✓ Separate Concurring Opinion G.R. No. 224469 8 the more specific phrase "without the legal documents as required under existing forest laws and regulations": Sec. 68. Cutting, Gathering and/or Collecting Timber, or Other Forest Products Without License. - Any person who shall cut, gather, collect, remove timber or other forest products from any forest land, or timber from alienable or disposable public land, or from private land without any authority, or possess timber or other forest products without the legal documents as required under existing forest laws and regulations, shall be punished with the penalties imposed under Articles 309 and 310 of the Revised Penal Code: Provided, That in the case of partnerships, associations, or corporations, the officers who ordered the cutting, gathering, collection or possession shall be liable, and if such officers are aliens, they shall, in addition to the penalty, be deported without further proceedings on the part of the Commission on Immigration and Deportation. (Emphases supplied) Hence, should the first offense contemplate the requirement of a documentary license, then Congress should not have qualified it with the general phrase "without any authority," and instead, just applied the specific phrase "without the legal documents as required under existing forest laws and regulations" as in the second offense. The Congress' deliberate choice of words therefore reasonably supports the theory above-posited to allow for other exceptions to the first offense outside of the license requirement. At the very least, this creates a looming spectre of doubt in the application of penal law, which, as per our prevailing doctrines in criminal law, must be construed in favor of the accused, as petitioners in this case. To repeat the bedrock dictum, when there is doubt on the interpretation of criminal laws, all must be resolved in favor of the accused. In this case, one (1) dita tree located within the ancestral domain was cut down by petitioners. The fact that they intended to use the felled tree to build a shared toilet for their indigenous community is undisputed. As it is equally established that petitioners did so not for any malevolent purpose but merely for their subsistence in line with their tribe's cultural traditions and beliefs, in my view, they should not be held criminally liable for violation of Section 77 of the Forestry Code for the reasons herein explained. As such, I agree with the ponencia that they should be acquitted. AAQVv.J.J/ ESTELA M~~ERLAS-BERNABE Senior Associate Justice ~rniiflGd T~ CJ.J'.y ~R?/4~A-~~~ Deputy Clerk of Court En Banc OCC En Banc,Supreme Court