Republic Act 9346: Death Penalty Abolition in the Philippines

Republic Act 9346, signed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on June 24, 2006, abolished the death penalty in the Philippines for all crimes and replaced every death sentence with either reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, with no parole eligibility for those whose sentences were commuted under the Act.¹ The abolition remains in force today, nearly two decades later, despite repeated attempts in Congress to bring capital punishment back.

What the Law Prohibits

Section 1 of RA 9346 is short and absolute: “The imposition of the penalty of death is hereby prohibited.” In the same section, the law repeals three things at once. It repealed Republic Act 8177, which had designated lethal injection as the method of execution. It repealed Republic Act 7659, the 1993 statute that had restored capital punishment and listed the heinous crimes it applied to. And it repealed every other law, executive order, or presidential decree that had authorized the death penalty for any offense.¹

The effect was immediate and across the board. Courts lost the authority to impose death in any pending or future case. Every inmate on death row had their sentence automatically reduced. The crimes that had carried capital punishment under RA 7659 — treason, qualified piracy, parricide, murder with aggravating circumstances, kidnapping for ransom, robbery with homicide, destructive arson, qualified rape, plunder, large-scale drug offenses, carnapping with homicide, and others — all remain crimes, but none of them can be punished by death.²

Reclusion Perpetua or Life Imprisonment

Section 2 of RA 9346 sets out two replacement penalties, and which one applies depends on where the offense is defined.¹

If the offense is penalized under the Revised Penal Code, the sentence is reclusion perpetua. This covers murder, parricide, kidnapping, robbery with homicide, destructive arson, and the other code-based crimes that formerly carried death.

If the offense comes from a special law that does not use the Revised Penal Code’s penalty structure, the sentence is life imprisonment. The most common example is the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act, Republic Act 9165.³

The two penalties sound interchangeable in everyday conversation, but they are not. Reclusion perpetua has a fixed statutory duration of twenty years and one day to forty years, set by RA 7659’s amendment to Article 27 of the Revised Penal Code.⁴ Life imprisonment has no fixed duration. It means imprisonment for the remainder of the convicted person’s natural life. The distinction affects how penalties are computed, which accessory penalties attach, and how certain credits are applied.

Accessory Penalties

A reclusion perpetua sentence carries consequences well beyond prison time. Article 41 of the Revised Penal Code attaches two automatic accessory penalties.⁵ The first is civil interdiction for life: the convicted person loses the right to manage or dispose of their property, parental authority over their children, and marital authority. The second is perpetual absolute disqualification: loss of any public office held, a bar on voting or running for public office, and forfeiture of any retirement pay or pension from a former government position. The disqualification survives even a pardon unless the pardon explicitly restores those rights.

Life imprisonment under special laws does not carry these accessory penalties automatically. That is another reason the two sentences, though often spoken of together, are legally distinct.

No Parole for Commuted Sentences

Section 3 of RA 9346 bars parole for anyone whose sentence was reduced to reclusion perpetua by the Act. The text reads that persons “whose sentences will be reduced to reclusion perpetua, by reason of this Act, shall not be eligible for parole under Act No. 4103, otherwise known as the Indeterminate Sentence Law.”⁶

The bar applies specifically to inmates whose death sentences were commuted by RA 9346 and to future convicts sentenced to reclusion perpetua for offenses that previously carried death. Other inmates serving reclusion perpetua for non-capital offenses remain eligible for parole under the usual rules of the Indeterminate Sentence Law.⁷

Good Conduct Time Allowance Still Applies

Parole is off the table, but good conduct time allowance is a separate mechanism and it still applies. Republic Act 10592 amended the Revised Penal Code to grant time credits to prisoners who demonstrate good behavior. In 2019, the Department of Justice issued implementing rules that excluded persons convicted of heinous crimes from these credits. The Supreme Court struck that exclusion down.

In a 2024 en banc decision, the Court held that RA 10592 entitles “any convicted prisoner” to good conduct time allowance and that the DOJ had exceeded its authority by carving out an exception the statute itself did not create. The 2019 implementing rules were declared invalid insofar as they barred heinous crime convicts from earning the credits. The Office of the Solicitor General’s motion for reconsideration was denied with finality in August 2024.⁸ The practical effect: an inmate serving reclusion perpetua for a former capital crime cannot apply for parole, but can accumulate good conduct credits that shorten actual time served.

Executive Clemency Is Not Affected

RA 9346 binds the courts and the corrections system. It does not touch the President’s constitutional clemency power. Article VII, Section 19 of the Constitution authorizes the President to grant reprieves, commutations, and pardons after a final conviction, and to grant amnesty with the concurrence of a majority of Congress.⁹ A president can commute or pardon someone serving reclusion perpetua for a former capital offense even though the courts and the parole system cannot facilitate early release. In practice, clemency for heinous crime convicts is rare, but the authority remains available.

Treaty Lock-In

The Philippines reinforced the abolition through international law. On September 20, 2006, three months after RA 9346 was signed, the country signed the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which commits signatories to permanent abolition of capital punishment. Ratification followed on November 20, 2007, making the commitment binding under international law.¹⁰

The Protocol contains no withdrawal or denunciation clause. The Philippines cannot unilaterally exit the treaty, and any domestic reinstatement of the death penalty would place the country in direct violation of its international obligations.

Reinstatement Efforts

Death penalty reinstatement bills have been filed in nearly every Congress since 2006. The most significant push came in the 17th Congress (2016–2019) under President Rodrigo Duterte, when the House of Representatives passed a reinstatement bill on third reading. The Senate never took it up for a vote.

The attempts continue. In July 2025, at the opening of the 20th Congress, Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa refiled a bill seeking to reimpose the death penalty on large-scale drug traffickers, describing it as “a continued declaration of war against drugs.”¹¹ Whether such a bill could pass both chambers is uncertain, and even enactment would face the treaty obstacle created by the Second Optional Protocol. For now, RA 9346 remains the governing law, and the death penalty stays abolished in the Philippines.

1
Supreme Court E-Library. Republic Act No. 9346 – An Act Prohibiting the Imposition of Death Penalty in the Philippines
2
Supreme Court E-Library. Republic Act No. 7659
3
University of Minnesota Human Rights Library. Republic Act No. 9165 – Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002
4
The LawPhil Project. Republic Act No. 7659 – An Act to Impose the Death Penalty on Certain Heinous Crimes
5
LawPhil. The Revised Penal Code of the Philippines (Act No. 3815)
6
University of Minnesota Human Rights Library. Republic Act No. 9346 – An Act Prohibiting the Imposition of Death Penalty in the Philippines
7
The LawPhil Project. Act No. 4103 – An Act to Provide for an Indeterminate Sentence and Parole for All Persons Convicted of Certain Crimes
8
Supreme Court of the Philippines. SC: Persons Convicted of Heinous Crimes Still Entitled to Good Conduct Time Allowance
9
Supreme Court E-Library. Article VII – Executive Department
10
United Nations Treaty Collection. Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty
11
Senate of the Philippines. Bato Starts Fresh Term Reviving Call for Passage of Bills on Death Penalty, Mandatory ROTC, Amending Party-List System Act