A timeline of death penalty in the Philippines

THE imposition of the death penalty in the country has had a repressive history. For the most part (from 1848 to 1987), it was
used to curtail the liberties, freedoms and rights of the Filipino people. In recent history, however, the death penalty was
reimposed as a knee-jerk response to what has largely been seen as rising criminality in the country. The following, with help
from the Mamamayang Tutol sa Bitay-Movement for Restorative Justice, traces the death penaltys historical roots and context
in Philippine society:
Spanish Period (1521-1898)
2 Spanish colonizers brought with them medieval Europes penal system, including executions.
2 Capital punishment during the early Spanish Period took various forms including burning, decapitation, drowning,
flaying, garrote, hanging, shooting, stabbing and others.
2 Capital punishment was enshrined in the 1848 Spanish Codigo Penal and was only imposed on locals who challenged
the established authority of the colonizers.
2 Between 1840-1857, recorded death sentences totaled 1,703 with 46 actual executions.
2 Filipinos who were meted the death penalty include Magat Salamat (1587); the native clergies Gomez, Burgos and
Zamora who were garroted in 1872; and Dr. Jose Rizal, executed on December 30, 1896. All of them are now enshrined as
heroes.
American Period (1898-1934)
2 The American colonizers, adopting most of the provisions under the Codigo Penal of 1848, retain the death penalty.
2 The Codigo Penal was revised in 1932. Treason, parricide, piracy, kidnapping, murder, rape, and robbery with homicide
were considered capital offenses and warranted the death penalty.
2 The Sedition Law (1901); Brigandage Act (1902); Reconcentration Act (1903); and Flag Law (1907) were enacted to
sanction the use of force, including death, against all nationalist Filipinos.
2 Macario Sakay was one of those sentenced to die for leading a resistance group. He was sentenced to die by public
hanging.
2 The capital punishment continued to be an integral part of the pacification process of the country, to suppress any
resistance to American authority.
Japanese Occupation (1941-1945)
2 There are no recorded or documented cases of executions through the death penalty during this period simply
because extrajudicial executions were widely practised as part of the pacification of the country.
Post-World War II
2 Espionage is added to the list of capital offenses.
2 The Anti-Subversion Law called for the death penalty for all Communist leaders. However, no executions were
recorded for any captured communist leader.
2 For the period of 1946-1965, 35 people were executed for offenses that the Supreme Court labeled as crimes of
senseless depravity or extreme criminal perversity.
The Marcos Years (1965-1986)
2 Deterrence became the official justification for the imposition of the death penalty. This is the same justification used
for the declaration of Martial Law in 1972.
2 The number of capital crimes increased to a total of 24. Some crimes which were made punishable by death through
laws and decrees during the Marcos period were subversion, possession of firearms, arson, hijacking, embezzlement, drug-
related offenses, unlawful possession of firearms, illegal fishing and cattle rustling.
2 Jaime Jose, Basilio Pineda, and Edgardo Aquino were executed for the gang rape of movie star Maggie dela Riva in
1972. Despite prohibitions against public executions, the execution of the three was done in full view of the public.
2 Nineteen executions took place during the Pre-Martial Law period. Twelve were executed during Martial Law.
2 Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. was sentenced to die by firing squad for charges of murder, subversion and illegal
possession of firearm in 1977.
2 The last judicial execution under the Marcos years was in October 1976 when Marcelo San Jose was executed by
electrocution.
2 Similar to the reasons for the imposition of capital punishment during the Colonial Periods, the death penalty during the
Marcos Regime was imposed to quell rebellion and social unrest.
President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino (1986-1992)
2 The Death Penalty was abolished under the 1987 Constitution.
2 The Philippines became the first Asian country to abolish the death penalty for all crimes.
2 All death sentences were reduced to reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment.
2 In 1988, the military started lobbying for the imposition of the death penalty for crimes committed by the CPP-NPA.
President Fidel Valdez Ramos (1993-1998)
2 A series of high profile crimes during this period, including the murder of Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez, created
public impression that heinous crimes were on the rise.
2 The Ramos administration reimposed the death penalty by virtue of Republic Act No. 7659 in December 1993 to
address the rising criminality and incidence of heinous crimes.
2 The Death Penalty Law lists a total of 46 crimes punishable by death; 25 of these are death mandatory while 21 are
death eligible.
