Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Wednesday rejected a statement from the Philippine National Police's (PNP) top official that those caught possessing a minimum of 50 grams of narcotics should be punished with the death penalty, saying they should "forget" its revival if they insist on it.
PNP Chief General Archie Gamboa, in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel, said that the seizure of at least 50 grams to one kilogram would be "enough" to impose the capital punishment on arrested and convicted offenders.
Gamboa said the arrest of traffickers with such an amount of drugs "would entail a lot of work, a lot of surveillance and a lot of effort" from the PNP.
But Sotto quickly shot down Gamboa's proposition, tweeting: "Hindi naman pwede yun (That cannot be). The present law says 200 is non-bailable, paanong naging 50 lang death penalty (how come that a mere 50 grams is equated to death penalty)?"
"50 is easy to plant!" he said.
"If they insist, then forget the bill," Sotto said.
The Senate leader was one of the principal authors of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, which enumerates the penalties for various drugs offenses.
Under Section 11 of the law, a penalty of life imprisonment to death shall be imposed on persons caught possessing at least 10 grams of opium, morphine, heroine, cocaine, ecstasy and similar narcotics; and at least 50 grams of methamphetamine hydrochloride or "shabu".
For marijuana, the same penalty shall be imposed on those who possess at least 10 grams of marijuana resin and at least 500 grams of marijuana.
The law imposed graduated penalties for possession of the said prohibited substances in lesser amounts.
Regardless of the type and quantity of the illegal substance seized, Sotto maintained that he and more of his colleagues will vote on the revival of death penalty if it would only be confined to high-level drug trafficking.
"My bill says 'high-level drug trafficking only', if you want it to stand a chance!" he told the PNP.
"Only high level drug trafficking would fit my vision for the of the death penalty," he said in a separate text message to the Manila Bulletin.
Meanwhile, Senator Grace Poe, expressed her reservations about the passage of a death penalty law.
"Without the needed reforms in our justice system, the innocent poor with scant resources to wage a decent defense in court will be the ones at risk in any attempt to revive the death penalty in the country," she said in a text message.
"We have gone to great lengths to save lives and prevent more deaths during this COVID-19 pandemic. We must also protect the lives of the defenseless and disadvantaged from the peril of injustice," she added.
President Duterte, in his fifth State of the Nation Address on Monday, called anew on Congress to pass a law bringing back death penalty in the Philippines.
Death penalty was repealed in 2006.