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DISSENTING OPINION

YNARES-SANTIAGO, J.:

This is to reiterate my dissent to the unbelievable about-face by the Court in the April 1, 2003 Resolution confirmed and renewed in its latest Resolution.

The reasons for this continuing dissent are basically similar to those expressed in three Dissenting Opinions to the April 1, 2003 Resolution.¹ Nothing has changed in the history of the charges against Senator Panfilo M. Lacson except the disturbing and unusual ruling of this Court now.

If the charges against Senator Lacson are to be relentlessly pursued, the pursuit must be done in a constitutional and fair manner. It is the use of legal short-cuts, pained reasoning and the hasty procedure after several years of inaction which constrain this dissent. If Senator Lacson is to be found guilty of participation in multiple murder, it should be only after due process is followed.

The new majority Resolution is a volte-face, a complete turn-around from the previously unanimous judgment dated May 28, 2002.

The 2002 Resolution of the Court remanded the Governments petition to the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City to ascertain important factual issues. The Resolution was concluded beyond doubt or ambiguity without any dissenting vote.

The issues sought to be revived were all resolved two years ago. What the Court unanimously retired should be allowed to rest. Instead, the Court now wants to allow the use of the strong arm of the law to oppressively prosecute and persecute.

If the petitioners can show strong compelling reasons, newly discovered, or some deeply held convictions based on a genuine sense of justice or irresistible considerations of equity, I could concur to ignore established procedure.

Unfortunately, all I can discern here is allowing the use of the strong arm of the law to oppressively prosecute a public officer whom the powers-that-be detest and whom they seek to render completely ineffective.²cräläwvirtualibräry

In the April 1, 2003 Resolution, I concurred with Mme. Justice Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez who, like me, started her long judicial career as a municipal trial judge and, later, judge of a regional trial court. I agreed with the conclusion that the petitioners right to speedy trial and speedy disposition of cases were violated and the filing of new informations constitute persecution. I concurred that in the prosecution of an accused he must not be perceived as an intractable enemy, and that the over-eagerness to prosecute respondent is a clear example of persecution.

There is nothing in the pleadings after our dissent to the April 1, 2003 Resolution or in the discussions of the respondents motion for reconsideration that shows our May 28, 2002 Resolution was wrong or that the Court was correcting an injustice when it suddenly reversed itself.

Respondent stresses the need for compliance with the rule of law, the primacy of the Constitution over acts of State, and the independence of the judiciary. When respondent urges the Court to remember that it is not a trier of facts, he raises a fundamental threshold question. It involves the application of what has been described as an immutable principle of justice,³ the essence of ordered liberty,⁴ so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental,⁵ a canon of civilized decency,⁶ a guarantee against the oppressions and usurpations of royal prerogatives,⁷ and a responsiveness to the supremacy of reason and obedience to the dictates of justice.⁸ He is asking for due process.

Under the Constitution, this Court resolves cases in which only an error or question of law is involved.⁹ It is therefore not a trier of facts.

The Court itself in the April 1, 2003 Resolution summarized the facts to be resolved:

1. Whether the provisional dismissal of the cases had the express consent of the accused;

2. Whether it was ordered by the court after notice to the offended party;

3. Whether the two-year period to revive it has already lapsed;

4. Whether there is any justification for the filing of the cases beyond the two year period;

5. Whether notices to the offended parties were given before the cases were dismissed by then Judge Agnir;

6. Whether there were affidavits of desistance executed by the relatives of the three other victims; and

7. Whether the multiple murder cases against respondent are being revived within or beyond the two-year bar.¹⁰cräläwvirtualibräry

The facts to be resolved requires submission of evidence. They are material facts because proof of their actuality is needed to enable the Court to render judgment on the basic issues raised. Evidence to prove the facts in issue have to be introduced in accordance with the principles of substantive law and the rules of pleading, practice and procedure. The facts are in dispute because one party alleges their existence while the other denies them, both with some show of reason.¹¹ If the unanimous judgment in 2002 is to be reversed by a new majority, a remand to ascertain these facts outlined is imperative.

Facts have to be established by evidence, not by inferences, not by suppositions, and certainly not by the augury of divination. Yet, the majority precisely proceeded to do it that way.

If the facts material to the Courts judgment were found by the new majority from the records, how could the unanimous Court have missed so many of these significant facts in 2002?

If doubts are to be resolved and suppositions and fallacies avoided, every method of getting the truth through adversarial proceedings before a trial court must be explored. Let the Regional Trial Court which is a trier of facts do the job.

