-1857, recorded death sentences totaled 1,703 with 46 actual executions.
Filipinos who were meted the death penalty include Magat Salamat (1587); the native
clergies Gomez, Burgos and Zamora who were garroted in 1872; and Dr. Jose Rizal, executed on
December 30, 1896. All of them are now enshrined as heroes.
American Period (1898-1934)
The American colonizers, adopting most of the provisions under the Codigo Penal of 1848,
retain the death penalty.
The Codigo Penal was revised in 1932. Treason, parricide, piracy, kidnapping, murder,
rape, and robbery with homicide were considered capital offenses and warranted the death
penalty.
The Sedition Law (1901); Brigandage Act (1902); Reconcentration Act (1903); and Flag
Law (1907) were enacted to sanction the use of force, including death, against all nationalist
Filipinos.
Macario Sakay was one of those sentenced to die for leading a resistance group. He was
sentenced to die by public hanging.
The capital punishment continued to be an integral part of the pacification process of the
country, to suppress any resistance to American authority.
Japanese Occupation (1941-1945)
There are no recorded or documented cases of executions through the death penalty
during this period simply because extrajudicial executions were widely practised as part of the
pacification of the country.
Post-World War II
Espionage is added to the list of capital offenses.
The Anti-Subversion Law called for the death penalty for all Communist leaders. However,
no executions were recorded for any captured communist leader.
For the period of 1946-1965, 35 people were executed for offenses that the Supreme Court
labeled as crimes of senseless depravity or extreme criminal perversity.
The Marcos Years (1965-1986)
Deterrence became the official justification for the imposition of the death penalty. This
is the same justification used for the declaration of Martial Law in 1972.
The number of capital crimes increased to a total of 24. Some crimes which were made
punishable by death through laws and decrees during the Marcos period were subversion,
possession of firearms, arson, hijacking, embezzlement, drug-related offenses, unlawful
possession of firearms, illegal fishing and cattle rustling.

Jaime Jose, Basilio Pineda, and Edgardo Aquino were executed for the gang rape of movie
star Maggie dela Riva in 1972. Despite prohibitions against public executions, the execution of
the three was done in full view of the public.
Nineteen executions took place during the Pre-Martial Law period. Twelve were executed
during Martial Law.
Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. was sentenced to die by firing squad for charges of murder,
subversion and illegal possession of firearm in 1977.
The last judicial execution under the Marcos years was in October 1976 when Marcelo San
Jose was executed by electrocution.
Similar to the reasons for the imposition of capital punishment during the Colonial Periods,
the death penalty during the Marcos Regime was imposed to quell rebellion and social unrest.
President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino (1986-1992)
The Death Penalty was abolished under the 1987 Constitution.
The Philippines became the first Asian country to abolish the death penalty for all crimes.
All death sentences were reduced to reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment.
In 1988, the military started lobbying for the imposition of the death penalty for crimes
committed by the CPP-NPA.
President Fidel Valdez Ramos (1993-1998)
A series of high profile crimes during this period, including the murder of Eileen Sarmenta
and Allan Gomez, created public impression that heinous crimes were on the rise.
The Ramos administration reimposed the death penalty by virtue of Republic Act No.
7659 in December 1993 to address the rising criminality and incidence of heinous crimes.
The Death Penalty Law lists a total of 46 crimes punishable by death; 25 of these are
death mandatory while 21 are death eligible.
Republic Act No. 8177 mandates that a death sentence shall be carried out through lethal
injection.
President Joseph Ejercito Estrada (1998-2001)
Leo Echegaray was executed in February 1999 and was followed by six other executions
for various heinous crimes.
In 1999, the bumper year for executions, the national crime volume, instead of abating,
ironically increased by 15.3 percent or a total of 82,538 (from 71,527 crimes in the previous
year).
Estrada issued a de facto moratorium on executions in the face of church-led campaigns to
abolish the death penalty and in observance of the Jubilee Year.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-present)
Arroyo publicly stated that she is not in favor of executions.
Due to the rise in crimes related to drugs and kidnappings that targeted the FilipinoChinese community, she announced that she would resume executions to sow fear into the
hearts of criminals.
Arroyo lifted the de facto moratorium issued by Estrada on December 5, 2003.
Even as executions were set to resume on January 2004, this did not push through by
virtue of a Supreme Court decision to reopen the Lara-Licayan case.
Since then, the administration has been issuing reprieves on scheduled executions without
actually issuing a moratorium.
With the amendment of Republic Act No. 8353 (Anti-Rape Law of 1997) andRepublic Act
No. 9165 (Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs act of 2002), there are now 52 capital offenses, 30 of
which are death mandatory and 22 are death eligible.
WORLD SOCIALIST WEBSITE
Peter Symonds
6 February 1999

