'EXECUTION THRU FIRING SQUAD' PRESSED

Senator Robert Barbers urged yesterday President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo to consider death thru "firing squad" as the most effective
deterrent to quash the drug menace in the country.

Barbers said that under the death penalty law, those convicted of
heinous crimes are executed by way of lethal injection. However, since
its inception in our penal system, only rape offenders such as the
highly-celebrated Leo Echegaray went into the gallows and no one thereafter.

"With a susbtantial number of drug lords and pushers falling into the
hands of our law enforcement authorities, the government should be
more aggressive to weed out the illegal drug problem. It's not just
enough to file proper charges against collared drug suspects in court.
We have to line them up against the wall and shoot them. It's been
since martial law years that a convicted high-profile Chinese drug
lord was put to a firing squad, and now we have 38 convicts awaiting
restitution for their drug crimes," he said.

Citing statistics culled from the PNP Narcotics Command, Barbers noted
that Filipinos hooked to drugs have "astronomically multiplied" since
back in the 70s, there were only 250,000 confirmed drug users nationwide.

Today, however, the estimated drug addicts ballooned to 1.7 million of
which an alarming portion are "street criminals" compulsively using
illegal drug substances.

"How many more of our youth would be lured to intense drug addiction
before the government could finally put a lid to the dangerous drug
trade," Barbers said, adding that "in no way can the State protect
their welfare if the government does not implement drastic measures."

Barbers argued that the government actually has more than sufficient
legal arsenal at its command, in the exercise of its inherent police
power, to counter the proliferation of drugs.

As a matter of fact, the anti-drug law (R.A. 9165) imposes the maximum
penalty of death for convicted high-profile drug lords and pushers.
And on top of that, capital punishment is applied to heinous crime
offenders.

But paraphrasing Shakespeare, Barbers said that the government's
intensified crackdown against drugs would amount to mere "sound and
fury signifying nothing" if the moratorium on the death penalty law is
not officially lifted.

"While I personally defer to the Chief Executive's constitutional
prerogative, I just hope that President Arroyo would reconsider this
option." (RF)