Manila Times

PHILIPPINES: 6 death row convicts get 90-day reprieve

President Arroyo on Wednesday granted a 90-day reprieve to 6 convicts scheduled for execution through lethal injection this month.

The reprieve came on the heels of the Supreme Courts issuance on the same day of 6 separate resolutions affirming the execution of the convicts.

In the resolutions, the Court took note of the letter sent by Bureau of Corrections Director Dionisio Santiago informing the Court that the execution of the death penalty imposed on the six convicts were not carried out in view of the reprieve previously granted them by the President.

The new schedule would have lined up for execution Filomeno Serrano on June 11, Hilgem Nario on June 12, Jonel Mariano on June 17, Danilo Remudo on June 21, Fidel Alborida on June 24, and Salvador Miranda on June 29.

All 6 were originally scheduled for execution last March.

The reprieve granted convicted kidnappers Roberto Lara and Roderick Licayan is still in force. The Supreme Court stayed the scheduled execution of Lara and Licayan after Public Attorneys Office chief Persida Rueda Acosta petitioned the Court for a temporary suspension order.

Acosta had insisted that she would present new evidence in court that would prove both Lara and Licayan innocent of the crime they were convicted for.

The stay in the execution was granted by the Court after the President made it clear that she would not grant any reprieve or executive clemency to any death-row inmate convicted for kidnapping.

The Lara and Licayan case is pending before the sala of Judge Reuben de la Cruz of the Marikina Regional Trial Court, the same judge who had handed down the death sentence on the 2.