If, for instance, the Court suddenly discovers that there has been no trial, not even a pre-trial in the almost two decades a case has been pending; if the questions raised are complicated, complex and tricky; if there is no evidence in the records, no transcripts of stenographic notes and no exhibits; the Court would have to refer the factual issues to a trial court. It should not arrive at a summary judgment based on the pleadings before it. This is what the new majority has done.

A key factual issue is the applicability to the cases against respondent of the rule on provisional dismissal found in the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure. Section 8 of Rule 117 thereof provides:

Provisional Dismissal A case shall not be provisionally dismissed except with the express consent of the accused and with notice to the offended party.

The provisional dismissal of offenses punishable by imprisonment not exceeding six (6) years or a fine of any amount, or both, shall become permanent one (1) year after the issuance of the order without the case having been reviewed. With respect to offenses punishable by imprisonment of more than six (6) years, their provisional dismissal shall become permanent two (2) years after issuance of the order without the case having been revised.

The determination of whether or not the above rule applies in this case entails factual issues. Has the two-year period expired? Was the dismissal of the cases with the express consent of the accused? Was there notice to the offended party? By their very nature, these questions justify a remand to the trial court.

The new majority first tackles the application of the two-year time bar in Rule 117 to this case. The criminal cases were dismissed by then Judge Wenceslao Agnir, Jr. on March 29, 1999. The Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure took effect the following year on December 1, 2000. If the new rule is not applied retroactively, would the old rule, where there was no time bar, apply?

The new majority rules that the time bar should apply only prospectively. I find this decision disturbing if it is indicative of a novel approach to individual liberties. The Bill of Rights is a statement of the liberties of individuals protected against exertions of government power. The ponencia seeks to protect the rights of the State against its citizens and invokes the Bill of Rights in the process.

The Bill of Rights refers to fundamental individual rights and the guaranteed protection is against Government or any of its officials. It cannot be invoked against actions of private parties unless private action is backed by government power.

Government exercises powers not rights. When the Constitution provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,13 the person referred to is not the State. When we mention in our decisions that the State also deserves due process, it is merely a quaint way of saying that the law and the rules should be followed if intended to protect State interests. But never should the rights of a citizen be weighed against the non-existent rights of the State which should be recognized and denominated as the powers of the State.

There is sometimes a balancing of individual rights against State power where public interest is involved. The individual is always at a terrific disadvantage when a basic right is weighed against the awesome powers of a State. There is no need for balancing in this case.

If the issue involved is protection of a citizen against overzealous criminal prosecutions, the reason for ruling against him should never be due process rights of the State. The Dissenting Opinion of Mr. Justice Reynato S. Puno in the April 1, 2003, with which I also concurred, discusses the origin of the amended rule, its nuances and reasons for being, and the inflexibility of the permanent time bar once the two-year period is reached. The Rule is intended to protect the rights of the accused, not to make it easier for the Government to prosecute him. Here, the Court wants us to allow the use of a protection for the citizen against that citizen. Its enactment becomes counter-productive. The extensive and learned discussion of the Honorable Chairman of the Committee on the Revision of the Rules of Court is glossed over. It should be re-read.

The amended rule is intended to prod the Government into a more faithful and accountable performance of duty, to avoid the tyrannical Damocles sword hanging indefinitely over a person whom the Government wants to coerce into indeterminate submission, and to stop the malaise of public officers who are shiftless and lethargic and who are prodded into action only after the passage of interminable time or when revenge or a desire to vex and oppress suddenly surfaces.

If the rule is a just rule, if its objectives are salutary and if its enforcement will mean an enlargement of individual rights, why should a recent accused enjoy it to the exclusion of those with pending cases when it was enacted? Justice should be for everyone especially those accused where prosecution and trial have dragged for years and years. A rule should not protect the incompetence or lethargy of Government prosecutors.

I submit that the new rule should be made retroactive. This interpretation is in line with simple justice. The statement of the majority that the due process protections of the State and those of the individual should be equal is dangerous for a Supreme Court to utter.

With all due respect, the justifications in the ponencia display an insensitivity to individual liberties. The spirited defense of the powers of the State in the context of individual freedoms is bewildering to say the least. It is hoped that such a cavalier approach to the Bill of Rights is a passing aberration and that the Court will again stand firmly as the constitutional bulwark against State power and oppression. The Court should not remain silent and, more important, should take a firm stand when a citizen is harassed and persecuted by the formidable powers of Government.

The statement that the ruling of the Court in 2003 and any ruling today would be the same, regardless of who the parties involved are, whether a Senator, presidentiable, or an ordinary citizen is, in the light of our judgment in this case, is not believable.

