Members of the country's lower house - the House of Representatives - voted on Tuesday overwhelmingly in favour to bring back capital punishment for serious drug crimes.
The result - 216 votes in favour to 54 against and one abstention - comes eleven years after church pressure led to the abolishment of the death penalty and in reaction to a crackdown on drug crime.
The proposed legislation now passes to the upper house, the Senate.
Speaking shortly before the vote result - which was widely expected - Ethel Avisado, a Christian lawyer from the Center for International Law in the Philippines told Premier the proposal was "barbaric".
She went on to say: "People are sick and tired living in fear of crime but, at the same time, there is a way of being safe and doing things right. It is not this.
"What I pray for is that people's minds are opened and that we wish ...to become a country that follows the rule of law, in that we look at the system and fix where it is broken, rather than trying to solve our problems through band aid measures."
Reinstating the death penalty has been a priority for President Rodrigo Duterte who was elected last year after pledging to wipe out drug crimes in the world's largest Catholic nation.
Reuters reported that the International Commission on Jurists urged the Senate to stop a bill which "puts the Philippines in direct conflict with its international obligations".
Click here to listen to Premier's Alex Williams speaking with Ethel Avisado: