3 rapists get 90-day reprieve from death

Death row convicts cheered and wept yesterday when President Arroyo postponed for 90 days the executions of three rapists to enable Congress to debate a bill on abolishing capital punishment.

Mrs. Arroyo, a devout Catholic under pressure from anti-crime groups to push through with the executions in order to curb lawlessness, ordered a reprieve just 48 hours before one of the three was to be executed by lethal injection.

Meanwhile, the President is studying clemency pleas by the death row convicts, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye told the Agence France Presse.

"Tears rolled down his face when I went to death row this morning and told him, ‘Rolly, President Arroyo has postponed your execution’," Bureau of Corrections Director Ricardo Macala told Reuters, referring to 43-year-old rapist Rolando Pagdayawon.

Pagdayawon, convicted of raping his nine-year-old stepdaughter, would have been the first convict executed in the country in two years.

The three men who received a reprieve were Pagdayawon, Eddie Sernadilla and Filomeno Serrano.

Mrs. Arroyo previously rescheduled the original Friday date for Pagdayawon’s execution because it fell on the eve of the birthday of Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin. However she did not originally specify how long the reprieve would last.

In December 2000, then President Joseph Estrada ordered a freeze on executions in response to a clamor from the Catholic Church, which was celebrating its Jubilee Year. He was overthrown in January 2001 on corruption allegations and Mrs. Arroyo maintained the freeze after she took over.

The Philippines has executed seven convicts in 1999 following the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1994. A total of 1,010 convicts are currently on death row. Twenty-nine of them are women.

The Bureau of Corrections earlier said there were 18 people scheduled for execution this year.

Congress is debating a bill calling for the abolition of the death penalty on the grounds that it does not deter crime and that many of those sentenced to death were poor, illiterate people who could not afford a good lawyer.

There is an escalating move in Congress to repeal Republic Act 7659, or the Death Penalty Law of 1994, and Republic Act 8177 or the Lethal Injection Act.

On Monday, the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), representing 30 death-row convicts due for execution, petitioned the Supreme Court to stop the government from undertaking their executions.

Amnesty International last week called on Mrs. Arroyo to declare a moratorium on executions. "The death penalty achieves nothing but revenge," it said.

Bunye told Agence France Presse the three men, who were scheduled to be executed from Friday to Sept. 20, would have their executions delayed by 90 days each.

This would give the Office of the President "more time to conduct a study to determine whether executive clemency may be extended to the prisoners," Bunye said.

However, this would not mean Mrs. Arroyo was changing her policy in favor of capital punishment.

Asked whether the President would consider clemency for these three men, Bunye replied, "this is her prerogative."

He acknowledged that the Catholic Church had previously asked for a delay in the imminent executions of those on death row.

Mrs. Arroyo had originally said she was against the death penalty and would not have any executions carried out during her term. But she reversed her stand last year, saying executions were needed to strike fear among criminals, especially kidnappers for ransom.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) was not too happy with the postponement of the executions, stressing its demand for abolition.

"We are not only after reprieve or piecemeal solutions. We are really after the abolition of the death penalty law," Bishop Hernando Coronel, CBCP secretary general and spokesman, said.

Saying that the death penalty was not a deterrent to crimes, Coronel emphasized that it was also inhuman and cruel.

Another set of records showed that as of Aug. 22 this year, there are 987 people on death row. Of this number, 60 cases have been affirmed by the Supreme Court, 34 with finality. Sixty cases have been filed for reconsideration. — AFP, Sandy Araneta