Big-time drug traffickers should be punished with the death penalty, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said yesterday, shortly after President Rodrigo Duterte called for the reimposition of capital punishment in his State of the Nation Address early this week.
Wilkins Villanueva, PDEA’s director-general, said this was necessary because there are criminals who allegedly continue with their operations even from behind bars. He alleged that some convicts have “found ways to communicate with the outside world” so that they could continue getting involved in the illegal drug trade.
“Execution by lethal injection is for big-time drug traffickers, and not for the street-level pushers. I strongly suggest that seized drugs weighing one kilogram or more should be the threshold amount,” he added.
Read: Death penalty not proven to stop crimes, Filipino bishops tell Duterte
The PDEA chief added that the death penalty should apply to both foreign and local drug offenders, including “protectors and coddlers…found guilty of manufacturing, trafficking, and pushing dangerous drugs.”
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