2 Republic Act No. 8177 mandates that a death sentence shall be carried out through lethal injection.
President Joseph Ejercito Estrada (1998-2001)
2 Leo Echegaray was executed in February 1999 and was followed by six other executions for various heinous crimes.
2 In 1999, the bumper year for executions, the national crime volume, instead of abating, ironically increased by 15.3
percent or a total of 82,538 (from 71,527 crimes in the previous year).
2 Estrada issued a de facto moratorium on executions in the face of church-led campaigns to abolish the death penalty
and in observance of the Jubilee Year.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-present)
2 Arroyo publicly stated that she is not in favor of executions.
2 Due to the rise in crimes related to drugs and kidnappings that targeted the Filipino-Chinese community, she
announced that she would resume executions to sow fear into the hearts of criminals.
2 Arroyo lifted the de facto moratorium issued by Estrada on December 5, 2003.
2 Even as executions were set to resume on January 2004, this did not push through by virtue of a Supreme Court
decision to reopen the Lara-Licayan case.
2 Since then, the administration has been issuing reprieves on scheduled executions without actually issuing a
moratorium.
With the amendment of Republic Act No. 8353 (Anti-Rape Law of 1997) and Republic Act No. 9165
(Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs act of 2002), there are now 52 capital offenses, 30 of which are death mandatory and 22 are
death eligible.
http://pcij.org/blog/2006/04/18/a-timeline-of-death-penalty-in-the-philippines

Supreme Courts judicial errors in death-penalty cases

THE recent admission by Supreme Court Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban that a judicial error could have been committed in
the conviction and execution of Leo Echegaray has prompted a hail of criticisms some even self-serving addressed at the
infallibility of the High Court magistrates.
In June 1996, the Court affirmed a Quezon City courts decision to mete the death penalty on Echegaray for the rape of a minor.
Echagaray was the first to die by lethal injection in 1999 with the reimposition of the death penalty. But Panganiban was of the
opinion that Echegarays penalty should have been reduced to reclusion perpetua (equivalent to life imprisonment with eligibility
for parole after 30 years) since it was not proven during the trial that he was the father, stepfather or grandfather of the victim,
a qualifying circumstance for him to have been meted the capital punishment.
But the Echagaray case is not the first time that the SC, the ultimate arbiter of a convicted persons innocence or guilt, has
proved itself not infallible. At least two recent cases involving Marlon Parazo (1999) and Roberto Lara and Roderick Licayan
(2004) illustrate this malady, according to Mamamayang Tutol sa Bitay-Movement for Restorative Justice (MTB-MRJ), a
nationwide network of some 150 human rights, sectoral, political, and church groups opposed to the death penalty.
Parazo, deaf, blind, mute and retarded, was meted the death sentence in 1995 for rape and attempted homicide. The court that
tried his case never bothered to ensure that he understood the proceedings against him. His multiple disabilities were never
mentioned in court, not even by his court-appointed lawyer. His sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1997. Taking up
his case, the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) was able to have the high court reverse itself in 1999.

Scheduled for execution on January 30, 2004, Roberto Lara and Roderick Licayan were given a 30-day reprieve pending an
appeal to reopen their case in light of new evidence. By a very close vote of 7-6, the SC decided to look at the new evidence:
the sworn affidavit of a recently apprehended co-defendant that cleared both Lara and Licayan of the crime for which they were
about to be executed. The retrial is ongoing at RTC Branch 272 in Marikina City, where both hope to prove themselves innocent.
In the above cases, the SC was able to rectify its miscarriage of justice. Panganiban also said that the Court has taken
measures to review death penalty cases with painstaking care, citing the case of Edgar Gallo wherein the Court belatedly
reduced the penalty to reclusion perpetua, even though the decision meting out death had already become final.
Still, there have been instances when it was not able to do so. MTB-MRJ cites a study by Dawson and Gregory (2004) which
documents the case of a 79-year-old man wrongfully sentenced to death (Republic Act No. 7659, recently repealed by
Congress, prohibited the meting of the death penalty on those below 18 and above 70 years old). Unfortunately, the man died
on death row before the SC could review his case, five years after sentencing.
To be fair, the Supreme Court has acknowledged in GR No. 147678-87 (People v. Mateo, July 7, 2004) the judicial error rate of
71.77 percent on death penalty cases, though this would even increase to almost 80 percent early this year.
The SCs review of capital punishment cases up to January 2006, as documented by MTB-MRJ, found out that four out of five
death inmates have been wrongfully sentenced by the various lower courts. Of the 1,513 cases reviewed, almost half (645)
were modified (from death penalty to reclusion perpetua or indeterminate sentence), close to a third (456) were transferred to
the Court of Appeals, 69 were acquitted, and 37 were remanded for further proceedings. Only 270 cases (18 percent) were
affirmed by the high court.
