Ponente: Bellosillo, J.
DOCTRINE
A facial challenge is allowed to be made to a vague statute and to one which is overbroad because of possible "chilling effect" upon protected speech. However, this does not apply to criminal statutes, which have general in terrorem effect resulting from their very existence. If facial challenge were to be applied in criminal statutes, the State may well be prevented from enacting laws against socially harmful conduct. In the area of criminal law, the law cannot take chances as in the area of free speech.
FACTS
In 2001, following the impeachment trial of then President Joseph Estrada, the Ombudsman filed before the Sandiganbayan eight Informations against him, including one for the violation of RA 7080, as amended by RA 7659, or the Plunder Law.
Estrada assailed the constitutionality of the said law, arguing that:
(a) it suffers from the vice of vagueness;
(b) it dispenses with the "reasonable doubt" standard in criminal prosecutions; and,
(c) it abolishes the element of mens rea in crimes already punishable under the RPC, all of which are purportedly clear violations of the fundamental rights of the accused to due process and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him.RULING
Petition denied. RA 7080, otherwise known as the Plunder Law, as amended by RA 7659, is CONSTITUTIONAL.
Whether a facial review of the validity of the Plunder Law is proper. – NO.
The allegations that the Plunder Law is vague and overbroad do not justify a facial review of its validity.
The void-for-vagueness doctrine states that "a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application, violates the first essential of due process of law." The overbreadth doctrine, on the other hand, decrees that "a governmental purpose may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms."
A facial challenge is allowed to be made to a vague statute and to one which is overbroad because of possible "chilling effect" upon protected speech. The theory is that "when statutes regulate or proscribe speech and no readily apparent construction suggests itself as a vehicle for rehabilitating the statutes in a single prosecution, the transcendent value to all society of constitutionally protected expression is deemed to justify allowing attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a statute drawn with narrow specificity."
The possible harm to society in permitting some unprotected speech to go unpunished is outweighed by the possibility that the protected speech of others may be deterred and perceived grievances left to fester because of possible inhibitory effects of overly broad statutes.
But this rationale does not apply to penal statutes. Criminal statutes have general in terrorem effect resulting from their very existence, and, if facial challenge is allowed for this reason alone, the State may well be prevented from enacting laws against socially harmful conduct. In the area of criminal law, the law cannot take chances as in the area of free speech. Therefore, the overbreadth and vagueness doctrines then have special application only to free speech cases; they are inapt for testing the validity of penal statutes.
Broadrick v. Oklahoma: "Claims of facial overbreadth have been entertained in cases involving statutes which, by their terms, seek to regulate only spoken words" and, again, that "overbreadth claims, if entertained at all, have been curtailed when invoked against ordinary criminal laws that are sought to be applied to protected conduct."
In sum, the doctrines of strict scrutiny, overbreadth, and vagueness are analytical tools developed for testing "on their faces" statutes in free speech cases or, as they are called in American law, First Amendment cases. They cannot be made to do service when what is involved is a criminal statute. With respect to such statute, the established rule is that "one to whom application of a statute is constitutional will not be heard to attack the statute on the ground that impliedly it might also be taken as applying to other persons or other situations in which its application might be unconstitutional.”
Whether the Plunder Law is unconstitutional for being vague. – NO.
As it is written, the Plunder Law contains ascertainable standards and well-defined parameters which would enable the accused to determine the nature of his violation. Section 2 is sufficiently explicit in its description of the acts, conduct and conditions required or forbidden, and prescribes the elements of the crime with reasonable certainty and particularity.
As long as the law affords some comprehensible guide or rule that would inform those who are subject to it what conduct would render them liable to its penalties, its validity will be sustained. It must sufficiently guide the judge in its application; the counsel, in defending one charged with its violation; and more importantly, the accused, in identifying the realm of the proscribed conduct.
Indeed, it can be understood with little difficulty that what the assailed statute punishes is the act of a public officer in amassing or accumulating ill-gotten wealth of at least P50,000,000.00 through a series or combination of acts enumerated in Sec. 1, par. (d), of the Plunder Law.
The test in determining whether a criminal statute is void for uncertainty is whether the language conveys a sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed conduct when measured by common understanding and practice. It must be stressed, however, that the "vagueness" doctrine merely requires a reasonable degree of certainty for the statute to be upheld - not absolute precision or mathematical exactitude, as petitioner seems to suggest.
Flexibility, rather than meticulous specificity, is permissible as long as the metes and bounds of the statute are clearly delineated. An act will not be held invalid merely because it might have been more explicit in its wordings or detailed in its provisions, especially where, because of the nature of the act, it would be impossible to provide all the details in advance as in all other statutes.
Ambiguity, where none exists, cannot be created by dissecting parts and words in the statute to furnish support to critics who cavil at the want of scientific precision in the law. Every provision of the law should be construed in relation and with reference to every other part.
To be sure, it will take more than nitpicking to overturn the well-entrenched presumption of constitutionality and validity of the Plunder Law. A fortiori, Estrada cannot feign ignorance of what the Plunder Law is all about. Being one of the Senators who voted for its passage, he must be aware that the law was extensively deliberated upon by the Senate and its appropriate committees by reason of which he even registered his affirmative vote with full knowledge of its legal implications and sound constitutional anchorage.
