Barbers urges death by firing squad for drug traffickers

While the Senate and the House of Representatives are debating whether to repeal the death penalty law, Sen. Robert Barbers has proposed that drug dealers be punished with death by firing squad.

He said he refiled a bill that he introduced in the previous 11th Congress seeking the penalty which, he said, "can become one of the government’s most lethal weapons in combating criminality, particularly the proliferation of illegal drugs."

"I believe that death by firing squad is the best way to pump-prime our campaign against illicit drugs and in effectively neutralizing drug traffickers," he said in a statement.

Congress restored the death penalty, abolished in the 1987 Constitution, in 1994 for heinous crimes such as rape, kidnapping-for-ransom, murder and drug trafficking.

More than 1,690 people have been sentenced to death since then. Executions are currently carried out by lethal injection which, Barbers said, is not enough.

"Lethal injection, in terms of impact and as a deterrent, is too mild a punishment for these vile criminals who make a lot of money by capitalizing on vulnerable people, particularly the youth," he said.

Prior to the abolition of the death penalty in 1987, executions were carried out by electric chair.

Only notorious Chinese-Filipino drug lord Lim Seng was sentenced to death by musketry during martial law.

The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos ordered the execution shown on live television as part of his crackdown on crime. Barbers said the number of illegal drug offenses significantly dropped after the execution.

Last month, President Arroyo indefinitely suspended all executions while Congress debates on whether to repeal the death penalty law.

Malacañang did not say why Mrs. Arroyo chose to halt executions now.

Her decision came days after over 100 congressmen crossed party lines and passed a resolution urging the President to suspend any planned executions while they deliberate a proposal to abolish capital punishment.

The law can only be repealed if both chambers of Congress arrive at a consensus.

Last month, after the House resolution was passed, Mrs. Arroyo suspended the Aug. 30 execution of convicted rapist Rolando Pagdayawon and because she felt awkward putting him to death on the eve of Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin’s 74th birthday.

Pagdayawon was convicted for raping his own daughter.

Mrs. Arroyo also gave two other death row convicts a 90-day reprieve.

This suspension would have lasted until Nov. 28. More than 20 convicted criminals were scheduled to die this year, according to an updated list released by the Bureau of Corrections.