Death Penalty Never Lifted In Davao City

The whole country may be going agog over Senator Miguel Zubiri's proposal to reimpose the Death Penalty for drug pushers but it turns out that it was never lifted at all in Davao City. This was the admission made by Mayor Rodrigo Duterte during his "Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa" program yesterday.

The revival of the Death Penalty law is again being discussed in light of the drug payoff issue involving the Alabang Boys as well as heinous crimes like the bloody robbery of RCBC in Cabuyao Laguna last year which left 10 people dead.

"There was already an attempt to corrupt Davao City and there was even a laboratory set up here already (the one raided by operatives in Dumoy, Toril last December 2004)," Duterte said. Those involved, Jed Pilapil-Sy (wife of suspected druglord and fugitive Allan Sy) as well as her brother Jessie Jones Pilapil were sentenced by Judge Romeo Albarracin to life imprisonment and were ordered to pay a $5 million fine. Allan Sy is however still at large.

Duterte said corruption really exists in the country especially when it comes to drugs "Kapila na naay raid unya ang maabtan sa pulis aparatus lang wala na ang tao ug ang shabu---unsa pa man tawag diha kung dili corruption (how many times have the raiding teams arrived at a reported drug den and laboratory only to find out only the aparatus remained and the pushers and shabu no longer there)."

"I support PDEA's Santiago and Marcelino---continue the good work and tell the truth because corruption does exist," he said.

Duterte said if the government will not provide a legal means of putting these drug users and pushers to justice then people can always find a way to deal with them extra judicially. Anyway, he said, "death penalty has never been lifted in Davao."