The bedrock issue underlying all aspects of the about-face decision sought to be reconsidered involves the correct approach to the Bill of Rights. If the interpretation of the amended rule shows a back-sliding of the Courts traditional approach to individual liberty, that interpretation must be avoided. The history of the due process clause goes back to the beginning of the era of enlightenment. It traces the step-by-step wresting of rights from absolution and monarchy. There is no monarchy today but claims of authority against liberty are vested in State power. The ponencia unwittingly dilutes a guarantee of liberty against a misinterpretation of State power.

In the resolution of whether the rule should be applied retroactively, we must divorce the issue from the various personalities involved, and focus simply on the principles of interpretation that have governed this Court since its inception.

The ponencia declares that there is no express requirement for the revised rule to be given retroactive application. It states that under Rule 144 of the Rules of Court, the Rules shall not be applied to actions pending before it if in its opinion their application would not be feasible or would work injustice, in which event, the former procedure shall apply.¹² Rule 144, for ready reference, provides:

These rules shall take effect on January 1, 1964. They shall govern all cases brought after they take effect, and also all further proceedings in cases then pending, except to the extent that in the opinion of the court their application would not be feasible or would work injustice, in which event the former procedure would apply. (underscoring supplied.)

In the same breath, the ponencia expresses that [s]tatutes regulating the procedure of the courts will be construed as applicable to actions pending and undetermined at the time of their passage. In that sense and to that extent, procedural laws are retroactive.¹³ Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 are then characterized as having been long dismissed before the new rule took effect on December 1, 2000. The ponencia goes on to state that:

[w]hen the petitioners filed the Informations in Criminal Cases Nos. 01-101102 to 01-101112 on June 6, 2001, Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 had long since been terminated. The two-year bar in the new rule should not be reckoned from the March 29, 1999 dismissal of Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 but from December 1, 2000 when the new rule took effect. While it is true that the Court applied Section 8 of Rule 110 of the RRCP retroactively, it did so only to cases still pending with this Court and not to cases already terminated with finality. (Citations omitted, underscoring supplied.)¹⁴cräläwvirtualibräry

There is a fundamental inconsistency in the foregoing statements. If one were to apply Rule 144, as the ponencia has done, this would mean characterizing Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 as being pending proceedings as of the effective date of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, since this is what a plain reading of Rule 144 would require. This would go completely against the statement of the same ponencia that characterizes Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 as having long since been terminated when the petitioner filed the Informations in Criminal Cases Nos. 01-101102 to 01-101112. Were the proceedings pending as of the effective date of the Revised Rules, or had they already been terminated? It is not pure legal quibbling to demand a consistent characterization of Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689. One cannot characterize these cases as pending, invoke their pendency as basis for the non-retroactive application of Rule 117, Section 8, and then characterize them as having been terminated in order to similarly deny the retroactive application of the new procedural rules. The ponencias bases for the non-retroactive application of the revised rule are completely impossible to reconcile.

Regardless of the characterization of Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689, I submit that Rule 117, Section 8 should be given retroactive application, consistent with the principles of statutory construction of procedural rules.

Procedural laws, by definition, prescribe rules and forms of procedure of enforcing rights or obtaining redress. They include rules of pleadings, practice and evidence. As applied to criminal law, procedural law as distinguished from substantive law is that which provides or regulates the steps by which one who commits a crime is to be punished.¹⁵cräläwvirtualibräry

In interpreting procedural rules, this Court, in the 1927 case of Hosana v. Diomano and Diomano,¹⁶ laid down the rule that procedural rules will be construed as applicable to causes of action accrued, and actions pending and undetermined, at the time of their passage, unless: (1) such actions are expressly excepted; or (2) vested rights would be disturbed by giving them a retroactive application.¹⁷cräläwvirtualibräry

The causes of action in Criminal Cases Nos. 01-101102 to 01-101112 in which the Informations allege essentially the same operative facts as those alleged in Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689, with the primary difference that respondent is charged as a principal and no longer as an accessory had undoubtedly already accrued as of December 1, 2000, the effective date of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure. Thus, whether the criminal actions in question were pending, or the causes of action had merely accrued, the retroactive application of the RRCP is called for.

Undoubtedly, there is no express exception to the retroactive application of Rule 117, Section 8. Thus, unless vested rights are disturbed, its retroactive application is clearly mandated.

