Philippine lower house lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the re-imposition of capital punishment for serious drug offences on Tuesday (March 7), clearing another hurdle in President Rodrigo Duterte’s drive to use death as a deterrent against crime.

Voting 216 to 54 with one abstention, lawmakers passed the third and final reading of the bill to bring back the death penalty, but in a watered-down draft that excludes crimes like rape, kidnap-for-ransom and plunder.

The bill, which permits death by hanging, firing squad and lethal injection, must now go to the Senate.

A return of the death penalty, over a decade after it was abolished under pressure from the church, has been a top priority for Duterte, who was swept to power on promises of a merciless war on drugs and crime.

Read also: Duterte vows to pursue drug war to its end

More than 8,000 people have been killed since Duterte took office eight months ago, mostly drug users killed by mysterious gunmen in incidents authorities attribute to vigilantes, gang members silencing informants, or unrelated murders.

Re-imposing capital punishment was Duterte’s first piece of draft legislation and was submitted on his inauguration on June 30. It argued the justice system had been “emasculated” and tough measures were needed.

Duterte has questioned why lawmakers excluded serious crimes other than drugs, saying it runs counter to his law and order agenda. He has spoken repeatedly of his desire to hang criminals, as many as 20 per day.

Read also: Ex-policeman says behind 200 killings in Philippine death squad under Duterte

Robert Ace Barbers, who heads the house committee on dangerous drugs, said death for those who manufacture and possess large volumes of narcotics was appropriate because of the “irreparable damage” drugs had caused to society. “The entire future of our country has been compromised,” he told reporters.

Human rights groups and Catholic bishops oppose the bill and have protested outside Congress and warned politicians supporting it to expect a backlash from their constituents.

Opponents spoke out strongly in the house, describing the measure as barbaric, regressive and no deterrent against crime.

Representative Jose Christopher Belonte said lawmakers voting in favour would have “blood on our hands”.

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Photo Gallery

Anti-crime blitz sweeps Philippines as Duterte comes into power

Source: AFP, Reuters

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Congressman and former Manila mayor Joselito Atienza said the bill would put “a curse on our predominantly Catholic nation”.

The passage through the Senate is not guaranteed to be smooth. Some Duterte loyalists in the chamber oppose it.

Deliberations by the 24-seat upper house on its own version of the bill were suspended last month after the justice department reminded senators the Philippines is a signatory to a United Nations treaty that prohibits executions.

The death penalty has been imposed and repealed on and off in the Philippines since after World War Two.

Dozens of convicts were executed by electric chair from 1950 to 1986. The death penalty was abolished a year later and restored in 1993 under President Fidel Ramos, before being scrapped again in 2006.

The International Commission on Jurists condemned the house and urged the Senate to block a bill that “puts the Philippines in direct conflict with its international obligations”.

North Korea faced a chorus of condemnation on Tuesday (March 7) for its latest ballistic missile tests but declared that ongoing joint United States-South Korea military exercises were aimed at conducting a “pre-emptive nuclear attack” against Pyongyang.

Ju Yong Choi, a North Korean diplomat, told the United Nations-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that the annual drills were “a major cause of escalation of tension that might turn into actual war” on the divided Korean peninsula.

“The ongoing joint military exercise is carried out with massive mobilisation of troops, unprecedented in size, and various types of US strategic forces including nuclear carriers, nuclear strategic bombers and Stealth fighters,” Ju told the 61-member forum.

Read also: North Korea says missiles were drill for strike on US bases

“It will certainly jeopardise peace and stability in the region and drive the situation in the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war,” he said.

During the stormy 90-minute session, envoys from more than a dozen countries, including North Korea’s main ally China, as well as Britain, France, Russia and the United States, condemned North Korea’s test-firing of four ballistic missiles on Monday.

Robert Wood, US Disarmament Ambassador, condemned North Korea’s tests as its latest violation of UN Security Council resolutions. Pyongyang’s weapons programme represented a “clear threat to the national security of every country of the region”, he said.

Read also: Privilege and peril for North Korea’s first family

The United States had an “iron-clad commitment to defend its allies” and the joint military exercises carried out with Seoul for more than 40 years were “transparent and defence-oriented”.

Referring to the North by its official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Wood said: “It should be very clear to the DPRK that it is a pariah, it is an outlier, it is in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions, and that the countries represented in this room are not going to stand by and just let the DPRK violate international law.”

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Photo Gallery

The Kim dynasty: North Korea’s secretive rulers

Source:

AFP

Reuters

Wikimedia Commons

YouTube screengrabs

Internet screengrabs

The Korea Herald/ANN

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South Korea’s Incheon International Airport has edged out Singapore’s Changi Airport as the best airport in the Asia Pacific region in 2016.

Results of the 2016 Airport Service Quality Awards unveiled on Tuesday (March 3) also placed Incheon as the best airport in the world which handles over 40 million passengers.

Changi Airport, which was in first place with Incheon last year, shared second spot with Delhi and Mumbai this time around.

Read also: Changi’s T5 likely to be served by 2 MRT lines

Airports Council International said in a statement that the latest results are based on 600,000 individual surveys conducted in 84 countries. The survey sought passengers’ views of 34 key performance indicators, including airport access, check-in, security screening, restrooms, stores and restaurants.

Read also: Need a winter jacket for your Korea trip? Rent one from Incheon Airport

ljessica@sph.com.sg