Excessive Fines and Cruel Punishment

Question 1

[Sec. 19 (1) , Art. III, Constitution]

___________ shall not be imposed, nor ___________________ punishment inflicted. Neither shall death penalty be imposed, unless, for ________ reasons involving _______ crimes, the __________ hereafter provides for it. Any death penalty already imposed shall be reduced to _____________.

Answer 1

Excessive fines;
cruel, degrading or inhuman;
compelling;
heinous;
Congress;
reclusion perpetua

Question 2

[Sec. 19 (2) , Art. III, Constitution]

The employment of ____________________ punishment against any prisoner or detainee or the use of _______________ penal facilities under subhuman conditions shall be dealt with by law.

Answer 2

physical, psychological, or degrading;

substandard or inadequate;

Question 3

What is cruel punishment?

Answer 3

1. Involves torture or lingering death [Legarda v. Valdez, G.R. No. 513 (1902)]
2. Not only severe, harsh or excessive but flagrantly and plainly oppressive
3. Wholly disproportionate to the nature of the offense as to shock the moral sense of thecommunity [People v. Estoista, G.R. No. L-5793 (1953)]

Question 4

The consitutional limit on cruel punishment is reckoned on what basis?

Answer 4

The nature and mode of punishment measured in terms of physical pain

Question 5

Is unusual punishment, on its own, prohibited?

Answer 5

NO.

What is prohibited is cruel and unusual punishment. Unusual punishment is not prohibited especially if it makes the penalty less severe.

Question 6

What is the prohibition of cruel and unusual aimed at?

Answer 6

The prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments is generally aimed at the form or character of the punishment rather than its severity in respect of duration or amount, and applies to punishments which public sentiment has regarded as cruel or obsolete, for instance, those inflicted at the whipping post, or in the pillory, burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel, disemboweling, and the like. Fine and imprisonment would not thus be within the prohibition [People v. dela Cruz, supra].

Question 7

What law repeals the death penalty?

Answer 7

RA 9346: An Act Prohibitiing the Imposition of Death Penalty in the Philippines

The imposition of the penalty of death is hereby prohibited. Accordingly, R.A. No. 8177, otherwise known as the Act Designating Death by Lethal Injection is hereby repealed. R.A. No. 7659, otherwise known as the Death Penalty Law, and all other laws, executive orders and decrees, insofar as they impose the death penalty are hereby repealed or amended accordingly. [Sec. 1, R.A. 9346]

Question 8

What does the grant of power to Congress to restore the death penalty require?

Answer 8

1. that Congress define or describe what is meant by heinous crimes
2. that Congress specify and penalize by death, only crimes that qualify as heinous in accordance with the definition or description set in the death penalty bill and/or designate crimes punishable by reclusion perpetua to death in which latter case, death can only be imposed upon the attendance of circumstances duly proven in court that characterize the crime to be heinous in accordance with the definition or description set in the death penalty bill
3. that Congress, in enacting this death penalty bill be singularly motivated by “compelling reasons involving heinous crimes.”

Question 9

What is required for a death penalty to be valid?

Answer 9

For a death penalty bill to be valid, Sec. 19(1) does not require that there be a positive manifestation in the form of higher incidence of crime first perceived and statistically proven. Neither does the said provision require that the death penalty be resorted to as a last recourse when all other criminal reforms have failed to abate criminality in society

[People v. Echegaray, G.R. No. 117472 (1997)].