QuestionsQuestions (Republic Act No. 9346)
It prohibits the imposition of the penalty of death in the Philippines.
RA 9346 repeals RA 8177 (Act Designating Death by Lethal Injection) and RA 7659 (Death Penalty Law), as well as other laws, executive orders, and decrees insofar as they impose the death penalty.
The substitute penalties are: (1) reclusion perpetua when the law violated uses the nomenclature of the Revised Penal Code; and (2) life imprisonment when the law violated does not use such nomenclature.
It depends on whether the law violated uses the nomenclature of penalties under the Revised Penal Code (then reclusion perpetua); if not, then life imprisonment.
Their death sentences are replaced with either reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, depending on the nomenclature of the law violated as provided in Section 2.
Persons convicted of offenses punished with reclusion perpetua, or whose sentences will be reduced to reclusion perpetua by reason of RA 9346, shall not be eligible for parole under Act No. 4103.
The express parole ineligibility provision in Section 3 refers to those punished with reclusion perpetua (or reduced to reclusion perpetua). The text does not expressly mention persons sentenced to life imprisonment for parole ineligibility under Act No. 4103.
Nothing in RA 9346 limits the President’s power to grant executive clemency under Section 19, Article VII of the Constitution.
It requires the Board to cause the publication, at least once a week for three consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation, of the names of persons convicted of offenses punished with reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment who are being considered or recommended for commutation or pardon.
The Board of Pardons and Parole is responsible for the publication.
Immediately after its publication in two national newspapers of general circulation.
It repeals or amends other laws, executive orders, and decrees only to the extent they impose the death penalty, meaning provisions not related to imposing death are not necessarily nullified.
The nature of the law violated and whether it uses the nomenclature of the Revised Penal Code determines whether the replacement is reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment.
It means that even if the sentence was not yet final or is later adjusted because RA 9346 abolishes death, those reduced to reclusion perpetua under RA 9346 become ineligible for parole under Act No. 4103.
Since RA 9346 repeals RA 8177, the statutory method for carrying out death by lethal injection becomes ineffective because the death penalty itself is prohibited.
The act eliminates the death penalty, replaces it with imprisonment penalties, restricts parole for those reduced to reclusion perpetua, and sets procedures for publication of clemency recommendations while preserving presidential clemency power.