Executive Clemency for Robin Padilla

Robin Padilla was granted executive clemency by the President in their meeting on 15 November 2016 at the Malacañan Palace giving him complete freedom and restoring his full civil and political rights.

Executive clemency is a power given to the President to pardon prisoners under Article VII, Section 19 of the Constitution:

SECTION 19. Except in cases of impeachment, or as otherwise provided in this Constitution, the President may grant reprieves, commutations and pardons, and remit fines and forfeitures, after conviction by final judgment.

He shall also have the power to grant amnesty with the concurrence of a majority of all the Members of the Congress.

Padilla’s lawyer, Rudolf Jurado, said he was the one who filed the requirements for Padilla’s application for executive clemency a week before. “I forced him to sign the document,” Jurado said. The lawyer said Padilla was hesitant of seeking absolute pardon from the President as this might be construed as a special favor of the president after his support during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Robin Padilla or Robinhood Ferdinand Cariño Padilla was convicted of illegal possession of firearms and ammunitions under Presidential Decree 1866 on 25 April 1994 by Angeles City Regional Trial Court (RTC). He was sentenced to an “indeterminate penalty from 17 years, 4 months and 1 day of reclusion temporal as minimum, to 21 years of reclusion perpetua, as maximum.”¹ but was incarcerated in 1995.² He served three years at the New Bilibid Prison. Reports says, in April 1997, former president Fidel V. Ramos granted him conditional pardon which expired in 2003. ●