The exclusion of plunder, treason and rape from the death penalty bill and the retention only of serious drug-related offenses must have been a premeditated ploy to make the bill acceptable to those originally opposed or hesitant to vote for the bill.

The eventual converts were taken for a ride because the House leadership knows that the bicameral conference committee could restore the excluded crimes.

The bicameral conference committee of handpicked Representatives and Senators is traditionally known to have successfully amended or even supplanted the respective House and Senate versions of a bill in order to come out with a so-called “reconciled version”.

President Duterte, the chief architect for the revival of capital punishment, has already given the signal for the restoration of plunder and rape in the bill’s coverage.

This malevolent eventuality in the bicameral conference committee must be seriously considered by the Members of the House when they vote on third reading on the death penalty bill this week.

But for the anti-death penalty advocates, as long as the proposal includes even one crime punishable by the maximum penalty of death, such projected legislation is a debasement of the right to life and a violation of the country’s treaty commitment not to reimpose the death penalty.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN