DECRIMINALIZING LAWS | Lower House studies decriminalizing libel, abortion to decongest jails

DECRIMINALIZING LAWS | Lower House studies decriminalizing libel, abortion to decongest jails – speaker

December 6, 2023 , 10:05 PM

By Clarist Zablan

(December 6, 2023) – The Lower House will look into possibly decriminalizing some criminal offenses such as libel and abortion to address the perennial problem of overcrowding in jails, the Congress leadership said on Wednesday.

During a “National Jail Decongestion Summit” attended by various government offices, Speaker Martin Romualdez said there is a need to “overhaul” the century-old Revised Penal Code, including reviewing the classification of crimes as “capital” and “non-bailable.”

“This review will assess the deterrent effect of these classifications and consider the decriminalization of certain offenses like libel, abortion, and dueling,” Romualdez said in a speech during the summit. “Our goal is to ensure that punishments are proportionate to the gravity of the crimes committed.”

Nearly 68% of jail facilities across the country are congested, with the most congested facility in the country recording an occupancy-to-capacity ratio of as high as 2,739%, based on 2022 figures from the Commission on Audit (COA).

Two measures in the Upper House, separately introduced by senators and former journalists Risa Hontiveros and Loren Legarda, have been filed seeking to decriminalize libel and cyber-libel, citing a need to uphold the constitutional right to free speech and press.

In the Lower House, a counterpart measure has been filed by lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc. The proposed laws were pending at the committee level in both chambers.

On Tuesday, activist Walden Bello filed a petition before the Supreme Court to declare criminal libel unconstitutional, saying libel suits have been “weaponized to suppress political dissent.”

On abortion, neither chamber has pending measures proposing its decriminalization. Instead, a proposal in the Lower House has been filed in the 19th Congress seeking to stiffen the penalties for the act, which is also pending at the committee level.

But a proposal to remove criminal sanctions on abortion could face stiff opposition in the Upper House, where senators recently threatened to defund the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) after unearthing a statement from one of its officials that supported decriminalizing abortion.

This caused the human rights body to backtrack on its stance.

Despite being illegal in the Philippines, as many as 1.26 million Filipino women and girls had induced abortions in 2020, based on data from the Philippine Safe Abortion Advocacy Network (PINSAN), which noted that many of these occurred in unsafe conditions.

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