Supreme Court E-Library
Information At Your Fingertips


  View printer friendly version

[ Act No. 1577, December 18, 1906 ]

AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE EXECUTION IN BILIBID PRISON OF CRIMINALS SENTENCED TO DEATH.

By authority of the United States, be it enacted by the Philippine Commission, that:

SECTION  1.  Hereafter the  execution  of  all  criminals  finally sentenced to incur the death penalty shall take place inside the walls  of Bilibid  Prison in the city  of  Manila,  and  within an inclosure to be erected or arranged for that purpose, if none suitable exists, under the direction of the Director of Prisons, which inclosure shall be higher than the gallows, and be so constructed as  to  exclude  entirely  the  view  of  persons  outside.   For  the purpose of carrying into effect all such executions of the death sentence the Director of  Prisons shall perform  the  duties prescribed by existing law for sheriffs of the Courts of First Instance; the order of execution shall be directed to him instead of to the sheriff of the court, and he shall return to the court the order of execution, duly certifying thereon that he has complied therewith in the manner prescribed by law for sheriffs of the courts. Hereafter it shall not be necessary for the clerk of the Court of First Instance to witness the execution, nor to certify said act to the court. Such executions shall be conducted by the persons prescribed by existing law for the conducting of executions at said institution or by such law as may be hereafter enacted.

SEC. 2. The following persons only may be present at an execution: Officials and employees of Bilibid Prison and such persons as may be necessary, in the opinion of the Director of Prisons, to assist in conducting the execution; members of the medical profession,  including  the  prison  doctor;  the  spiritual  adviser  of  the condemned; the chaplain, or chaplains, of the prison; the counsel of  the  condemned;   and  any  of  the  relatives  or  friends  of  the condemned, not exceeding ten in number.

SEC. 3. All provisions of the Spanish Penal Code, of Act Numbered Four hundred and fifty-one of the Philippine Commission, and of any other statute, rule, regulation, or order in conflict or inconsistent with the provisions of this Act are hereby repealed: Provided, That the terms of this Act shall not apply to the Moro Province, in which province the laws in force with respect to executions at the time of the passage of this Act shall continue in full force and effect.

SEC. 4. The public good requiring the speedy enactment of this bill, the passage of the same is hereby expedited in accordance with section two of "An Act prescribing the order of procedure by the Commission in the enactment of laws," passed September twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred.

SEC. 5. This Act shall take effect on its passage.

Enacted, December 18, 1906.
© Supreme Court E-Library 2019
This website was designed and developed, and is maintained, by the E-Library Technical Staff in collaboration with the Management Information Systems Office.