December 26, 2000

Philippine President Makes Moves to Modify the Death Penalty

ANGKOK, Dec. 25 � Eduardo Agbayani never knew how close he had come to a reprieve when he was executed for rape in the Philippines last year, or how much his final moments had become a comedy of errors.

Mr. Agbayani, one of hundreds of men and women on death row after the the Philippines reinstated capital punishment in 1994, had been sentenced by one of the country's enthusiastic hanging judges who called themselves the Guillotine Club.

More than 1,500 people have received death sentences in the Philippines in the last seven years, with more than 30 people sentenced to die in a typical month. Seven men have been executed by lethal injection since the first sentence was carried out in February 1999. But those executions may have been the last.

President Joseph Estrada has remained ambivalent about the death penalty. In Mr. Agbayani's case, when the president received a final- hour plea for clemency from a prominent bishop, he acted quickly. He picked up his home telephone and called the prison. First he got a busy signal, then a fax line. By the time an aide called the prison on a hot line from the presidential palace, Mr. Agbayani was dead.

This month, Mr. Estrada, perhaps inspired by intimations of his own political mortality, said he would commute all remaining death sentences to life imprisonment. The announcement, in the midst of his Senate impeachment trial on charges of corruption, seemed as impulsive as his attempt to save Mr. Agbayani.

Once again, it was in response to a plea from a Roman Catholic churchman, Bishop Antonio Fortich, a longtime human rights advocate on an impoverished island, Negros. When the bishop asked for the release of 200 political prisoners before Christmas, Mr. Estrada readily agreed. Then he added, "I will order tomorrow all those sentenced to death will be commuted to life imprisonment."

Later, he said he would support a Congressional bill to abolish capital punishment, explaining that he was bowing to the wishes of religious leaders. Calls to end the death penalty have come from the Catholic church, which has demanded Mr. Estrada's resignation, and evangelical protestant groups, which have supported him politically.

Amnesty International, the human rights group, said Mr. Estrada's action would directly affect 107 convicts whose sentences the Supreme Court has affirmed.

The death penalty is common in southeastern Asia, with executions rising in recent years in Vietnam and Singapore, as well as the Philippines.

Capital punishment was abolished in the Philippines in 1987 under a Constitution promulgated after the ouster of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Despite a falling crime rate, it was reinstated in 1994 for "heinous crimes," a definition that came to embrace 46 separate crimes. As with Mr. Agbayani, more than half have been handed down for rape and incest. The issue has been highly contentious in the Philippines, with opponents of the death penalty noting that most of those convicted have been too poor to afford good legal representation.Mr. Estrada's announcement was not universally praised. "I think that it's a terrible mistake to grant wholesale commutation," said Renato Cayetano, chairman of the Senate Justice Committee. "What will happen to the administration of justice in our country if just because he is undergoing an impeachment trial the president woos the Catholic Church and other anti-death-penalty groups by granting wholesale commutation?"