SC sets oral arguments on legality of ‘outdated’ estafa penalties

The Supreme Court has set oral arguments to determine whether the penalty handed down to estafa convicts under the 80-year-old Revised Penal Code needs updating.

 

The oral debates, scheduled for Feb. 25, Tuesday, at 2 p.m., were set by the high court "motu proprio" (on its own) in response to a petition for review filed by a certain Lito Corpuz, who was convicted over a P98,000 estafa case.

 

The Court of Appeals then imposed a penalty on him of from four years and two months (minimum) to 15 years (maximum) in prison.

 

The SC said the penalty given to Corpuz was computed based on the value of money in 1930, when the legislature enacted the now 80-year-old Revised Penal Code.

 

According to the Supreme Court Public Information Office, the high court will seek to determine whether Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code should already be declared unconstitutional "for being disproportionate and excessively harsh in view of the decline of the value of money since 1930."

 

Article 315 of the RPC imposes a maximum penalty based on the amount defrauded exceeding P22,000.

 

If the money involved exceeds that amount, the RPC states that "the penalty shall be imposed in its maximum period, adding one year for each additional P10,000, but the total penalty which may be imposed shall not exceed 20 years."

 

The SC also wants to find out whether it can determine the legality of the penalty that the Court of Appeasls imposed on Corpuz, even if Corpuz himself never raised the question in his petition for review.

 

The SC will also tackle the issue of whether the penalty that the appeals court imposed on Corpuz violated the "Equal Protection" or the "Unusual Punishment" clauses of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

 

"And if so, what standards need be met before a penal law or parts of it can be declared unconstitutional on either of those two grounds," the SC said.

 

Required to "address the court on these issues" were the Office of the Solicitor General; the legal counsel for Corpuz; designated counsels for the two chambers of Congress; professor Alfredo Tadiar; Manuel Diokno, dean of the De La Salle University College of Law; Sedfrey Candelaria, dean of the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law.

In April 2012, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima formed a committee to conduct a two-phase revision of the Revised Penal Code — the country’s general criminal code — because some of its provisions stem from an “antiquated” general penal law enacted during the American occupation in 1932. 

The new Criminal Code, of which the first of two books has already been written, is a priority project of the Aquino administration.

It is meant to simplify, codify and rationalize more than 400 criminal laws, the Department of Justice said. — JDS, GMA News