Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City, Metro Manila

THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 10

Introduced by HONORABLE EDCEL C. LAGMAN

EXPLANATORY NOTE
Justice, even in heinous crimes, should not equate with killing the offender.
This bill seeks to abolish the death penalty for the following reasons:

1. The death penalty is the most “cruel, inhuman or degrading” punishment
and has no place in civilized society. Hence, the campaign of the United
Nations to persuade member-states to abolish capital punishment. To date
more than half of the countries in the world have done away with the death
penaity except for crimes against the State like treason or espionage.

2. Experience in countries which impose the death penalty has shown that this
severest punishment has failed as a deterrent to crime. Dr. Peter Albrecht,
Presiding Judge of the Criminal Circuit Court in Basel, Switzerland
unequivocally asserted that “neither on the basis of crime statistics nor by
any other method has it been possible to demonstrate convincingly that the
death penalty has a greater deterrent effect than long prison sentences,
Nowhere, for example, has a rise in homicide rate been observed as a result
of the abolition of the death penalty for murder, nor do I personally know of
any empirical studies which would indicate that executions have been able
to reduce the level of drug abuse.”

The US FBI Preliminary Uniform Crime Report 2002 revealed that murder
rates in southern states increased by 2.1% even though they account for
82% of all executions in the United States since 1976 while murder rates in
northeastern states which account for less than 1% of all executions have
actually decreased by almost 5%.

What prevents people from committing crimes is the certainty of
apprehension, speedy prosecution and if warranted, conviction.

3. Execution is a violent act that has a “brutalizing effect” which incites the
violent tendencies of criminals and even of the public. This was
demonstrated by the enraged clamor for the death of Leo Echagaray in
1999,

Dr. Iur Margrith Bigler-Eggenberger, Judge of the Federal Court of
Switzerland, in her Statement on the Death Penalty for Drug Offences
posited that the death penalty “increases the likelihood that drug dealers
will endanger law officers in the attempt to avoid capture. It even entails


the danger that drug addicts—children and young people included—who
often deal to support their own habits, will themselves be executed.”

The death penalty is retrogression to public vengeance even as it shuts out
rehabilitative justice. It forecloses the Opportunity for the offender to reform
and be able to contribute to the good of society once he or she is released
from prison.

The death penalty, in its ruthless disregard for human life, places the
government in an inconsistent position with regard to its commitment to the
Tule of law and the protection and promotion of human rights.

The act of killing is final. ‘Thus, a miscarriage of justice is irrevocable. A
Judicial error that confines the accused in prison for years can still be
rectified. Based on statistics on death convicts from the Bureau of
Corrections as of July 2001, forty-three (43) were acquitted, four hundred
twenty-six (426) had their death penalty modified to reclusion perpetua and
twelve (12) cases were remanded to the lower courts or set aside.

The death penalty is anti-poor. Failure to hire adequate legal counsel due to
Poverty contributes to unwarranted conviction of the accused and the
meting out of death sentences. A study on the socio-economic background
of 1010 death convicts in 2001 reveals that 481 (47.62%) are industrial and
Service workers, 316 (32.24%) agricultural workers, 116 (11.49%) other
low income earners and 24 (2.38%) are jobless constituting a total of 937
(93.73%).

Accordingly, approval of this measure is earnestly sought.



Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City, Metro Manila

THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST REGULAR SESSION

10
HOUSE BILL NO.

Introduced by HONORABLE EDCEL C. LAGMAN

AN ACT
ABOLISHING THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE PHILIPPINES

Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Philippines in
Congress assembled:

SECTION 1. Death, as a penalty, is hereby abolished in the Philippines. For this
purpose, Articles 25, 40, 70, 71, 74 of the Revised Penal Code are expressly repealed,
amended or modified insofar as they provide for the penalty of death as a principal
penalty and for its accessory penalties under the Revised Penal Code. All other special
statutes that provide for the penalty of death shall be considered amended or modified
accordingly. Should the penalty of death be provided as the sole and mandatory penalty
in the special penal statute or the Revised Penal Code, the penalty shall be substituted
with that of reciusion perpetua or life imprisonment, as the case may be.

SEC. 2. Article 63 of the Revised Penal Code is hereby amended to read as
follows:

“Article 63. Rules for the Application of Indivisible Penalties. - In ali
cases in which the law prescribes a single indivisible penalty, it shall be
applied by the courts regardless of any mitigating or aggravating
circumstances that may have attended the commission of the deed.”

[In all cases in which the law prescribes a penalty composed of two
indivisible penalties, the following rules shall be observed in the
application thereof:

1, When in the commission of the deed there is present only one
aggravating circumstance, the greater penalty shall be applied.


2. When there are neither mitigating nor aggravating
circumstances in the commission of the deed, the lesser penalty shall be
applied.

3. When the commission of the act is attended by some mitigating
Circumstances and there is no aggravating circumstance, the lesser
penalty shall be applied.

4. When both mitigating and aggravating circumstances attended
the commission of the act, the court shall reasonably allow them to offset
one another in consideration of their number and importance, with the
Preceding rules, according to the result of such compensation.]

‘SEC. 3, Republic Act No. 7659, as amended by Republic Act No. 8177, and
all other laws inconsistent with this Act are hereby repealed or amended

accordingly.

SEC. 4. This Act shall take effect fifteen (15) days after its Publication in
two (2) newspapers of national circulation.

Approved,