MANILA – The election of Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as House Speaker will not affect the administration’s effort to reimpose death penalty in the country, Malacañang said.
“Naaprubahan na po iyan ng Kamara (death penalty bill), so ang aksyon po ngayon pagdating sa death penalty nasa Senado,” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said.
Arroyo signed Republic Act 9346, which scrapped capital punishment in the Philippines, when he was president in 2006.
In March 2017 the House of Representatives approved House Bill 4727, which reimposed death penalty for drug-related offenses, on third and final reading.
Arroyo was also removed from the deputy speakership after voting against the measure.
“Hindi na makakaapekto ang liderato ni GMA sa Mababang Kapulungan sa death penalty,” Roque added.
But the Malacañang official clarified that they are “able and ready” to work with Arroyo as House Speaker.
“It has always been the Palace position that we do not interfere in purely internal matters of the House,” he said. “We are ready to work with the chosen leader of the House of Representatives.”
He maintained that the President Rodrigo Duterte and Speaker Arroyo “share the same political agenda.”
In the Senate, the death penalty measure does not have the majority vote.
Duterte is a vocal supporter of death penalty. The tough-talking leader believes that bringing back capital punishment will instill fear in criminals.
“In the Philippines, it is really an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. You took life, you must pay it with life,” Duterte had said./PN
