Separate Opinion 5 G.R. No. 224469 Absence of the first element: petitioners cut the dita tree within their ancestral domain, which is neither "forest land," "alienable or disposable public land," nor "private land. " To be considered a violation of Sec. 77, the law itself requires that the timber or for est product is cut, gathered, collected, or removed from any "forest land," "alienable or disposable public land," or "private land." Cutting within an ancestral domain of ICCs/IPs was not contemplated by P.D. 705, Sec. 77. in As the Court hefd Savage V. Taypin 6 "we must strictly construe the statute against the State and liberally in favor of the accused, for penal statutes cannot be enlarged or extended by intendment, implication or any equitable consideration. " 7 It also held in Centeno v. Villalon-Pornillos 8 (Centeno): [Penal laws] are not to be strained by construction to spell out a new offense, enlarge the field of crime or multiply felonies. Hence, in the interpretation of a penal statute, the tendency is to subject it to careful scrutiny and to construe it with such strictness as to safeguard the rights of the accused." 9 In construing penal laws, the Court further held: x x x If the statute is ambiguous and admits of two reasonable but contradictory constructions, that which operates in favor of a party accused under its ~provisions is to be preferred. The principle is that acts in and of themselves innocent and lawful cannot be held to be criminal unless there is a clear and unequivocal expression of the legislative intent to make them such. Whatever is not plainly within the provisions of a penal statute should be regarded as without its intendment. 10 Here, the lower courts erred in failing to appreciate the location of the dita tree, which, again, was well within the petitioners' ancestral domain. I disagree. On this note, it should be emphasized that "[t]he law does not operate in vacuo nor should its applicability be determined by circumstances in the abstract." 11 6 7 8 9 10 11 G.R. No. 134217, May 11, 2000, 331 SCRA 697. Id. at 704. G.R. No. 113092, September 1, 1994, 236 SCRA 197. Id. at 205. (Emphasis and u12dersc,oring supplied) Id. (Emphasis and underscoring supplied) Id. at 205-206.