THE Philippine National Police (PNP) is pushing for a 50-gram minimum confiscation of shabu for a convicted drug personality to be included in the capital punishment.
The national police made proposal as it expressed support for President Duterte’s call for Congress to reimpose the death penalty law for illegal drugs trade.
PNP chief Police Gen. Archie Francisco Gamboa said that they could also propose to increase the minimum confiscation to one kilo once the Congress starts discussing the passage of the law that would revive death penalty for serious offenses.
“On the part of the PNP, our leverage for them is possibly 50 grams and above because when you say 50 grams and above it would entail a lot of work and a lot of surveillance and effort,” said Gamboa.
“You cannot just pick up somebody or you cannot just apprehend somebody and then confiscate 50 grams. So probably, around 50 to 1 kilo I think that’s enough to impose the death penalty,” he added.
In his fifth State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA), Duterte again called on the Congress to revive death penalty via lethal injection although some critics have been saying that death penalty law is unnecessary due to the number of the drug war fatalities since 2016.
Gamboa explained that they support the re-imposition of the death penalty since according to him, arrested drug traffickers have been admitting even before that the reason why they transact business in the Philippines is due to lack of death penalty law.
In an interview over ABS-CBN News Channel, Gamboa said that studies showing no evidence that death penalty is a deterrent to drugs trade are better left for the lawmakers to discuss and debate on.
But as far as the PNP is concerned, he said the reimposition of the death penalty is a deterrent to illegal drugs trade.
The PNP has been at the forefront of Duterte’s drug war, with PNP data revealed that there were already more than 5,000 drug personalities killed since 2016.