The figures reported by the chief justice are however slightly lower 65 acquittals, 230 affirmations, 651 cases either
remanded for further proceedings, or reduced to reclusion perpetua or other lower penalties out of 907 cases reviewed.
A study conducted by the University of Westminster-based Centre for Capital Punishment Studies observed that in most cases
of wrongful sentences, the letter of the law is often ignored, either because documentary evidence does not exist or because
the presiding judge is ignorant of the law.
The most glaring defects involve the well-documented cases of minors (below 18) and the elderly (above 70) sentenced to
death, in clear disregard of the law. In 2000, for instance, an 81-year-old woman received the death sentence. In October 2005,
the Alyansa ng mga Inmates sa Death Row (Alis-DR) reported that 18 male death row inmates were minors at the time of the
alleged crimes for which they were sentenced, while another 11 were over the age of 70.
MTB-MRJ has also documented several instances when judges have sentenced mentally ill persons. The most bizarre example
of this concerns a woman who received the capital punishment despite incontrovertible medical evidence (from two doctors) that
she was severely mentally ill at the commission of the crime. Said the MTB-MRJ report:
The trial judge disregarded the doctors testimonies, pointing out that the accused herself failed to give evidence of her mental
condition. In an even more bizarre twist to the case, another criminal action was brought against the woman for property
damage she caused at the time of the crime. This time, relying on evidence from the same doctors, the trial judge found the
woman not guilty on grounds of insanity.
http://pcij.org/blog/2006/06/13/supreme-courts-judicial-errors-in-death-penalty-cases

Major death penalty case takes twist in Philippines

By CARLOS H. CONDE and INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNEJAN. 27, 2004 MANILA: The lawyer of two
convicts scheduled to be executed this week in the Philippines pleaded with the Supreme Court on Monday to halt
their deaths and reopen the case to allow new testimony that could clear them. The lawyer, Persida Rueda-Acosta of
the Public Attorney's Office, said witnesses had exonerated at least one of the two condemned men, Roberto Lara
and Roderick Licayan, who were convicted in a 1998 kidnapping. Among the witnesses, she said, were two other
kidnappers who were arrested earlier this month. Five other kidnappers remain at large. The case of the two men,
who are scheduled to die by lethal injection on Friday, is crucial in the death penalty debate here because it tends to
reinforce one of the main arguments against capital punishment that it cannot be carried out in a country where
human rights groups claim that the criminal justice system is defective. Even the prosecutors in the case agreed with
Acosta that the case should be reopened. "There is enough reason to at least hold off the execution," said Alfredo
Benipayo, the government's chief prosecutor. "If after this we are certain of their guilt, then we can execute them."
Acosta told the court that witnesses for Lara and Licayan had been prevented from testifying during their trial.
Although the court did issue any statement following Acosta's arguments during the four-hour hearing, she said,
"There is reason to hope that the court will heed our appeal for a stay of execution. Acosta told the court she had
witnesses who would prove that Lara is innocent. The witnesses, she said, were not permitted to testify during the
trial. "There is an imperative duty on the part of the court to reopen this case. There will be miscarriage of justice if
the two are executed," Acosta said after the hearing. The death penalty was restored in the Philippines in 1993.
Seven convicts were executed before the previous president, Joseph Estrada, suspended capital punishment in
2000. Today, 1,022 people are on death row, seven of them minors. Local and international human rights groups and
the European Union have repeatedly asked President Gloria Arroyo to abolish the death penalty. The Catholic
Church has been leading the fight against capital punishment here. On Sunday, religious and anti-death penalty
groups held demonstrations in Manila and in Bacolod City, in the central Philippines, Lara's hometown.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/27/news/major-death-penalty-case-takes-twist-in-philippines.html
10 Infamous Cases of Wrongful Execution
Theres no doubt about it the U.S. criminal justice system is not perfect. And those imperfections become apparent when
someone is the innocent victim of the death penalty. Wrongful executions have been happening for hundreds of years, but until
the advent of DNA evidence and improved forensics technology, these individuals have remained guilty as charged. Today, DNA
evidence has exonerated and released 15 death row inmates since 1992, but only eight inmates have been acknowledged of
their possible innocence after execution by the Death Penalty Information Center.
