Question & AnswerQ&A (Republic Act No. 9346)
Republic Act No. 9346 is an Act prohibiting the imposition of the death penalty in the Philippines.
Republic Act No. 9346 was approved on June 24, 2006.
Republic Act No. 8177 (Act Designating Death by Lethal Injection), Republic Act No. 7659 (Death Penalty Law), and all other laws, executive orders, and decrees imposing the death penalty are repealed or amended accordingly.
The penalty of reclusion perpetua is imposed when the law violated uses the nomenclature of the penalties of the Revised Penal Code; otherwise, life imprisonment is imposed when the law violated does not use such nomenclature.
No, persons convicted of offenses punished with reclusion perpetua or whose sentences are reduced to reclusion perpetua are not eligible for parole under Act No. 4103, the Indeterminate Sentence Law, as amended.
The Board of Pardons and Parole must publish the names of such persons at least once a week for three consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation when they are being considered or recommended for commutation or pardon.
No, the Act explicitly states that nothing in it limits the President's power to grant executive clemency under Section 19, Article VII of the Constitution.
It took effect immediately after its publication in two national newspapers of general circulation.
Repealing RA 8177 and RA 7659 formally abolishes the legal framework for imposing the death penalty and removes the prescribed methods for the death penalty, aligning with the prohibition of the death penalty under RA 9346.
Life imprisonment applies to offenses that do not adopt the nomenclature of penalties under the Revised Penal Code, as opposed to reclusion perpetua.