Nograles open to return of death penalty

MANILA, Philippines - Speaker Prospero Nograles indicated yesterday that he is open to the proposed re-imposition of the death penalty.

“Let’s debate it. We should have collective consensus here,” he said.

Nograles was reacting to the proposal of Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr. for Congress to re-impose the death penalty in the wake of the massacre of 57 innocent civilians and media practitioners in Maguindanao.

The Speaker said his problem with the proposal is that the carnage happened only in one area in Mindanao.

“There’s not a problem everywhere. Each province is unique and governed differently by local leaders. Like Davao City, which has its death squad problem that can’t be found in other cities,” he said.

Nograles is representative of Davao City’s first district. He plans to run for city mayor in next year’s elections.

In advocating the return of the death penalty, Abante told the Serye Café news forum in Quezon City that capital punishment “can be a big deterrent to criminality.”

“The barbaric and detestable criminal act that happened in Maguindanao should be a wakeup call to us lawmakers. Let us re-impose the death penalty,” he said.

He urged Nograles to prioritize his Bill 4882, which seeks to restore capital punishment and which he said has been gathering dust in the House since he filed it on July 31 last year.

Abante, a Protestant bishop who is president of Biblemode International, said his organization, together with other religious groups, “declares its outrage and indignation over this unfortunate yet shameless incident in our political history.”

“We call upon all religious leaders, including Muslim ulamas, to join hands, setting aside doctrinal differences, to condemn this dastardly act,” he said.

He distributed a “Manifesto of Outrage and Indignation” signed by leaders of Biblemode and other religious groups, including the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches and Word of Hope, and the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption.

Abante said they are planning a large prayer-rally at the Luneta Park in Manila to collectively express their condemnation of the Maguindanao massacre and call for decisive action on the part of President Arroyo.

“She should forget about political alliances for the sake of the victims and their families, and our country in general,” the Manila lawmaker, a member of Lakas-Kampi, said.

In the same news forum, National Press Club president Benny Antiporda lamented that the government was dragging its feet on arresting the suspects in the Maguindanao mass murders.

“In the case of broadcaster Ted Failon, when his wife killed herself, the police had no witness and basis to suspect that Ted had something to do with her death. And yet, they insisted on inviting him. They even manhandled members of his household whom they treated as suspects,” he said.

He said Malacañang was observing a double standard in the case of Maguindanao massacre principal suspect Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr.

“If Ampatuan were a critic of the administration or an ordinary Filipino, he would have been arrested shortly after the mass murders last Monday on the strength of testimonies linking him to the carnage,” he said.