Malacañang said it is up to the Senate to decide on the proposed measure to reimpose capital punishment on heinous crimes, particularly on big-time drug offenders.

Pope Francis last Thursday decreed that the death penalty is “inadmissible” under all circumstances.

The Vatican said the Pope has declared the death penalty “inadmissible” in an update of Catholic believers’ most important guide to Church teaching, the catechism.

“The Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’” the new text states.

“I think the matter of the death penalty is in the hands of the senators now. So, we leave it to the Senate whatever decision they have,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said.

The House has passed in March 2017 a bill reimposing the death penalty but a counterpart bill in the Senate had won few supporters and had stalled.

“The President would still try gentle persuasion but it’s really a decision of the senators now,” he added.

“There is no death penalty vote in the Senate. It will die if put to a vote today,” Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said.

“Malacañang knows this. I do not think they will waste their political capital on the death penalty bill. Thus, the decision to leave to the senators the decision to approve or junk the measure,” Drilon added.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III, who supports the imposition of death penalty on high-level drug traffickers, said he would reflect on the latest statement of the Pope.

“Let me think it over. I’ll try to find some kind of a compromise,” said Sotto.

For his part, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, who has been supporting calls for the reimposition of the death penalty, heeded the Pope’s pronouncement.

“We won’t reimpose it,” said Pimentel in reaction to the pontiff’s decree.

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, on the other hand, noted that the proposal has been stalled in the Senate due to lack of support.

“It does not seem to be moving in the Senate. When I last checked, the Senate seemed somewhat divided on the issue,” Angara confided.

Apart from Pimentel and Sotto, the other lawmaker supporting the reimposition of death penalty is Sen. Manny Pacquiao who authored a bill for it.

The death penalty was abolished in 2006 after being revived in 1993. The penalty was suspended in 1987.

The passage of Republic Act 7659 or the Death Penalty Law in 1993 reimposed the capital punishment.

Under RA 7659, crimes punishable with death included murder, rape, big-time drug trafficking, kidnap for ransom, treason, piracy, qualified bribery, parricide, infanticide, plunder, kidnapping and serious illegal detention, robbery with violence or intimidation, qualified vehicle theft and arson.

In March 1996, through RA 8177, the law was amended prescribing death by lethal injection for offenders convicted of heinous crimes.

During the term of deposed President Joseph Estrada, seven inmates were put to death, the first was Leo Echegaray, on 9 February 1999, who was convicted of raping his stepdaughter.

In 2006, the death penalty law was abolished.

The Duterte administration had sought the reimposition of the death penalty due to the worsening drug-related crimes.