PHILIPPINES: First Execution in 23 Years Won’t End Debate

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Johanna Son

MANILA, Feb 5 1999 (IPS) - The Philippines on Friday carried out its first death sentence in 23 years, but the act is unlikely to be the last word in the heated debates about the utility of capital punishment in this country.

With the lethal injection of Leo Echegaray, convicted of repeatedly raping his 10-year-old daughter in 1994, the country crossed over into the dwindling ranks of nations still using the death penalty.

While countries that have capital punishment on the books are in the minority, the list of nations like the Philippines, which abolished the death penalty and then restored it and used it, is even shorter.

High drama and blanket media coverage preceded the 3:03 p.m. (0703 GMT) execution at the National Penitentiary south of Manila, with the run-up to it marked by protests by Church and human rights activists.

Echegaray, who claimed innocence till the end despite a conviction upheld several times by the courts, was pronounced dead by prison officials at 3:19 p.m.

A witness to the execution, congressman Ralph Recto, said Echegaray’s last words were “Forgive me, the Filipino people, for the sin you accuse me of.”

Before that, President Joseph Estrada had turned down last- minute appeals from the convict himself as well as from the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, the European Union and Canada, for a stay of execution or pardon.

“I’ve got to be firm. I have to send a message to these future rapists that we mean business,” Estrada said. “No one will change my mind.”

Estrada said he had the presidential hotline to the death chamber cut on Thursday, to show he had no plans for a last-minute pardon.

Echegaray’s second wife, Zenaida, had lamented that the President had a “heart of stone”. Her husband was one of more than 900 people on the death row, a good number of them convicted of rape.

Earlier, anti-death penalty advocates staged a run to protest capital punishment and others took part in prayer vigils. On Thursday, groups of Church and religious workers marched to the presidential palace wearing black masks.

“Don’t kill for us,” some placards outside the penitentiary read, as religious leaders marched outside the penitentiary.

“Something in us has been broken today,” said Monsignor Ding Coronel, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

“Today’s execution marks a huge step in the wrong direction for human rights in the Philippines,” Amnesty International said in a statement. “Leo Echegaray’s execution could set in motion a conveyor belt of judicial killings in the Philippines, each of which will further reduce respect for the most basic of all human rights — the right to life.”

Echegaray’s execution had been an emotional issue since late last year, when it became clear that all legal avenues for reconsideration had been exhausted.

He was first set to die by Jan 4, but the Supreme Court three hours before the execution issued a stay of execution to give Congress time to reconsider or repeal the death penalty law.

The Court gave legislators until June to do so, but the decision ran into public opposition that defeated any plans some lawmakers might have had of repealing the law.

The Philippine Constitution of 1986 had abolished the death penalty, which had not been used since 1976 under the government of Ferdinand Marcos. But Congress, as provided by the Constitution, enacted a law five years ago that reimposed the death penalty amid a spate of heinous crimes.

The last Filipino to die by execution was Lim Seng, a convicted drug trafficker killed on the electric chair,

Echegaray was shepherded into the lethal injection chamber early Friday, clad in orange prison clothes and a necklace with a crucifix dangling from his neck.

The execution was witnessed by prison and police officials, lawmakers, church leaders, Echegaray’s relatives and 10 representatives from various media that had drawn lots to get into the viewing room adjacent to the lethal injection room.

The run-up to the execution has been a combination of the dramatic, macabre and downright tasteless.

Local newspapers and tabloids ran detailed descriptions of the execution room, down to the number of steps from the holding area into it. Prison inmates had sung songs for Leo, entitled ‘Borrowed Life’ for Echegaray, while sympathisers of the his victim, composed a song to her as well.

Radio stations staked out Echegaray’s house, and aired the wails of despair of his family shortly after three in the afternoon.

But the debate over the death penalty, which has had wild swings according to the dominant public opinion of the day, is not over. Perhaps it will never be.

This early, some members of the House of Representatives say they will seeks review of the death penalty law.

“They say capital punishment will deter crime, but why do criminals continue to kill, rape and traffic in illegal drugs despite the penalty of death corresponding to these crimes?” asked Assistant Majority Leader Rodolfo Albano.

“We hope something like this doesn’t happen again and we will work to see the death penalty repealed,” Arno Sanidad, a lawyer against capital punishment, said.

At least six more death row convicts are supposed to be sent to their deaths next month, media reports say.