Capital punishment in the Philippines has a varied history and was suspended on June 24,

2006the second time since 1987.

Filipinos have mixed opinions about the death penalty, with many opposing it on religious and
humanitarian grounds, while advocates see it as a way of deterring crimes.
Contents
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1 Spanish and American periods

2 1946 to 1986

3 Reinstatement and moratorium

4 Second suspension
4.1 Aftermath

5 Methods

6 References

7 External links

Spanish and American periods[edit]

A 1901 execution at the Old Bilibid Prison, Manila, Philippines

During Spanish colonial rule, the most common methods of execution were death by firing
squad (especially for treason/military crimes, usually reserved for independence fighters)
and garrotte (a notable case would be the Gomburza). Death by hanging was another popular
method.

A prominent example is the national hero, Jos Rizal, who was executed by firing squad on the
morning of December 30, 1896, in the park that now bears his name.[1]
In 1926, the electric chair (Spanish: silla elctrica; Filipino: silya elktrika) was introduced by
the United States' colonial Insular Government, making the Philippines the only other country to
employ this method. The last colonial-era execution took place under GovernorGeneral Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. in February 1932. There were no executions under Manuel L.
Quezon, the first President of the Commonwealth.[2]

1946 to 1986[edit]
The capital crimes after regaining full sovereignty in July 1946 were murder, rape and treason.
However, no executions took place until April 1950,[3] whenJulio Gullien, executed for attempting
to assassinate President Manuel Roxas;.[4] Other notable cases includes Marcil "Baby" Ama,
electrocuted at the age of 16 on October 4, 1961 for murders committed while in prison for
lesser charges.[5] Ama notably became the subject of the popular 1976 film, Bitayin si... Baby
Ama! (Execute Baby Ama!).[6]
Another famous case was of former powerful Governor of Negros Occidental Rafael Lacson and
22 of his allies, condemned to die in August 1954 for the murder of a political opponent.
[7]

Ultimately, Lacson was never executed.

In total, 51 people were electrocuted up to 1961. Execution numbers climbed under

President Ferdinand Marcos, who was ironically himself sentenced to death in 1939 for murder
of Julio Nalundasanthe political rival of his father, Mariano; the young Ferdinand was
acquitted on appeal. A well-publicised triple execution took place in May 1972, when Jaime
Jos, Basilio Pineda, and Edgardo Aquino were electrocuted for the 1967 abduction and gangrape of the young actress Maggie dela Riva. The state ordered that the executions be broadcast
on national television.[8]
Under the Marcos regime, drug trafficking also became punishable with death by firing squad,
such as the case with Lim Seng, whose execution in December 1972 was also ordered
broadcast on national television. Future President and then Chief of the Philippine
Constabulary, General Fidel V. Ramos, was present at the execution.[9]
The electric chair was used until 1976, when execution by firing squad eventually replaced it as
the sole method of execution. Under Marcos' 20-year authoritarian rule, however, countless
more people were summarily executed, tortured, or simply disappeared for opposition to his
rule.[neutrality is disputed]

After Marcos was deposed in 1986, the newly drafted 1987 Constitution limited the application
of the death penalty to only a few crimes. This meant that it was abolished in practice, making
the Philippines the first Asian country to do so.

Reinstatement and moratorium[edit]

President Fidel V. Ramos promised during his campaign that he would support the
reintroduction of the death penalty in response to increasing crime rates. The new law, drafted
by Ramos, restored capital punishment by defining "heinous crimes" as everything from murder
to stealing a car.
This law provided the use of the electric chair until the gas chamber (chosen by the government
to replace electrocution) could be installed.
The death of Leo Echegaray in 1999 by lethal injection took place under Ramos'
successor, Joseph Estrada, marking the first execution after the reinstatement of the death
penalty. Following on a personal appeal by his spiritual advisor, Bishop Teodoro Bacani, Estrada
called a moratorium in 2000 to honour thebimillenial anniversary of Christ's birth.[10] Executions
were resumed a year later.
Estrada's own successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was a vocal opponent and also approved a
moratorium, but later permitted executions and denied pardons.

Second suspension[edit]

An old embarkation card (erroneously) warning visitors of the death penalty for drug trafficking. The caveat has since
been removed from subsequent versions.

On 15 April 2006, the sentences of 1,230 death row inmates were commuted to life
imprisonment, in what Amnesty International believes to be the "largest ever commutation of
death sentences".[11]
Capital punishment was again suspended via Republic Act No. 9346, which was signed by
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on 24 June 2006. The bill followed a vote held
in Congress earlier that month which overwhelmingly supported the abolition of the practise.
[12]

The penalties of life imprisonment andreclusion perpetua (detention of indefinite length,

usually for at least 30-years) replaced the death penalty.[13] Critics of Arroyo's initiative called it a
political move meant to placate the Roman Catholic Church, some sectors of which were
increasingly vocal in their opposition to her rule.

Aftermath[edit]

President Arroyo controversially pardoned many prisoners during her presidency, including a
2009 pardon for all remaining felons convicted for the 1983 assassination of former Senator and
opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr..[14]

Methods[edit]
The Philippines was the only country aside from the United States that used the electric chair,
due to its being introduced during the US colonial period. Until its first abolition in 1987, the
country reverted to using death by firing squad.
After re-introduction of the death penalty in 1993, the country switched to lethal injection as its
sole method of execution.

