Is death-commutation stand the new government policy?

AFTER issuing her prerogative commuting the death sentences of 1, 205 convicts, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's (GMA) allies in Congress want her to clarify on her stand so they can complement it with apt measures.

Appropriate measures in Congress mean a revisit and possible repeal of the existing Death Penalty Law (Republic Act 7659) if indeed the government has shifted in its stand from state-sanctioned executions to life imprisonment. But before this, Congress needs to know if the president would want this or it was just her exercise of executive clemency to grant reprieve to the convicts.

Congress may pass a bill changing the Death Penalty Law to Life Imprisonment after GMA has certified an urgent bill to the same, said City Prosecutor Adriano P. Montes. In an interview, Pros. Montes added that it is possible for the commutation to apply to all the 1205 convicts, even to those whose cases were not yet affirmed by the Supreme Court (SC).

GMA's statement also roused legal issues on the cases not yet affirmed by the SC. The Supreme Court has only affirmed 101 of the 1205 death penalty cases. The President issued the statement pitting anew human rights and anti-crime rights advocates. Anti crime advocates read the executive move as trampling over a legal issue with an applicable and existing law that needs to be repealed. The pronouncement also came when the whole Christian world rise from a mournful mood to the joyous season of having been granted forgiveness and saved.

Critics read the GMA move as courting the crucial support of the church and human rights advocates taking the pro-life stand. “We believe that learning to forgive without compromising criminal justice would be a good start for the nation to move on”, Malacanang said is a statement posted on the internet. We maintain that even hardened criminals should be given the chance to reform and transform themselves even as we leave to the Congress the final decision on whether or not the death penalty law should be abolished, the statement continued. Even then, Malacanang assures the public that anti-crime campaign will not relent to clean up the streets and ensure the peace and safety of all law-abiding citizens.

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