A divided Philippine Supreme Court suspended tomorrow's executions of two kidnappers until the end of next month, narrowly blocking President Gloria Maca-pagal Arroyo's order of the first use of capital punishment in four years.
Ruling 7-6 yesterday, the justices said they needed more time to consider whether claims of new evidence would warrant a fresh trial for Roberto Lara and Roderick Licayan.
"Pending resolution of this incident," the court said, it was freezing -- for 30 days -- the executions by lethal injection that had been set for 3pm tomorrow.
Arroyo, who is seeking a fresh term in elections on May 10, had said only a stay by the Supreme Court would stop her from pushing through with the first executions since the government of her ousted predecessor, Joseph Estrada, imposed a ban in 2000.
"We're very happy," Benilda Lara told reporters at Bilibid prison south of Manila as she put her arms around her son's two young children. "God has answered our prayers."
Presidential spokesman Ricardo Saludo said Arroyo had halted all preparations for the executions after the court ruling.
"The president maintains she is against the death penalty but has lifted the ban as a sign that her government is serious about battling crime," Saludo told reporters.
Arroyo, who ordered the executions last month after a wave of kidnappings for ransom, had vowed to reimpose the moratorium after Lara and Licayan were put to death.
"It's not easy for me to make this decision because I am a pro-life president, but there are unusual circumstances," Arroyo told reporters last weekend.
Critics have accused Arroyo of swapping the lives of the two convicts for votes, particularly from the tiny but influential ethnic Chinese community that suffers most of the abductions.
Dozens of human rights groups protested outside the Supreme Court building this week, urging the judges to stop the execution and reopen the cases of Lara and Licayan.
The acting director of Bilibid prison, Reinerio Albano, said he felt "relieved" the two convicts had won the brief reprieve.
"It's no joke because it involves human lives," he told reporters, adding Lara and Licayan would be returned to their cells on death row from a pre-execution isolation area.
But not everyone was happy with the suspension.
"The reopening of cases only prolongs the agony of victims," said Dante Jimenez, founder of an anti-crime support group.
"We respect the decision of the Supreme Court. However, let this not be a precedent that all cases of heinous crimes may be reinvestigated."
The executions have become an emotional issue in the run-up to May's election, alienating Arroyo from former political allies including the powerful Roman Catholic church.
"If anything, it only highlighted her opportunism and politics of expediency," Etta Rosales, a member of the House of Representatives, said on Tuesday.
There are more than 1,000 people on death row, including 22 foreigners convicted of drug trafficking.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he would make a decision about how the US government would refer to the body of water commonly known as the Persian Gulf when he visits Arab states next week. Trump told reporters at the White House that he expects his hosts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will ask him about the US officially calling the waterway the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia. “They’re going to ask me about that when I get there, and I’ll have to make a decision,” Trump said. “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s
RSS