Question & AnswerQ&A (Act No. 1732)
The main purpose of Act No. 1732 is to provide that persons sentenced to pay fines for criminal offenses under Acts of the Philippine Commission or for violations of the ordinances of the City of Manila, who fail to pay such fines, shall be subjected to subsidiary imprisonment until the fine is satisfied.
Subsidiary imprisonment is the imprisonment imposed on a person who fails to pay a fine, which lasts until the fine is satisfied, calculated at specific rates per day.
Subsidiary imprisonment is calculated at the rate of two pesos and fifty centavos per day.
The maximum subsidiary imprisonment if the sentence imposes only a fine is six months.
The subsidiary imprisonment shall not exceed one-third of the term of imprisonment imposed by the sentence, and in no case shall it exceed one year.
No, subsidiary imprisonment will not be imposed if the sentence includes imprisonment of more than six years plus a fine.
For fines under municipal ordinances of the City of Manila, subsidiary imprisonment is imposed at hard labor at the rate of one peso per day until the fine is satisfied.
Yes, the court may still levy execution on the guilty person's goods and property or pursue other civil remedies even if subsidiary imprisonment is imposed.
Subsidiary imprisonment does not affect prisoner status except when the sentence imposes a fine only, in which case the term of subsidiary imprisonment necessary to satisfy the fine will determine the prisoner's status under Act Numbered Seventeen Hundred and Three.
This Act repeals part of Section Forty of Act Numbered One Hundred and Eighty-Three related to enforcement of judgments by imprisonment until fines are paid at a rate of twenty-five cents per day, and reenacts provisions of Articles 50 and 52 of the Penal Code concerning subsidiary imprisonment as modified.