Lacson Withdraws Death Penalty Bill

Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson withdrew this week his authorship of the Senate bill seeking to reinstitute the death penalty for heinous crimes.

In a letter to Senate Secretary Atty. Myra Villarica, Lacson also requested that his bill, Senate Bill 27, no longer be considered for deliberation by the Senate panels concerned.

Last week, Lacson withdrew his support for the death penalty for heinous crimes, saying it is better to spare the life of a criminal than to wrongly execute an innocent person.

"Mas mainam na ang guilty ikulong habang buhay sa halip na inosente ma-execute dahil sa pagkakamali (Better that the guilty be imprisoned for life than to have innocents executed because of a wrong judgment)," he said.

He also pushed for life imprisonment and penal reforms as a better alternative, even as he supported Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto III's suggestion to confine drug lords in a "super max" penitentiary, with no means of communication with the outside world.

Lacson and Sotto earned praise from the Commission on Human Rights and the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines for their stance on the issue.