The Senate committees on constitutional amendments and justice and human rights have approved a measure that would qualify the killings of media personnel as murder punishable under the Revised Penal Code (RPC). Senate Bill 455 seeks to amend Article 248 of the RPC to specifically include the killing of a member of the broadcast and print media in the conditions by which murder is determined. It likewise seeks to increase the penalty for murders committed under this article from reclusion temporal or imprisonment of 12 to 20 years to reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment to death. Under the present Article 248, a person who kills another and is not covered by Article 246 shall only be found guilty of murder to be punished by reclusion temporal under the following circumstances:
with treachery, taking advantage of superior strength, with the aid of armed men, or employing means to weaken the defense or of means or persons to insure or afford impunity; in consideration of a price, reward or promise; by means of inundation, fire poison, explosion, shipwreck, standing of a vessel, derailment or assault upon a street car or locomotive, fall of an airship, by means of motor vehicle, or with the use of any other means involving great waste and ruin; on occasion of any of the calamities enumerated in the preceding paragraph, or an earthquake, eruption of a volcano, destructive cyclone, epidemic, or any other public calamity; with evident premeditation; and with cruelty, by deliberately and inhumanly augmenting the suffering of the victim, or outraging or scoffing at his person or corpse. Article 246 of the RPC says that any person who shall kill his father, mother, or child, whether legitimate or illegitimate, or any of his ascendants, or descendants, or his spouse, shall be guilty of parricide and shall be punished by the penalty of reclusion perpetua to death. SB 455 was authored by Senate Pro Tempore Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada, Senators Loren Legarda, Francis Escudero, and Miriam Defensor-Santiago. — Kimberly Jane Tan/RSJ, GMANews.TV 
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