Reason & Concern

Ronquillo C. Tolentino

New Criminal Code: 

Advocacy Which Time Has Come

Not since that November  16, 2012 forum in Iloilo City with Justice  Leila de Lima’s calling for the consolidation of the Philippine’s penal laws had it really dawned on me again that  the  proposal  for a new criminal code is really an advocacy which time has  come.

In retrospect, the Revised Penal Code was enacted in 1930. Enacted as Act No.3815 Various criminal laws have since then been enacted outside of the 1930 Revised Penal Code as separate Republic Acts.

Before 1930, the Spanish Penal Code was in force from 1886 to 1930. The codification was not total as the committee created headed by Justice Anacleto Diaz revised the old Penal Code and reportedly included all other penal laws when the committee considered its relation and connection to the Penal Code.

Secretary de Lima has called, and rightly so, the Revised Penal Code “a collection of antiquated provisions dealing with irrelevant crimes and obsolete penalties.”

The justice secretary pointed to the definitions of certain archaic crimes in the  Revised Penal Code which she criticized “to be ineffective in combating  organized crime, transnational or cybercrime-emergency activities that we confront today.”

Consider the justice secretary’s on what she calls “the unsystematic proliferation of special penal laws.”

Any lawyer in active law practice, the trial lawyers more especially, would verily  assent to her observation, thus:” The laws had been passed by our legislature in piecemeal fashion without the benefit of an integrative framework or even a uniform standard of documentation. As a result, we can scarcely keep track of the exact number of penal laws that we have and find difficulty determining which law or laws may be used to punish a particular criminal conduct”.   

 ***On this season, I am reminded to quote a poet’s greeting: May you have the gladness of Christmas which is hope; The spirit of Christmas which is peace; The heart of Christmas which is love. “***A blessed Christmas and a progressive New Year! /MP