G.R. No. 108172-73 - People vs. Lucas y Briones

Case Summary (G.R. No. 108172-73)

Key Dates

First Division decision under review: 25 May 1994; Motion for clarification filed: 28 June 1994; question referred to the Court en banc for resolution of an issue of first impression (referral accepted and deliberated thereafter).

Applicable Law and Constitutional Basis

Primary statutory and doctrinal materials considered: R.A. No. 7659 (amending Article 27 of the Revised Penal Code), Articles 25, 27, 41, 61, 63, 65, 70, 76, and 77 of the Revised Penal Code, and the Court’s prior decision in People v. Reyes (212 SCRA 402 [1992]). Because the en banc decision in question was rendered after 1990, the applicable constitutional framework is the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

Issue Presented

Whether Section 21 (also cited as Section 17 in portions of the congressional record) of R.A. No. 7659 — which fixed the duration of reclusion perpetua at twenty (20) years and one (1) day to forty (40) years — effected a legislative reclassification of reclusion perpetua from an indivisible penalty to a divisible (graded) penalty, thereby permitting the division of the penal term into three equal periods and permitting application of divisibility rules (e.g., Article 65) in sentencing.

First Division Ruling and the Motion for Clarification

The First Division, in its 25 May 1994 decision, treated reclusion perpetua as divisible and applied Article 65 of the Revised Penal Code to divide the statutory twenty (20) years and one (1) day to forty (40) years term into three equal periods (minimum, medium, maximum), ultimately sentencing the accused to an “imprisonment of 34 years, 4 months and 1 day of reclusion perpetua” in one count. The appellee asked the Court to correct an arithmetical range in the First Division’s dispositional language (seeking an amendment of the stated maximum period) and the referral to the en banc Court encompassed the broader legal question whether reclusion perpetua had become divisible.

Legislative History of R.A. No. 7659 (Consolidation of SB No. 891 and HB No. 62)

R.A. No. 7659 resulted from the consolidation of Senate Bill No. 891 and House Bill No. 62. SB No. 891 initially sought to abolish the death penalty for certain heinous crimes by substituting reclusion perpetua with a requirement of serving thirty (30) years without entitlement to good conduct time allowance and parole considerations; HB No. 62 proposed death penalty provisions for enumerated heinous crimes. A Senate substitute bill introduced a three-grade penalty concept (reclusion perpetua, life imprisonment, and death) with life imprisonment expressly defined as thirty (30) years and one day to forty (40) years and reclusion perpetua defined as twenty (20) years and one day to thirty (30) years. Sponsorship speeches, notably by Senator Arturo M. Tolentino, discussed a three-grade, divisible penalty scheme in the substitute, but the Bicameral Conference Committee ultimately eliminated the life imprisonment grade and broadened reclusion perpetua’s duration to twenty (20) years and one (1) day to forty (40) years.

Sponsorship Statements and Ambiguities in Legislative Intent

Senator Tolentino’s sponsorship remarks reflect both the three-grade/divisible concept (when life imprisonment was part of the proposed framework) and a contemporaneous description of reclusion perpetua as one of the two indivisible penalties retained in the Code (the other being death). The Senate record shows Tolentino characterizing the elimination of life imprisonment as resulting in an extended range for reclusion perpetua, which he described as making reclusion perpetua “flexible or divisible”; immediately thereafter, however, he stated that the revised scheme would have only two indivisible penalties (reclusion perpetua to death), with aggravating and mitigating rules applicable under Article 63. This mixture of statements in the legislative history produced ambiguity as to whether Congress intended to convert reclusion perpetua into a divisible penalty or merely to fix its temporal range.

Legal Framework on Divisibility and the Role of Articles 63, 65, 76 and 77

Article 63 of the Revised Penal Code prescribes rules for penalties that are indivisible: when the law prescribes a single indivisible penalty, that penalty is to be applied irrespective of mitigating or aggravating circumstances; when the law prescribes two indivisible penalties, Article 63 supplies rules for application depending on the presence of aggravating or mitigating circumstances. Articles 76 and 77 address divisible penalties: Article 76 identifies when penalties are divisible and Article 77 governs a complex penalty composed of three distinct penalties (each forming a period). Article 65 prescribes how courts should divide a penalty that is not already composed of three periods (into three equal portions). If Congress intended reclusion perpetua to be divisible, Articles 76 and 77 (and related provisions) should have been amended to reflect such reclassification, and Article 63’s application would be curtailed or altered.

