MANILA - The House of Representatives has withdrawn its approval of a bill that imposes the death penalty for drug offenses, amending the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

House Bill No. 8909, which was approved Monday, still contains death as penalty for drug violations even if the death penalty had already been abolished in 2006.

A separate bill reviving the death penalty hurdled the House under former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez but has languished at the Senate.

Current House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed the law abolishing the death penalty in 2006, when she was president.

Under the bill, death will be the penalty for the importation and or exportation of, sale, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution and transportation of dangerous drugs and or controlled precursors and essential chemicals; maintenance of a drug den, dive or resort, and manufacture of and possession of dangerous drugs.

The bill was recommitted to the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs.

Kabataan Party List Rep. Sarah Elago, in a statement, condemned the passage of the bill.

"With our notoriously flawed justice system and murderous war on drugs combined, this bill only makes more and more innocent Filipinos end up in the death row," she said.