1. Claude Jones: Claude Jones was executed in 2000 for the murder of liquor store owner Allen Hilzendager, in San
Jacinto County in 1989. On Nov. 14, 1989, Jones and another man were seen pulling into a liquor store in Point Blank,
Texas. One stayed in the car while the other went inside and shot the owner. Witnesses who were standing across the
road couldnt see the killer, but Jones and two other men, Kerry Dixon and Timothy Jordan, were all linked to the
murder. Although Jones said he never entered the store, Dixon and Jordan testified that Jones was in fact the shooter
and they were both spared the death penalty. The deciding factor and only admissible evidence in Jones conviction
came down to a strand of hair that was found at the scene of the crime. A forensic expert testified that the hair
appeared to have come from Jones, and he was sentenced to death. Forensic technology was underdeveloped during
the 1990 trial and it wasnt able to match Jones DNA with the hair sample. Therefore, before his 2000 execution,
Jones attorneys filed petitions for a stay of execution with a district court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and
requested that the hair be submitted for DNA testing that was now possible, but all courts and former Texas Governor
George W. Bush denied Jones and he was executed. In an attempt to prove that Texas executed an innocent man, the
Innocence Project and the Texas Observer filed a lawsuit in 2007 to obtain the strand of hair and submitted it for DNA
testing, which was determined to be the hair of the victim.
2. Jesse Tafero: Jesse Tafero was executed by electric chair in 1990 for murdering two Florida police officers, Phillip
Black and Donald Irwin. The murders occurred on Feb. 20, 1976, when Black and Irwin approached a parked car at a
rest stop and found Tafero, his partner Sonia Sunny Jacobs, her two children and Walter Rhodes asleep inside. They
were ordered to get out of the car when the officers saw a gun lying on the floor inside the car and, according to
Rhodes, Tafero proceeded to shoot both officers and took off in their police car. They disposed of the police car and
stole a mans car, but were arrested after being caught in a roadblock. The gun was found in Taferos waistband,
although it was legally registered to Jacobs. Tafero had been convicted of robbery and had served seven years of a 25-
year sentence before being convicted for murder. Tafero and Jacobs claimed that Rhodes was the lone shooter, but
Rhodes testified against them in exchange for a lighter sentence. Rhodes later admitted that he was responsible for
the killings, but Tafero was still sentenced to death.
3. Cameron Todd Willingham: Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for murdering his three young daughters
by intentionally setting fire to the family home in Corsicana, Texas. The arson-murder case fueled much controversy
about Willinghams guilt, which was determined by the cases primary evidence the arson investigators findings.
They determined that the fire was deliberately set with the help of a liquid accelerant due to specific burn patterns,
laboratory tests and points of origin. Willingham maintained his innocence and appealed his conviction for years, but
was executed at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville on Feb. 16, 2004. In 2009, the Texas Forensic Science
Commission panel reevaluated the case and determined that state and local arson investigators used flawed science
when they labeled the fire as arson. Although advances in fire science and arson investigations have improved since
1991, the year of the fire, experts now believe the Corsicana Fire Department was negligent in their findings. The
science commission is still investigating the arson ruling, and if the judge clears Willingham, it would be the first time an
official has formally declared a wrongful execution in Texas.
4. Larry Griffin: Larry Griffin was executed in 1995 for a drive-by shooting that killed 19-year-old drug dealer Quintin Moss
in St. Louis. Griffin immediately became a suspect because his older brother Dennis Griffin, another well-known drug
dealer, was murdered just six months earlier. Moss was believed to have killed Dennis Griffin. Although there were a
number of possible suspects in the murder of Moss, a witness account by a white man named Robert Fitzgerald, who
claimed to have seen the shooting, knew the license plate number of the vehicle and could identify the gunman was all
it took to have Griffin arrested. Fitzgerald was a convicted felon who had a long history of run-ins with the law, which
raised concerns about the legitimacy of his story. During the 1993 hearing, Fitzgerald admitted to being unsure if Griffin
was the man in the car after all. There were two key witnesses who wavered and a third person whose testimony could
have helped Griffin, but was never contacted by either the defense or prosecution. Griffin continued to proclaim his
innocence until his execution. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund investigated the case after Griffins
execution and wanted to uncover more witness accounts that could support their claim that Missouri executed an
innocent man.