For the first time in 23 years, the death penalty has been carried out in the Philippines. Leo
Echegaray, 39, died shortly after 3 pm local time yesterday, having been injected with
lethal chemicals at the execution chamber in New Bilibid Prison on the outskirts of Manila.
The execution was turned into a media circus with 11 selected journalists as well as
government officials permitted to watch the prisoner die.

Outside the prison, the police had set up barbed wire lining the main road to the national
jail. Schools in the area had been shut down as demonstrations took place both for and
against the execution. Across the country, prisons were placed on alert in anticipation of
possible rioting.

Philippine President Joseph Estrada ignored a string of appeals from the European Union,
Canada, Amnesty International, the Vatican and church leaders in the Philippines to grant
clemency. He declared that he would not change his mind even for the Pope and
theatrically ordered the telephone "hotline" between the presidential palace and the death
cell to be cut off to signify that there would be no last minute reprieve.

Estrada, along with other politicians, right-wing religious organisations and vigilante
groups, has been in the forefront of whipping up a lynchmob frenzy. His wife Luisa and
Vice-President Gloria Macapagal joined a protest last month in Manila's central business
district demanding Echegaray be executed. Just recently Estrada has told the media that
he "feels good" about ordering the execution, saying he was doing it to protect "innocent
people, especially innocent young girls".

Echegaray was found guilty in 1994 of raping his stepdaughter, known as Baby, who was
then 10 years old. The date of the crime was never established, the forensic evidence was
inconclusive and there were no corroborating witnesses. Echegaray, a house painter from
a poor Manila neighbourhood, maintained that he was innocent and had been framed
because of a family land dispute.

The death penalty was abolished in 1987 in the Philippines only to be reintroduced in late
1993 in a political atmosphere increasingly permeated by "law-and-order" demagogy. The
new legislation covers a wide variety of crimes including murder, rape, kidnapping,
possession of firearms and drug trafficking. The death sentence is mandatory for 21 socalled "heinous crimes," far more than in most countries with capital punishment, and can
be imposed in another 25 crimes. Estrada has indicated he supports legislation to broaden
the scope even further.

There are now 915 prisoners on death row, including 17 foreigners. Most are individuals
from impoverished backgrounds who cannot afford their own lawyers and have to rely on
the limited legal assistance offered by the public defender. Echegaray claimed that he
would have been found not guilty if he had paid the presiding judge a 50,000 peso bribe.
In the coming months, another 10 men are scheduled to die.

The execution of Echegaray has been a major political issue in the Philippines in recent
months. On January 4, just three hours before he was due to die, the country's Supreme
Court voted for a six-month stay of execution to allow the Congress time to review the law.

The decision provoked a hysterical response from pro-death penalty organisations and
politicians. Groups such as the Volunteers against Crime and Corruption and the Citizen's
Crime Watch, as well as the Jesus is Lord and Philippines for Jesus Movement, held
demonstrations demanding the abolition of the Supreme Court. Some of the protesters
chanted "Hang the eight Supreme Court justices".

