SEPARATEOPINION: The re-examination of the Death Penalty Law (RA 7659) Commissioner Nasser A. Marohomsalic In the nameof God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. About 350 or morepeople have already been sentenced to death by the lower courts for various heinous crimes under Republic Act No. 7659, also knownas the Death Penalty Law.All these cases are now pending in the Supreme Court on automatic appeal. On June 25, 1996, the High Court affirmed the death sentence on one of the case, People vs. Leo Echegaray y Pilo. Echegaray, a house painter, was convicted by the lower court for the crime of raping his ten-year-old daughter. The High Court, in a Resolution promulgated on February 7, 1997, denied for lack of merit the Motion for Reconsideration and the Supplemental Motion for Reconsideration filed in behalf of Echegaray.t This decision of the Supreme Court revived the national debate on the wisdom andefficacy of the death penalty as a measureofsocial control and support infrastructureofthe social order. Enactedinto law in 1994, Republic Act No. 7659 imposes the mandatory penalty of death on thefollowing heinous crimes: 1. Qualified Bribery If any public officer is entrusted with law enforcement and he refrains from arresting or prosecuting an offender who has committed a crime punishable by reclusion perpetua and/or death in consideration of any offer, promise, gift, or present, he shall suffer the penaltyfor the offense which wasnot prosecuted. If it is the public officer who asks or demands such gift or present, he shall suffer the penalty of death. (See. 4) 2. Kidnapping andserious illegal detention for ransom resulting in the death ofthe victim of the victim is raped, tortured or subjected to dehumanizingacts. The penalty shall be death were the kidnapping or detention was committed for the purpose of ransom fromthe victim or any other person even if none of the circumstances above-mentioned were present in the commission of the offense. Whenthevictim is killed or dies as a consequenceof the detention or is raped, or is subjected to torture or dehumanizing acts, the maximum penalty [ofdeath] shall be imposed. (Sec. 8) ‘People vs. Leo Echegaray, GR No. 11472 (1997). aT