5. Ruben Cantu: Ruben Cantu was executed in 1993 for the murder-robbery of a San Antonio man at the age of 17.
Cantu had no previous convictions, but was pinpointed as a violent murderer who shot one victim nine times, as well
 as shot the only eyewitness nine times with a rifle, but he lived to testify. Juan Moreno offered his testimony to police
and identified Cantu as the shooter, but later recanted, admitting that he said Cantu out of influence and fear of
authorities. Although the case had a compelling witness testimony, there was no physical evidence that linked Cantu to
the crime. In addition, his co-defendant David Garza, who allegedly committed the murder-robbery with Cantu,
remained silent and signed a sworn affidavit allowing his accomplice to be falsely accused. Cantu maintained his
innocence until his execution and claimed that he had been framed in this capital murder case.
6. David Spence: David Spence was executed in 1997 for murdering three teenagers in 1982 in Waco. Spence was
convicted of raping, torturing and murdering two 17-year-old girls and murdering an 18-year-old boy. As the original
allegations go, Spence was hired by convenience store owner Muneer Deeb to kill one girl and he ended up killing
these three teens by mistake. Deeb was charged and sentenced to death, but later received a re-trial and was
acquitted. Authoritative sources even had serious doubt about Spences guilt. Although there was no clear physical
evidence to link Spence to the crime, prosecutors used bite marks that were found on one of the girls body and
matched it to Spences teeth. Even jailhouse witnesses were bribed into snitching on Spence. Despite weak evidential
support and jail mate testimonies, Spence was executed.
7. Carlos De Luna: Carlos De Luna was executed in 1989 for the 1983 stabbing of Wanda Lopez, a Texas convenience
store clerk. There were two eyewitnesses who played a key role in the conviction of De Luna. Before the murder-
robbery, George Aguirre was filling up at the gas station where the crime occurred, when he saw a man standing
outside the store slide a knife with the blade exposed into his pocket and enter. The man asked Aguirre for a ride to a
nightclub, but he refused and went inside the store to warn Lopez about the suspicious man. Aguirre left and Lopez
called the police to describe the man. As she was on the phone with a dispatcher, the man came back into the store
and robbed her. The second witness, Kevan Baker, pulled into the station and heard bangs on the stations window and
saw a man struggling with a woman. As Baker approached the gas station, the murderer threatened him and took off.
When police searched the area, they found De Luna not far from the station. He was shirtless and shoeless in a puddle
of water and screamed, Dont shoot! You got me! Both Aguirre and Baker confirmed De Luna was the man at the
station. Little to no physical evidence was collected at the crime scene, including blood samples and fingerprints that
could have helped De Luna. De Luna maintained his innocence and repeated that Carlos Hernandez was the actual
killer. Despite Hernandezs trouble with the law and repeated confessions to the murder, De Luna was executed.
8. Joseph ODell: Joseph ODell was executed in 1997 for raping and murdering Helen Schartner. ODell was convicted
on the basis of blood evidence and a jailhouse snitch. ODell represented himself and continued to proclaim his
innocence in various unsuccessful appeals to the Virginia Supreme Court, Federal District Court and the Supreme
Court. ODell requested that the state submit other pieces of evidence for DNA testing, but he was refused. Despite
much effort and several appeals, the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld his conviction and reinstated his
death sentence. After his execution, Lori Urs, an anti-death penalty advocate and former wife to ODell, sought to
further investigate the case and exonerate ODell based on mistaken blood matches, court opinions and refusal of DNA
testing. However, the last of the DNA evidence from ODells case was burned in March 2000 and the appeals were laid
to rest.
9. Leo Jones: Leo Jones was executed in 1998 for murdering a police officer in Florida. Although Jones confessed 12
hours after the murder, he said that he was forced to say he did it during hours of intimidating police interrogation,
where they threatened his life and made him play Russian roulette. One witness believed that the police department
was out to get Jones because he had assaulted an officer once. The same two arresting officers were released from
the department shortly after for using violence in other cases. Despite repeated appeals, other potential suspects and
witness testimonies in support of Jones exoneration, the sentencing stood as is. Jones was also denied another
method of execution and was killed by the electric chair.
10. Timothy Evans: Timothy Evans was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of his daughter in 1949 at their
home in Notting Hill, London. Evans maintained his innocence and repeatedly accused his neighbor, John Christie, of
murdering his wife and daughter. The police investigation and physical evidence used to convict Evans was weak. After
Evans trial and execution, Christie was found to be a serial killer who was responsible for murdering several women at
his residence. There were massive campaigns to overturn Evans conviction and an official inquiry was conducted 16
years later. It was confirmed that Evans daughter had been killed by Christie, and Evans was granted a posthumous
pardon. This case of injustice had a strong influence in the UKs decision to abolish capital punishment.
http://www.criminaljusticedegreesguide.com/features/10-infamous-cases-of-wrongful-execution.html