Death to life

Every Presidential move seems to be embroiled in controversies. The move to change the Charter looks promising enough to get us out of the present political, economic and social problems. The Mayuga report seems to be credible enough to put a satisfactory closure to the rumored involvement of some Generals and thus end restiveness in the military. And the most recent Easter Sunday wholesale commutation of death sentences of convicts has all the appearances of a virtuous humanitarian act done in the spirit of Christian love. Yet the arch critics and diehard anti GMA forces are still gaining substantial support in their stiff resistance to these moves with their usual brickbats. Not because of their forceful and convincing arguments but because the Palace itself has given them enough ammo and firepower to torpedo the moves.

We have seen how the haste in pushing for Charter change through a dubious "people’s initiative" and the slowness in the release of the Mayuga report have drawn so much skepticism about the self serving motives behind them. Now another heated controversy swirls around the Presidential commutation of the death sentences of Muntinlupa convicts.

The matter of commutation of death sentences is an exercise of the benign prerogative of executive clemency granted by the Constitution solely to the President (Section 19 Article VII). It means a change of punishment to which a person has been condemned by final judgment to a less severe one. This can be granted only by the authority in which the pardoning power resides (ex-parte James, 1 Nev. 221; Snodgras v. State 150 S.W. 162 cited in People vs. Vera 95 Phil. 110). This grant recognizes the weaknesses and imperfections of man and the human institutions particularly the judiciary as it renders judgment and applies the penal law and the legislature as it enacts the law and fixes an unconscionably harsh penalty for the offense committed. Commutation is one of the tools of last resort to correct the possible mistakes in the dispensation of justice and to lessen the severity of the penalty fixed by law that must be unqualifiedly applied because of the principle of dura lex sed lex (the law is hard but it is the law). The exercise of this prerogative is usually unquestionable. The President may err but it is better to err on the side of life than on the side of an irreversible death that may turn out to be unjust.

Unfortunately the announced Presidential commutation appears to be legally objectionable. I hoped it is merely a statement of general policy timed for the Easter holiday and that an implementing order is still to follow. All the reports say that the death sentences of more than 1,200 convicts have been reduced or commuted to life imprisonment. This is erroneous. "Life imprisonment" is not included in the scale of penalties provided by the Revised Penal Code (RPC). The scale of penalties set forth in Article 70 of the RPC provides that the penalty next lower in degree to a death sentence is reclusion perpetua. Pursuant to said article, this scale has to be followed in the exercise of the presidential executive clemency. Indeed even in Article 47 where the death sentence of the Trial Court is not imposed because the required number of votes of the Supreme Court Justices is not reached reclusion perpetua is the penalty imposed, it being the penalty next lower in degree under the scale of penalties.

Reclusion perpetua and life imprisonment are not the same. A person sentenced to reclusion perpetua is eligible for pardon after undergoing the penalty for 30 years (Article 27 RPC). But a person sentenced to life imprisonment shall spend the rest of his life in jail without any chance of being pardoned. Life imprisonment is usually imposed for crimes punishable by special laws rather than by the RPC. GMA’s Justice Secretary should have advised her that the death sentence cannot be commuted to life imprisonment but only to reclusion perpetua pursuant to the RPC. By commuting death sentence to life imprisonment, the President is in effect amending the law which only Congress can do.

The wholesale commutation is also too broad and sweeping for comfort. Only final death sentences are subject to commutation. There are death convicts in Muntinlupa whose cases are still pending automatic review by the SC because they are usually transferred there upon conviction by the Trial Court. So, not all the more than 1,200 death row convicts may be entitled to commutation of their sentence. Usually commutation is done individually or in small groups after a review of their cases. While wholesale commutation is not prohibited, it must be shown that the case of every death convict has been individually reviewed and that all their death sentences are already final. None has been shown in this mass commutation.

The President may mean well. But good intentions must be carried out properly and legally.

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