A U.S.-based Philippine lawyer called for the death penalty for corruption convictions, saying he hopes officials found guilty of graft will face execution.
Glen Hubahib, a lawyer from Bohol province now practicing in the United States, made the comments during a DYTR interview with journalist Ardy Araneta-Batoy on Sept. 29, 2025.
Hubahib advocated for legislation that would impose capital punishment on corrupt officials and their associates.
“It will be a good start to pass a bill into law that will allow death penalty to be imposed on corrupt officials and cohorts,” Hubahib said.
His remarks come as the Philippines is plagued with a corruption scandal involving substandard flood control projects allegedly designed to generate billions of kickbacks for government officials.
Hubahib cited China as an example, noting that a former Chinese official convicted of accepting bribes received a death sentence, though the execution was suspended.
The Philippines abolished the death penalty in 2006, making it the first country in Asia to do so for all crimes.
Several attempts to reinstate capital punishment have been proposed in Congress, particularly under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration from 2016 to 2022, but none have succeeded.
Capital punishment was last carried out in the Philippines in 1999, when a convicted rapist was executed by lethal injection.
The country reinstated the death penalty in 1993 under President Fidel Ramos for heinous crimes including murder, rape and kidnapping, but it was abolished again in 2006 under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Corruption remains a persistent problem in the Philippines, which ranked 115th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index.
The country has struggled with graft in government contracting, with infrastructure projects particularly vulnerable to kickback schemes and substandard construction.