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PHILIPPINES: Execution by lethal injection of kidnapper set July 2

2 days after the President is formally swear in into office, a kidnap-for-ransom convict would be executed July 2 in the New Bilibid Prisons' (NBP) lethal injection chamber. The President's proclamation was slated noon of June 30, 2004.

The July execution was confirmed Wednesday by nolessthan NBP Director Dionisio Santiago who declined to give the name of the death row convict.

Santiago said the lethal chamber execution was originally set for March 25 but was deferred on orders of President Arroyo.

The prisons director said unless another postponement is ordered, the execution will proceed on July 2.

He said a total of 13 death row convicts are up for execution next month but only one would be spared after the President earlier ordered a stay in execution. The name of the death row inmate was not also known.

The NBP has at least 40 death row inmates bound for the lethal injection chamber from July up to October this year. Of the number, 22 have been given pardoned or have their sentence reduced.

It was said that among those who have a great chance of escaping lethal injection are convicts who were involved in rape cases.

The President has been indecisive in ordering executions of criminals convicted for heinous crimes -- and whose death verdicts were upheld by the Supreme Court -- for fear of backlash from the Church and from anti-death penalty advocates who have been pressing Congress to abolish the death penalty law.

Inquirer News Service

CBCP seeks review of policy on death penalty

Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church are hoping that with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gaining a fresh mandate Thursday her new administration would review its policy on the death penalty.

The President, a devout Catholic, issued a moratorium on executions of death convicts last year, but a spate of kidnappings and pressure from the Chinese-Filipino community persuaded the government to change its position.

Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iiguez, public affairs chief of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said that the CBCP's campaign against the death penalty would be renewed.

"The stand of the CBCP is to reject the capital penalty as a way to punish the guilty. We would go with other governments all over the world that have considered abolishing the death penalty in order to give in to restorative justice," Iiguez said.

He said bishops believed capital punishment should be scrapped because this was against the will of God.

"Certainly, we will try (to convince her) because that is not only the will of the bishops but that is what ... moral law tells us," Iiguez said.