For House Committee on Dangerous Drugs chair Robert Ace Barbers, only the death penalty would bring “shivers to the bones” criminals.
Barbers expressed his support to the reinstatement of capital punishment as the House Committee on Justice resumed its hearings on the pending death penalty bills at the Congress.
This was over a week after President Rodrigo Duterte renewed his call to reimpose the death penalty for drug-related offenses during his fifth State of the Nation Address.
The committee was deliberating on 12 pending death penalty bills wherein six were for violations of RA 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
“I am for death penalty no matter who our president is. I believe this is the only penalty that would bring shivers to the bones of the evildoers,” Barbers said.
“[This is] the only deterrent to the commission of heinous crimes, the only thing that even the most hardened criminals fear,” he added.
Barbers dismissed the argument of those who opposed the death penalty that only the poor, who could get a lawyer, would receive the punishment.
“Lawyers are not the only ones inside the court. There are judges who see and observe the trial and who can propound questions to witnesses and can control the phase and direction of the trial, to see to it that justice is served,” he said.
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“The law provides that if the accused cannot get a lawyer, the judge can even appoint one for him. The Public Attorneys Office is there,” he added.
Barbers also lambasted claims that the country could not reinstate the death penalty due to its agreement to international agreements, and that reimposing capital punishment would violate said commitments.
“The last time I checked, we are still a sovereign nation. Last time I checked too, our Constitution allows death penalty,” he said.
“No other nation can dictate how it runs its own government. It is free to chart its own destiny,” Barbers added.
Minority Leader, Benny Abante Jr., also supported the revival of the death penalty “in defense of human life, honor and dignity, preservation of peace and order in society, and respect for law and authority.” He was also a pastor at the Metropolitan Bible Baptist Ekklesia.
