(b) Those who commit the act of sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct with
a child exploited in prostitution or subject to other sexual abuse; Provided, That
when the [victim] is under twelve (12) years of age, the perpetrators shall be
prosecuted under Article 335, paragraph 3, for rape and Article 336 of Act No.
3815, as amended, the Revised Penal Code, for rape or lascivious conduct, as
the case may be: Provided, That the penalty for lascivious conduct when the victim
is under twelve (12) years of age shall be reclusion temporal in its medium period;
x x x (emphasis added)
If Art. 336 then ceased to be a penal provision in view of its alleged
incompleteness, then so too would Sec. 5(b) of RA 7610 be ineffective since it
defines and punishes the prohibited act by way of reference to the RPC provision.
The decriminalization of Acts of Lasciviousness under the RPC, as per Justice
Leonen's theory, would not sufficiently be supplanted by RA 7610 and RA 9262,[65]
otherwise known as the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Law (AntiVAWC Law). Under RA 7610, only minors can be considered victims of the
enumerated forms of abuses therein. Meanwhile, the Anti-VAWC law limits the
victims of sexual abuses covered by the RA to a wife, former wife, or any women
with whom the offender has had a dating or sexual relationship, or against her
child.[66] Clearly, these laws do not provide ample protection against sexual
offenders who do not discriminate in selecting their victims. One does not have to
be a child before he or she can be victimized by acts of lasciviousness. Nor does
one have to be a woman with an existing or prior relationship with the offender to
fall prey. Anyone can be a victim of another's lewd design. And if the Court will
subscribe to Justice Leonen's position, it will render a large portion of our
demographics (i.e. adult females who had no prior relationship to the offender, and
adult males) vulnerable to sexual abuses.
The RTC and the CA imposed the proper prison term
Anent the proper penalty to be imposed, Sec. 5 of RA 7610 provides that the
penalty for lascivious conduct, when the victim is under twelve (12) years of age,
shall be reclusion temporal in its medium period, which ranges from 14 years, 8
months and 1 day to 17 years and 4 months.[67]
Meanwhile, Sec. 1 of Act No. 4103,[68] otherwise known as the Indeterminate
Sentence Law (ISL), provides that if the offense is ostensibly punished under a
special law, the minimum and maximum prison term of the indeterminate sentence
shall not be beyond what the special law prescribed.[69] Be that as it may, the Court
had clarified in the landmark ruling of People v. Simon[70] that the situation is
different where although the offense is defined in a special law, the penalty therefor
is taken from the technical nomenclature in the RPC. Under such circumstance, the