Senate President Vicente Sotto has recommended the death penalty for “high-level” drug traffickers.
Sotto said limiting the coverage of capital punishment to those engaged in high-level drug trafficking would increase chances of a proposal in the Senate getting more support from members of the chamber.
Thirteen senators voting for the bill would ensure passage, he added.
“The way I discussed it (death penalty) with them (senators), I sensed that that only way we could convince most of them or at least 13 of them would be (to impose it in cases involving) high-level drug trafficking only,” Sotto noted in a television interview aired over ANC.
When asked if he would actively push for the death-penalty bill, the Senate president said he is willing to help Senator Emmanuel Pacquiao, the primary author of the measure, sponsor the proposal and allow it to be debated on the floor.
“They have my vote (when it comes to high-level drug trafficking) but other than that I would probably not agree,” he added. The Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) on Thursday reiterated its call for the government to come up with drastic measures to stop killings allegedly being perpetrated by gun-for-hire syndicates.
Anti-crime advocates believed that reimposition of the death penalty in the country is one effective way of stopping heinous crimes.
“The VACC believes and embraces the sanctity of life. We believe in due process but only for law-abiding citizens. Death penalty is for the criminals, not law-abiding citizens,” according to the group’s vice chairman and spokesman Arsenio Evangelista.
Several lawmakers and other groups have rejected the revival of the capital punishment, saying it does not deter crimes.
Sotto said he agrees with those who oppose the death penalty that there has been no proof that it would prevent crimes, adding that putting criminals in jail is a correct way to stop them from committing crimes.
But the Senate president added that the same could not be applied to drug traffickers because it has been proven that they will continue their illegal activities behind bars.
“They can do everything they want even in jail because of money,” he explained.
Death penalty for drug traffickers will not be anti-poor, according to Sotto, because there are no poor drug traffickers and they can afford good lawyers to defend them.
Meanwhile, Sotto said he does not see the divorce bill getting support from senators even if the House of Representatives already passed on third and final reading a bill legalising absolute divorce and dissolution of marriage in the country.
But the Senate, he added, could come up with a measure that seeks to make the annulment process cheaper and easier instead of legalising divorce.
Sotto said it is impractical for the senators to come up with a bill legalising divorce because no less than President Rodrigo Duterte had expressed his opposition to the proposal.
“The president is not in favour, so even if the Senate passes a divorce law the president might veto it and most probably he will…” he pointed out.
Sotto said someone would surely bring the matter to the Supreme Court and ask that it be declared unconstitutional.
He added that the Senate has an alternative to divorce and that is the proposal that seeks to expand grounds for annulment and to make it easier and affordable.Sotto said there are two bills pending in the Senate seeking additional grounds for annulment one of which was introduced by Senator Loren Lagarda.
Under Legarda’s Senate Bill 410, which was filed on July 2016, a marriage involving parties who have been separated in fact for at least five years may be annulled.
Both parties shall be required to present affidavits or certifications from parents, children of legal age and other relatives attesting to the fact of the separation period “without prejudice to whatever documents the court may further require.”