On this point, it has been held that the retroactive application of procedural laws is not violative of any right of a person who may feel that he is adversely affected.¹⁸ This is because of the fundamental principle that, as a general rule, no vested right may attach to nor arise from procedural laws. This is a principle that we have enunciated in a long line of cases.¹⁹ A person has no vested right in any rule of law which entitles him to insist that it shall remain unchanged for his benefit.²⁰cräläwvirtualibräry

The ponencia seems to hold that vested rights would indeed be disturbed if Rule 117, Section 8 were given retroactive application. Specifically, this argument focuses on the States right to due process, which purportedly would be violated by the retroactive application of the questioned procedural rule. Thus, the ponencia asserts that:

when the Court approved Section 8, it intended the new rule to be applied prospectively and not retroactively, for if the intention of the Court were otherwise, it would defeat the very purpose for which it was intended, namely, to give the State a period of two years from notice of the provisional dismissal of criminal cases with the express consent of the accused. It would be a denial of the States right to due process and a travesty of justice for the Court to apply the new rule retroactively in the present case as respondent insists, considering that the criminal cases were provisionally dismissed by Judge Agnir, Jr. on March 19, 1999 before the new rule took effect on December 1, 2000. A retroactive application of the time-bar will result in absurd, unjust and oppressive consequences to the State and to the victims of crimes and their heirs.

x x x

The State would thus be sanctioned for its failure to comply with a rule yet to be approved by the Court. It must be stressed that the institution and prosecution of criminal cases are governed by existing rules and not by rules yet to exist. It would be the apex of injustice to hold that Section 8 had a platonic or ideal existence before it was approved by the Court. The past cannot be erased by a capricious retroactive application of the new rule.²¹cräläwvirtualibräry

In making these assertions, the ponencia has undoubtedly placed a premium on the States right to procedural due process.

The States right to due process must be viewed from proper perspectives. It cannot be said that such right would be violated by a retroactive application of Rule 117, Section 8. It appears clear that the invocation of due process is an attempt to cloak a flawed argument using a Constitutional precept. As earlier intimated, the ponencia is unable to pinpoint with specificity exactly how the due process right of the State had already vested as of the passage of the Revised Rules, and how this vested right could be violated by the retroactive application of Rule 117, Section 8.

Stripped to its basics, procedural due process is a matter of nothing more or less than procedural fairness. There would be nothing procedurally unfair about giving a retroactive application to Rule 117, Section 8. Precisely, this Court is specifically empowered by the Constitution to promulgate such rules of procedure, and, in the past, we have had no qualms about applying such rules of procedure retroactively, ruling firmly that no vested rights are impaired even if the effect of the retroactive application of such rules would be to divest a court or tribunal of its jurisdiction. In such instances, we have advised the party-litigants that their rights have not been impaired.²²cräläwvirtualibräry

There is no cogent reason to depart from this principle even if, in this case, the People is one of the party-litigants. Departing from the fundamental principle in this case seems to be an instance of selective statutory construction to achieve the desire to attain a particular result.

If anything, the fact that the People is one of the party-litigants should call for a more vigilant application of the Rules strictly against the People or the State and liberally in favor of the private individuals who might be benefited by the retroactive application of the procedural rule.

Although it is true that the prosecutors would have no inkling, as of the provisional dismissal of the case on March 29, 1999, that the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure would contain Rule 117, Section 8, they undoubtedly had notice as of the effective date thereof on December 1, 2000. From that date, they had almost four months in which to revive Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689, had there been a need to do so. In cases involving purely private litigants, we have not hesitated in dismissing cases when a party or parties have not been vigilant in protecting their rights.²³ At the risk of being repetitive, there is no reason to depart from this principle simply because the State is a litigant.

Moreover, it is an established principle of statutory construction that penal laws are strictly construed against the State and liberally in favor of the accused.²⁴ Any reasonable doubt must be resolved in favor of the accused.²⁵cräläwvirtualibräry

By way of example, we have not hesitated in the retroactive application of such laws as Republic Act No. 7659, which lowered the penalties for certain crimes, insofar as the lower penalty was favorable to the accused. In the cases of People v. Simon,²⁶ People v. Manalo,²⁷Danao v. Court of Appeals,²⁸ and People v. Piasidad,²⁹ judgment had already been rendered by the respective trial courts against the respective accused individuals in question. Pending appeal of the cases, the legislature passed R.A. 7659, effective December 31, 1993. In addition to re-imposing the death penalty, R.A. 7659 lowered the penalty imposable on individuals who had violated the Dangerous Drugs Act. This Court invariably applied the lower penalty retroactively, even if the crimes had been consummated, prosecution had been initiated, and a decision had in fact already been rendered by the trial courts while the higher penalties were still imposable.