Practical and Doctrinal Consequences of Reclassifying Reclusion Perpetua as Divisible

The Court emphasized the disruptive doctrinal consequences that would follow were reclusion perpetua treated as divisible without explicit legislative amendment of Article 63 and Article 76. Several statutory schemes created by R.A. No. 7659 and other laws (for example Section 20 of the amended R.A. No. 6425 on dangerous drugs and provisions imposing reclusion perpetua to death for various enumerated offenses) operate by applying Article 63’s rules (i.e., choosing between reclusion perpetua and death depending on aggravating/mitigating circumstances). If reclusion perpetua were deemed divisible, Article 63 could lose its operative force in those contexts, leaving no statutory framework within the Revised Penal Code to determine when reclusion perpetua or death is the applicable penalty. Similar inconsistencies would arise with other Code provisions involving accessory penalties and computation of service (Articles 41, 61, 70), which were not amended correspondingly by R.A. No. 7659.

Precedent and the Restatement of Reclusion Perpetua’s Temporal Dimensions

The Court noted prior jurisprudence (People v. Reyes) recognizing that although Article 27 did not specify minimum and maximum ranges for reclusion perpetua before R.A. No. 7659, legal interpretation had treated the minimum of reclusion perpetua as twenty (20) years and one (1) day and had, for certain computation purposes, imputed a duration of thirty (30) years. The amendment in R.A. No. 7659 that expressly fixed reclusion perpetua at twenty (20) years and one (1) day to forty (40) years largely restated and clarified existing jurisprudential understanding about the temporal bounds of the penalty rather than effecting a reclassification of its indivisible nature.

Court’s Analysis and Conclusion on Divisibility

After re-examining the legislative history and the applicable provisions of the Revised Penal Code, the en banc Court concluded there was no clear and unequivocal legislative intent in R.A. No. 7659 to change reclusion perpetua from an indivisible penalty to a divisible one. The mere fixation of a temporal range (20 years and 1 day to 40 years) did not, in the Court’s view, demonstrate an intent to convert the penalty’s legal character. Because Congress did not amend Article 63 or Article 76, and because other Code provisions dealing with reclusion perpetua remained unaltered, the Court held that reclusion perpetu

Case Syllabus (G.R. No. 108172-73)

Citation and Court

Full citation: 310 Phil. 77 EN BANC [ G.R. No. 108172-73. January 09, 1995 ].
Decision rendered by the Supreme Court of the Philippines en banc on January 9, 1995.
The resolution was authored by Justice Davide, Jr.
The Court recorded concurrence by Narvasa, C.J., Padilla, Bidin, Regalado, Romero, Bellosillo, Melo, Quiason, Puno, Vitug, Kapunan, and Mendoza, JJ.; Feliciano, J., was on leave.

Parties and Nature of the Proceeding

Plaintiff-Appellee: People of the Philippines.
Accused-Appellant: Conrado (Jose Conrado) Lucas y Briones.
The case concerns criminal convictions rendered by the Regional Trial Court, Branch 104, Quezon City, in Criminal Case Nos. Q-91-18465 and Q-91-18466 and subsequent appellate review.
Central legal issue: the legal nature and classification of the penalty of reclusion perpetua after amendment of Article 27 of the Revised Penal Code by R.A. No. 7659 and whether reclusion perpetua has become a divisible (and thus gradable) penalty.

Procedural History and Prior Rulings

The First Division of the Supreme Court issued a decision on 25 May 1994 addressing, inter alia, the nature of reclusion perpetua in light of Section 21 of R.A. No. 7659 (an amendment to Article 27 of the Revised Penal Code fixing the duration of reclusion perpetua at twenty [20] years and one [1] day to forty [40] years).
The First Division concluded that, although Article 76 had not been amended, Article 65 of the Revised Penal Code could be applied to divide the time included in the penalty of reclusion perpetua into three equal portions, producing minimum, medium and maximum periods, and thus applied a divisible scheme.
The First Division specifically computed the three equal portions and stated the periods as:
- Minimum: 20 years and 1 day to 26 years and 8 months.
- Medium: 26 years, 8 months and 1 day to 33 years and 4 months.
- Maximum: 34 years, 4 months and 1 day to 40 years.
Based on those computations and the presence of the aggravating circumstance of relationship in Criminal Case No. Q-91-18465, the First Division concluded the accused might be finally sentenced to 34 years, 4 months and 1 day of reclusion perpetua and modified the trial court’s penalty to “imprisonment of 34 years, 4 months and 1 day of reclusion perpetua.”