First execution in the Philippines in 23 years

By Peter Symonds
6 February 1999
For the first time in 23 years, the death penalty has been carried out in the
Philippines. Leo Echegaray, 39, died shortly after 3 pm local time yesterday, having
been injected with lethal chemicals at the execution chamber in New Bilibid Prison
on the outskirts of Manila. The execution was turned into a media circus with 11
selected journalists as well as government officials permitted to watch the prisoner
die.
Outside the prison, the police had set up barbed wire lining the main road to the
national jail. Schools in the area had been shut down as demonstrations took place
both for and against the execution. Across the country, prisons were placed on alert
in anticipation of possible rioting.
Philippine President Joseph Estrada ignored a string of appeals from the European
Union, Canada, Amnesty International, the Vatican and church leaders in the
Philippines to grant clemency. He declared that he would not change his mind even
for the Pope and theatrically ordered the telephone "hotline" between the
presidential palace and the death cell to be cut off to signify that there would be no
last minute reprieve.
Estrada, along with other politicians, right-wing religious organisations and vigilante
groups, has been in the forefront of whipping up a lynchmob frenzy. His wife Luisa
and Vice-President Gloria Macapagal joined a protest last month in Manila's central
business district demanding Echegaray be executed. Just recently Estrada has told
the media that he "feels good" about ordering the execution, saying he was doing it
to protect "innocent people, especially innocent young girls".

Echegaray was found guilty in 1994 of raping his stepdaughter, known as Baby, who
was then 10 years old. The date of the crime was never established, the forensic
evidence was inconclusive and there were no corroborating witnesses. Echegaray, a
house painter from a poor Manila neighbourhood, maintained that he was innocent
and had been framed because of a family land dispute.
The death penalty was abolished in 1987 in the Philippines only to be reintroduced
in late 1993 in a political atmosphere increasingly permeated by "law-and-order"
demagogy. The new legislation covers a wide variety of crimes including murder,
rape, kidnapping, possession of firearms and drug trafficking. The death sentence is
mandatory for 21 so-called "heinous crimes," far more than in most countries with
capital punishment, and can be imposed in another 25 crimes. Estrada has
indicated he supports legislation to broaden the scope even further.
There are now 915 prisoners on death row, including 17 foreigners. Most are
individuals from impoverished backgrounds who cannot afford their own lawyers
and have to rely on the limited legal assistance offered by the public defender.
Echegaray claimed that he would have been found not guilty if he had paid the
presiding judge a 50,000 peso bribe. In the coming months, another 10 men are
scheduled to die.
The execution of Echegaray has been a major political issue in the Philippines in
recent months. On January 4, just three hours before he was due to die, the
country's Supreme Court voted for a six-month stay of execution to allow the
Congress time to review the law.
The decision provoked a hysterical response from pro-death penalty organisations
and politicians. Groups such as the Volunteers against Crime and Corruption and the
Citizen's Crime Watch, as well as the Jesus is Lord and Philippines for Jesus
Movement, held demonstrations demanding the abolition of the Supreme Court.
Some of the protesters chanted "Hang the eight Supreme Court justices".
Pressure was brought to bear on the victim and her immediate family to actively
support the campaign. The Speaker of the Congress, Manuel Villar, gave Baby
Echegaray, now 15, a house and land, and held a two-hour meeting with her. She
supported the execution and joined the pro-capital punishment marches.
In a hastily convened session, the lower house of Congress categorically ruled out
any change to the death penalty legislation. Just two weeks after its original
decision, the Supreme Court voted 11 to 2, with another two abstentions, to reverse
the stay and allow the execution to proceed. Final legal appeals for Echegaray were
rejected this week.
According to the latest polls, more than 80 percent of Filipinos support the death
penalty. The level has risen markedly over the last decade as the social tensions
caused by rising unemployment and poverty have sharpened. Right-wing

politicians, unable to provide any solution to the social problems confronting

millions, have seized upon "law-and-order" as a means of exploiting the prevailing
mood of unease and uncertainty.
In the national elections last year, Estrada, a former film star in B-grade movies,
played on his film persona as a tough underdog to appeal to the impoverished
masses in the city slums and rural areas. As mayor of San Juan in metropolitan
Manila, he made a name by personally taking part in arrests that were carefully
staged for the media. One of his main opponents, Alfredo "Dirty Harry" Lim, mayor
of Manila, was notorious for the arbitrary murder of suspected criminals.
During the campaign, Estrada, nicknamed "Erap" or "Buddy" in Filipino slang, used
the slogan "Erap for the poor" and promised programs to raise the living standards
of the most downtrodden. But in the aftermath of the elections, his close
connections with the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his big business cronies
such as the billionaire tycoon Eduard Cojuangco have become more and more
apparent.
After Marcos was toppled by the so-called "People's Power" movement led by Cory
Aquino in 1986, Cojuangco's 17 percent holding in the huge beer and food
conglomerate San Miguel was suspended pending an investigation into allegations
of corruption. One week into Estrada's term of office, Cojuangco was elected by the
board of directors to head the company. Eight of the 15 board members are
presidential appointees.
Even before his inauguration, Estrada caused an uproar by suggesting that Marcos'
body be reinterred in a hero's grave. After taking office, he took the lead in reaching
a deal with Marcos' widow Imelda over a division of the billions of dollars in wealth
hoarded away by the dictator. Neither Imelda nor any of Marcos' other military and
business supporters have been brought to trial for their role during the dictatorship
over the past 13 years.
At the same time, Estrada is presiding over an economic and social disaster. The
country's Gross Domestic Product slumped by 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter of
1998 and was down by 0.5 percent for the entire year, as compared to 5.1 percent
growth in 1997. As unemployment and poverty have grown Estrada has ruled out
any government assistance for the jobless.
The motivations of Estrada and his political associates for demanding the execution
of Echegaray are all too clear. He has seized upon the death penalty as a means of
diverting public attention from his failure to carry out his empty election promises to
help the poor and his increasingly obvious role as a political puppet for some of the
richest families in the Philippines.
Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/02/phil-f06.html