Dissenting Opinion
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G.R. No. 224469
This, however, does not leave the Court without a remedy. On the
basis of Article 542 of the RPC, We held in Corpuz that the proper course of
action is not to suspend the execution of the sentence but to submit, instead,
to the Chief Executive the reasons why the Court considers the said penalty
to be non-commensurate with the act committed. In the past, We even went
as far as imposing the death penalty without impeding its imposition on the
ground of "cruelty."
In the same vein, should the Court, in this case, unanimously find that
the penalty of imprisonment imposed upon an IP for cutting a tree be
excessive or harsh, the Court may very well recommend the matter to the
Chief Executive or even Congress for amendment or modification. Suffice it
to say, though, that the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments applies
not so much to fine and imprisonment, but to punishments which public
sentiment has regarded as cruel or obsolete, for instance, those inflicted at
the whipping post, or in the pillory, burning at the stake, breaking on the
wheel, disemboweling, and the like. 43 But even if We consider such penalty
as cruel punishment, imposing a different one on the ground of invalidity
amounts to a collateral attack on the subject law that must be thwarted for
being violative of due process.
This notwithstanding, Justice Caguioa presumes that the lands
enumerated in Section 77 of P.D. No. 705 do not include ancestral domains
and, as such, petitioners may not be found guilty of violating the same.
According to him, ancestral domains are distinct from public or private
lands, and any cutting of timber or forest product therein was not
contemplated by Section 77.
I, however, respectfully disagree. On the contrary, lands possessed by
IPs undoubtedly fall within the statute's definition of private lands. Section
77 penalizes the unauthorized removal of timber or other forest products
from any forest land, 44 or timber from alienable and disposable public
lands, 45 or from private lands. 46 But as can be drawn from the definition of
42
ART. 5. Duty of the court in connection with acts which should be repressed but which are not
covered by the law, and in cases of excessive penalties. - Whenever a court has knowledge of any act
which it may deem proper to repress and which is not punishable by law, it shall render the proper decision,
and shall report to the Chief Executive, through the Department of Justice, the reasons which induce the
court to believe that said act should be made the subject of penal legislation.
In the same way, the court shall submit to the Chief Executive, through the Department of
Justice, such statement as may be deemed proper, without suspending the execution of the sentence,
when a strict enforcement of the provisions of this Code would" result in the imposition of a clearly
excessive penalty, taking into consideration the degree of malice and the injury caused by the offense.
(Emphasis ours)
43
Corpuz v. People, supra note 40, at 419.
44
Section 3(d) of P.D. No. 705 states that forest lands include the public forest, the permanent forest
or forest reserves, and forest reservations.
45
Section 3 (c) of P.D. No. 705 provides that alienable and disposable lands refer to those lands of
the public domain which have been the subject of the present system of classification and declared as not
nooded fo, fornst pmposes.
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