REP. Fredenil Castro said Sunday at least 220 members of the House of Representatives would vote to pass the death penalty bill.
He said the the super majority caucus today will sustain its previous agreement to set the second- reading voting on the proposal on March 8 and the third and final reading a week before Congress takes the Holy Week break.
Castro is one of the principal sponsors of House Bill 4727 or the restoration of capital punishment.
“If the House has 293 members who are against the bill, they could reach 60 plus or 70 plus versus the majority’s 200-plus,” Castro told dzBB radio.
He made his statement even as Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas would have to decide on Monday afternoon whether or not to terminate the plenary debates on the proposal to restore capital punishment.
Rep. Rodel Batocabe of the Party-List Coalition said the meeting would be very crucial to finalize their stand on the list of crimes, such as plunder, to be included in the bill.
Earlier, Rep. Reynaldo Umali said the death penalty bill would be put to a vote on second reading by March 8 and on third reading on March 15.
Rep. Miro Quimbo has allied with the super majority of Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and even in the opposition-led Magnificent 7 of Rep. Edcel Lagman and Rep. Teddy Baguilat would take a conscience vote on the restoration of the death penalty.
Castro said the super majority had already secured an overwhelming support to bring back the death penalty for heinous crimes.
He said the House leadership may not force the voting on the death penalty ahead of the scheduled dates following complaints of delaying tactics by lawmakers opposing the measure’s passage.
He said the House leadership conducted a survey last week among lawmakers on the death penalty when they were asked to give the first three heinous crimes they would want included in the measure.
He said the final results of the survey were still being evaluated and finalized.
He stood pat on his ground to include plunder on the list of heinous crimes to be punished by the death sentence, which would include rape and plunder.
“Plunder is a serious crime than killing. When one commits plunder, one steals the people’s money in billions of pesos,” Castro said.