Lawyers and anti-death penalty groups stepped up efforts to stop this week's executions of two men they claim were wrongly convicted of kidnapping -- a politically sensitive issue that has divided many Filipinos.
Government lawyers defending convicted kidnappers Roberto Lara and Roderick Licayan were scheduled yesterday to present new evidence at the Supreme Court they said would prove their innocence and persuade the court to defer Friday's executions and order a retrial.
Outside the court, two groups of left-wing activists protested the scheduled executions -- the first since 2000 -- and called for a repeal of the law that brought capital punishment back to the Philippines.
Hundreds of death row inmates also planned to stage a protest later yesterday by banging the bars of their cells, according to a prison chaplain, Roberto Olaguer.
A nearby church bell tolled in support of their call, he said.
The two condemned men, now in solitary confinement, have agonized over their impending execution but were learning to accept their possible death through constant religious counseling, Olaguer said.
"One was crying the other night, and the other couldn't sleep at all," he said.
Persida Rueda-Acosta, who heads a group of government lawyers defending the two convicts, said she would present a statement of two recently arrested men clearing Lara and Licayan of involvement in the 1998 kidnapping of a Chinese businessman and his aide. The two arrested men are to be arraigned on Feb. 9.
The Supreme Court is expected to decide soon whether to proceed with Friday's executions.
"They have to make an immediate resolution," said court spokesman Ishmael Khan. "Time is ticking away."
The debate over whether to execute the convicts has divided many Filipinos in this predominantly Roman Catholic nation.
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