3/30/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly X WITH DUE RESPECT, THE LOWER COURT ERRED IN NOT DISCOVERING THAT ACCUSED-APPELLANT DID NOT RECEIVE ANY PAYMENT EVEN A SINGLE CENTAVO FROM THE ALLEGED VICTIMS WHO DID NOT SUFFER DAMAGE IN ANY MANNER, YET SHE WAS CONVICTED TO SERVE HER ENTIRE LIFE BEHIND PRISON BARS. SUCH PUNISHMENT WAS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL, HENCE, A WANTON VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION.[18] In the first assigned error, appellant maintains that the law defining "recruitment and placement" violates due process. Appellant also avers, as part of her sixth assigned error, that she was denied the equal protection of the laws. We shall address the issues jointly. Appellant submits that Article 13 (b) of the Labor Code defining "recruitment and placement" is void for vagueness and, thus, violates the due process clause.[19] Due process requires that the terms of a penal statute must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties.[20] A criminal statute that "fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute," or is so indefinite that "it encourages arbitrary and erratic arrests and convictions," is void for vagueness. [21] The constitutional vice in a vague or indefinite statute is the injustice to the accused in placing him on trial for an offense, the nature of which he is given no fair warning.[22] We reiterated these principles in People vs. Nazario:[23] As a rule, a statute or act may be said to be vague when it lacks comprehensible standards that men "of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application." It is repugnant to the Constitution in two respects: (1) it violates due process for failure to accord persons, especially the parties targeted by it, fair notice of the conduct to avoid; and (2) it leaves law enforcers unbridled discretion in carrying out its provisions and become an arbitrary flexing of the Government muscle. We added, however, that: x x x the act must be utterly vague on its face, that is to say, it cannot be clarified by either a saving clause or by construction. Thus, in Coates v. City of Cincinnati, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an ordinance that had made it illegal for "three or more persons to assemble on any sidewalk and there conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by." Clearly, the ordinance imposed no standard at all "because one may never know in advance what `annoys some people but does not annoy others.'" https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/49893 8/20