Motion for Clarification and Referral to the Court En Banc

On 28 June 1994, the appellee filed a seasonable motion for clarification seeking correction of an apparent numerical or range error in the First Division’s division of the penalty ranges (specifically asking correction of the duration of the maximum period from “thirty-four (34) years, four (4) months and one (1) day to forty (40) years, as stated in the decision, to thirty-three (33) years, four (4) months and one (1) day to forty (40) years”).
The accused-appellant did not oppose the motion in his comment.
Because the question whether the amendment of Article 27 by Section 21 (and once referenced as Section 17 in the decision) of R.A. No. 7659 made reclusion perpetua a divisible penalty was one of first impression and of significant importance, the First Division referred the motion for clarification to the Court en banc, and the en banc Court accepted the referral.

Statutory and Code Provisions Invoked by the Court (as cited in the source)

Article 27, Revised Penal Code (as amended by R.A. No. 7659) — concerns the penalties of reclusion perpetua and their duration as fixed by the amendatory law.
Article 65, Revised Penal Code — “Rule in cases in which the penalty is not composed of three periods. In cases in which the penalty prescribed by law is not composed of three periods, the courts shall apply the rules contained in the foregoing articles, dividing into three equal portions the time included in the penalty prescribed, and forming one period of each of the three portions.”
Article 63, Revised Penal Code — rules on the application of mitigating and aggravating circumstances where the law prescribes single or multiple indivisible penalties.
Article 76, Revised Penal Code — law governing divisible penalties (not quoted verbatim in the source but invoked as relevant to divisibility).
Article 77, Revised Penal Code — addresses when the penalty is a complex one composed of three distinct penalties.
Article 70 and Article 25 — invoked in the jurisprudential discussion regarding imputed duration of perpetual penalties and scales of penalties.
Other referenced provisions: Article 41 (accessory penalties), paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 61 (both involving reclusion perpetua in contexts not amended by R.A. No. 7659).

Legislative History of R.A. No. 7659 as Reviewed by the Court

R.A. No. 7659 is described as a consolidation of Senate Bill (SB) No. 891 and House Bill (HB) No. 62.
SB No. 891:
- Submitted by the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments, Revision of Codes and Laws, and Justice and Human Rights on 30 October 1992.
- Entitled “An Act Defining Heinous Crimes, Imposing the Penalty Therefor, Amending for that Purpose Article 27 and Adding a New Article 27-A in Act No. 3815, as Amended, The Revised Penal Code, and for other Purposes.”
- Proposed to amend Article 27 and to penalize certain heinous crimes with reclusion perpetua only, with the qualification that any person sentenced to reclusion perpetua for such crimes “shall be required to serve thirty (30) years, without entitlement to good conduct time allowance and shall be considered for executive clemency only after service of said thirty (30) years.”
HB No. 62:
- Introduced by Congressman Pablo P. Garcia.
- Entitled “An Act to Declare, for Compelling Reasons of Public Policy and in the Interest of National Security, Public Order and Safety, Certain Crimes as Heinous crimes within the Meaning of Section Nineteen, Paragraph One of Article III of the Constitution, and to Provide Penalties Therefor.”
- HB No. 62 defined and enumerated heinous crimes and sought to penalize them with the death penalty.
Senate Special Committee substitute amendment to SB No. 891:
- The Senate Special Committee on Death Penalty proposed an amendment by substitution entitled “An Act to Impose the Death Penalty on Certain Heinous Crimes, Amending for that Purpose some Articles of Act No. 3815, as Amended, and for other Purposes.”
- The substitute sought to amend Article 25 to re-cast the scale of penalties to incl
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