On the use of the words "combination," "series," and "pattern" in the law:
ESTRADA: The failure of the law to provide for the statutory definition of the terms "combination" and "series" in the key phrase "a combination or series of overt or criminal acts" found in Sec. 1, par. (d), and Sec. 2, and the word "pattern" in Sec. 4 renders the Plunder Law unconstitutional for being impermissibly vague and overbroad and deny him the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, hence, violative of his fundamental right to due process.
COURT: The rationalization seems to be pure sophistry. A statute is not rendered uncertain and void merely because general terms are used therein, or because of the employment of terms without defining them; much less do we have to define every word we use. It is a well-settled principle of legal hermeneutics that words of a statute will be interpreted in their natural, plain and ordinary acceptation and signification, unless it is evident that the legislature intended a technical or special legal meaning to those words. The intention of the lawmakers - who are, ordinarily, untrained philologists and lexicographers - to use statutory phraseology in such a manner is always presumed.
Whether the Plunder Law requires less evidence for proving the predicate crimes of plunder and therefore violates the rights of the accused to due process. – NO.
Based on the minutes of the deliberations in the floor of the House of Representatives, the legislature did not in any manner refashion the standard quantum of proof in the crime of plunder. The burden still remains with the prosecution to prove beyond any iota of doubt every fact or element necessary to constitute the crime.
MR. ALBANO: Now, when we add the totality of the other acts as required under this bill through the interpretation on the rule of evidence, it is just one single act, so how can we now convict him?MR. GARCIA: With due respect, Mr. Speaker, for purposes of proving an essential element of the crime, there is a need to prove that element beyond reasonable doubt.In a criminal prosecution for plunder, as in all other crimes, the accused always has in his favor the presumption of innocence which is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and unless the State succeeds in demonstrating by proof beyond reasonable doubt that culpability lies, the accused is entitled to an acquittal.
What the prosecution needs to prove beyond reasonable doubt is only a number of acts sufficient to form a combination or series which would constitute a pattern and involving an amount of at least P50,000,000.00.
There is no need to prove each and every other act alleged in the Information to have been committed by the accused in furtherance of the overall unlawful scheme or conspiracy to amass, accumulate or acquire ill-gotten wealth.
Such pattern arises where the prosecution is able to prove beyond reasonable doubt the predicate acts as defined in Sec. 1, par. (d). Pattern is merely a by-product of the proof of the predicate acts. This conclusion is consistent with reason and common sense.
There would be no other explanation for a combination or series of overt or criminal acts to stash P50,000,000.00 or more, than "a scheme or conspiracy to amass, accumulate or acquire ill gotten wealth." The prosecution is therefore not required to make a deliberate and conscious effort to prove pattern as it necessarily follows with the establishment of a series or combination of the predicate acts.
"Reasonable doubt"
The use of the "reasonable doubt" standard is indispensable to command the respect and confidence of the community in the application of criminal law. It is critical that the moral force of criminal law be not diluted by a standard of proof that leaves people in doubt whether innocent men are being condemned.
It is also important in our free society that every individual going about his ordinary affairs has confidence that his government cannot adjudge him guilty of a criminal offense without convincing a proper factfinder of his guilt with utmost certainty.
This "reasonable doubt" standard has acquired such exalted stature in the realm of constitutional law as it gives life to the Due Process Clause which protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.
Whether the crime of plunder, as defined in RA 7080, is a malum prohibitum. – NO.
Plunder is a malum in se which requires proof of criminal intent. Precisely because the constitutive crimes are mala in se, the element of mens rea must be proven in a prosecution for plunder.
Any person who participated with a public officer in the commission of an offense contributing to the crime of plunder shall likewise be punished for such offense. In the imposition of penalties, the degree of participation and the attendance of mitigating and extenuating circumstances, as provided by the RPC, shall be considered by the court. The application of mitigating and extenuating circumstances in the RPC to prosecutions under the Anti-Plunder Law indicates quite clearly that mens rea is an element of plunder since the degree of responsibility of the offender is determined by his criminal intent.
Finally, any doubt as to whether the crime of plunder is a malum in se must be deemed to have been resolved in the affirmative by the decision of Congress in 1993 to include it among the heinous crimes punishable by reclusion perpetua to death. Other heinous crimes are punished with death as a straight penalty in R.A. No. 7659.
On the evil of plunder
The evil of a crime may take various forms. There are crimes that are, by their very nature, despicable, either because life was callously taken or the victim is treated like an animal and utterly dehumanized as to completely disrupt the normal course of his or her growth as a human being.
There are crimes, however, in which the abomination lies in the significance and implications of the subject criminal acts in the scheme of the larger socio-political and economic context in which the state finds itself to be struggling to develop and provide for its poor and underprivileged masses.
Reeling from decades of corrupt tyrannical rule that bankrupted the government and impoverished the population, the Philippine Government must muster the political will to dismantle the culture of corruption, dishonesty, greed and syndicated criminality that so deeply entrenched itself in the structures of society and the psyche of the populace.