Manila | Wednesday
A PHILIPPINE legislator on Wednesday filed a bill seeking to have sex offenders castrated, Senate officials said.
Opposition Senator Luisa Ejercito, wife of deposed Philippines president Joseph Estrada, said there was a need to come up with more imaginative measures to fight sex crimes.
”Given the inability of the justice system to control rape and child molestation, there is a need to come up with measures which in other countries have proven to be effective in combating rape and other forms of sexual offenses,” the bill said.
Convicts could be castrated a week before completing their prison sentence, Ejercito proposed.
”Castration can be an ideal punishment for sex offenders,” she said.
Seven people, including four convicted rapists were put to death by injection in 2000 during the Estrada regime. He later suspended the death penalty amid an outcry from the influential Roman Catholic church.
A popular revolt chased him from power last year.- Sapa-AFP