Pressure was brought to bear on the victim and her immediate family to actively support
the campaign. The Speaker of the Congress, Manuel Villar, gave Baby Echegaray, now 15,
a house and land, and held a two-hour meeting with her. She supported the execution and
joined the pro-capital punishment marches.

In a hastily convened session, the lower house of Congress categorically ruled out any
change to the death penalty legislation. Just two weeks after its original decision, the
Supreme Court voted 11 to 2, with another two abstentions, to reverse the stay and allow
the execution to proceed. Final legal appeals for Echegaray were rejected this week.

According to the latest polls, more than 80 percent of Filipinos support the death penalty.
The level has risen markedly over the last decade as the social tensions caused by rising
unemployment and poverty have sharpened. Right-wing politicians, unable to provide any
solution to the social problems confronting millions, have seized upon "law-and-order" as a
means of exploiting the prevailing mood of unease and uncertainty.

In the national elections last year, Estrada, a former film star in B-grade movies, played on
his film persona as a tough underdog to appeal to the impoverished masses in the city
slums and rural areas. As mayor of San Juan in metropolitan Manila, he made a name by
personally taking part in arrests that were carefully staged for the media. One of his main
opponents, Alfredo "Dirty Harry" Lim, mayor of Manila, was notorious for the arbitrary
murder of suspected criminals.

During the campaign, Estrada, nicknamed "Erap" or "Buddy" in Filipino slang, used the
slogan "Erap for the poor" and promised programs to raise the living standards of the most
downtrodden. But in the aftermath of the elections, his close connections with the former
dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his big business cronies such as the billionaire tycoon
Eduard Cojuangco have become more and more apparent.

After Marcos was toppled by the so-called "People's Power" movement led by Cory Aquino
in 1986, Cojuangco's 17 percent holding in the huge beer and food conglomerate San
Miguel was suspended pending an investigation into allegations of corruption. One week
into Estrada's term of office, Cojuangco was elected by the board of directors to head the
company. Eight of the 15 board members are presidential appointees.

Even before his inauguration, Estrada caused an uproar by suggesting that Marcos' body
be reinterred in a hero's grave. After taking office, he took the lead in reaching a deal with
Marcos' widow Imelda over a division of the billions of dollars in wealth hoarded away by
the dictator. Neither Imelda nor any of Marcos' other military and business supporters
have been brought to trial for their role during the dictatorship over the past 13 years.

At the same time, Estrada is presiding over an economic and social disaster. The country's
Gross Domestic Product slumped by 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 1998 and was
down by 0.5 percent for the entire year, as compared to 5.1 percent growth in 1997. As
unemployment and poverty have grown Estrada has ruled out any government assistance
for the jobless.

The motivations of Estrada and his political associates for demanding the execution of
Echegaray are all too clear. He has seized upon the death penalty as a means of diverting
public attention from his failure to carry out his empty election promises to help the poor
and his increasingly obvious role as a political puppet for some of the richest families in
the Philippines.

The Advantages of the Death Penalty

JOHN LEE

It shows that the justice system has no sympathy for the criminals.

When criminals escape from the capital punishment, they repeat their crimes and take more
innocent lives.

The availability of modern testings such as DNA testing reduces the chances of punishing
the innocents; therefore, capital punishment can be an effective tool to control the crimes.

The death penalty can address the problem of overpopulation in the prisons.

It gives closure to the families of the victims who have already suffered a lot.

MANILA, Philippines -- Lawmakers Sunday 13 November 2011 gave stern warning to foreign drug
traffickers after the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs endorsed for plenary discussions the
bill seeking to impose harshest penalties against them

Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and Abante Mindanao Rep. Maximo Rodriguez Jr.
cited the need to amend Republic Act 9165 or otherwise known as the Comprehensive
Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, which prohibits the imposition of the death penalty in the
country.
While the intention in passing the law was very clear and noble, there are some sectors of
society who believe that this law is not just and equitable, the lawmakers said.
The brothers, who authored House Bill 4510 that seeks to impose death penalty to foreign
nationals who were arrested in the country for drug trafficking, said the Philippines drugs
law only encourages foreign drug syndicates to operate in the country since the penalty for
drug trafficking is only life imprisonment.
They are now emboldened to establish their drug factories in the Philippines, because if
they are arrested and convicted, they only suffer life imprisonment as compared to the
penalties that they may suffer in other countries which, in some cases like in China, is
death, the Rodriguezes said.

There is a need to amend our laws to ensure that foreign nationals caught violating our
laws on drugs will also be convicted with the harshest penalties that their national law
imposes, they said.
Rufus B. Rodriguez (born September 13, 1953) is a Filipino politician. A member of the
Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino party, and affiliated with the Genuine Opposition, he was elected
as a Member of the House of Represntatives, representing the Second District of Cagayan
de Oro City beginning in 2007.

"Given the rising state of criminality in the country, I think we'll have to apply the stick," he
told reporters.
In particular, Enrile condemned the people behind the killing and burning of car
dealers. "They do not deserve to be part of the society," he said.

Juan Ponce Enrile A.K.A Juan "Manong/Manong Johnny/Johnny" Ponce Enrile (born
February 14, 1924) is a Filipino politician. As a protege of President Ferdinand Marcos, he
served as Justice Secretary and then Defense Secretary under the Marcos regime; he later
became one of the leaders (along with General Fidel V. Ramos) in the 1986 People Power
Movement that drove Marcos from power. Enrile has continued to be a prominent politician
since then; he has been President of the Senate of the Philippines since November 2008.
SENATE Majority Leader Vicente Sotto 3rd called Thursday for the reimposition of capital
punishment for the crime of drug trafficking. Drug enforcers believe that the abolition of the
death penalty has made drug traffickers bolder,he said at the weekly Kapihan sa Senado.

Vicente Castelo Sotto III (born August 24, 1948 in Manila, Philippines), also known as Tito
Sotto, is an actor, comedian, musician, television presenter, and politician in the Philippines.
He served two terms in the Senate, from 1992 to 2004; he is reelected in the Senate in
2010. Sotto is the brother of Marvic (Vic), Marcelino (Maru), and Valmar (Val) Sotto and a
grandson and grandnephew of former Senators (Vicente Y. Sotto and Filemon Sotto). He was
the former chairman of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA)
Monday 19 November 2012 - Duterte said those delinquents who deserve death penalty
have a debt to pay to society. He said that even though such punishment will not deter
some people from committing a crime, at least they will be punished for their unlawful
actions.
Duterte added that even though death penalty was abolished, some relatives of the victims
of heinous crimes that deserve such punishment often resort to vengeance, which is not
good.
"So kanang mga bleeding hearts or humanist dira, pareha ra na. Imo na silang kuryentehan
or tadtaron, parehos ra nang pataya (to the bleeding hearts and humanists, its the same
death. Whether you electrocute them or chop them, theyre still dead)," Duterte said.
"Ayaw mi tagai anang drama ninyo na it's a cruel and unusual punishment kay tanan
pamaagi na patyon nimo ang usa ka tao cruel and unusual jud na. Kining mga human
rights, sunod-sunod mo anang mga European na against death penalty (Dont talk to me
about how execution methods are cruel and unusual punishments because all ways of
killing a person is cruel and unusual. These human rights advocates are merely copycats of
Europeans who are against death penalty)," he added.
Rodrigo Duterte A.K.A (b. March 28, 1945 in Tagum City, Davao del Norte, Philippines is
the current vice mayor of the city of Davao City, Philippines. He was first elected 1988 and
reelected 1992 and 1995. In 1998, he ran for the House of Representatives and won as
Congressman for the 1st District of Davao City in Manila until 2001. In 2001, he ran again for
mayor in Davao and was again elected for his fourth term. He was reelected in 2004 and in

2007. He is now the vice mayor of Davao City, with his daughter Sarah Duterte taking his
place as mayor.