As a more extreme example, in the 1996 case of Cruz v. Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong,³⁰ the accused therein was already serving a final and executory penalty of reclusion perpetua. During her service of this sentence, R.A. 7659 was passed, lowering the penalty imposable for the crime for which she was convicted. Even if her sentence was already being served, this Court retroactively applied R.A. 7659 and ordered her immediate release since she had already served the maximum of her sentence.

From a particular perspective, granting the retroactive application of penal laws would likewise impair the vested rights of the State in seeing to it that criminals are given just retribution. In such instances, though, we have not hesitated in putting a primacy on the rights of the private individuals. The retroactive application of Rule 117, Section 8 is thus called for.

We move on to another factual issue to illustrate that, if we have to change our minds and I repeat that our Resolution dated May 28, 2002 correctly resolved the issue the Court should get the factual answers through a remand.

Did the accused give express consent to the provisional dismissal of his case?

The Court in its first Resolution stated that (i)t was respondent Lacson himself who moved to dismiss the subject cases for lack of probable cause before then, Judge Agnir, hence, it is beyond argument that their dismissal bears his express consent.

Now, the majority finds the motion to dismiss as an inadequate mode of expressing consent. Obviously, the Court wants a formal manifestation filed in court where an accused has to declare, I hereby consent to the provisional dismissal of my case.

The majority is asking too much. The amended Rule does not provide for a rigidly precise wording of consent. There are no required magic words whose non-utterance would be fatal. There are no fixed and supererogatory incantations, no pigeon-holes of ritual where set formalities must be fitted. When an accused moves that his case be dismissed, that is a stronger mode of consent than merely saying, I hereby consent. When the respondent's counsel answered none to the question, was there an express conformity?, he was referring to a formal manifestation of yes, your Honor, the accused consents. There was no such pleading or manifestation. However, the lawyer's so-called admission, taken out of context, cannot overrule the indubitable fact that the accused moved for a dismissal of his case. An implied admission of counsel cannot be given greater weight than a consent given through a formal motion to dismiss.

As Mr. Justice Cardozo said long ago: The law has outgrown its primitive stage of formalism when the precise word was the sovereign talisman, and every slip was fatal. It takes a broader view today.³¹cräläwvirtualibräry

The majority is abetting harassment and oppression when it rules that a motion to dismiss is not a consent to dismissal. I have to dissent on this issue.

Was there notice to the offended party?

This is another factual issue that is best determined at the trial level. It calls for evidence. The ponencia again relies on an ambiguous admission of counsel in the course of tricky cross-examination that there was no formal notice.

It is probable that there was no formal notice in the form of a letter with a registry return card accomplished by the recipient. The purpose of notice under the Rule is to let the offended party know and to avoid complicity to prejudice the offended party. If the offended party was informed and had knowledge of the forthcoming provisional dismissal, there was notice to him.

The matter of notice should be elicited from the offended party during trial. If the ponencia refuses to treat a notice to the lawyer as a notice to his client, it should, at least, ask the client himself to affirm or deny that he was informed about the provisional dismissal. The remand is called for in this regard. If a lawyer is given notice on a material issue, he is assumed to have passed on the notice to his client. The rule that notice to a lawyer is notice to the client should apply when the basic protection of the accused is involved and the protection is part of the package of rights of an accused. There may be instances in civil law or mercantile law where a formal notice, duly acknowledged by the addressee, is required. In criminal law, any statute or rule intended to protect the rights of an accused should be interpreted in his favor.

There is no question that the amended rule on provisional dismissal of criminal cases is intended to protect the rights of an accused. The majority overlooks the fact that if the rule was supposed to help or favor the State, there would have been no reason to introduce the amendment. The rule should have been left the way it was. The rule was intended to curb inaction and abuses by government prosecutors.

In deciding cases of constitutional significance, the Court should be more concerned with substance rather than form³² or some other consideration, with general principles than technical points, to support judgments.

In one eloquent dissent of Mr. Justice Hugo Black of the United States Supreme Court, he stated that not the least of the virtues of a provision of the Bill of Rights is the protection given to each member of the smallest and most unorthodox minority.³³ Respondent in the present case may not belong to the smallest minority but he is clearly unorthodox and a member of the minority political party. We must avoid not only any political color in our work but also the appearance of political color.

Appearances are unfortunately important in our functions and somehow, the public image of the Court will suffer because of the way the Court has decided the motion for reconsideration of the respondent who has become the target of powerful personalities in the political arena. Equating the awesome powers of the State with individual freedoms and formally extending the protections of the Bill of Rights to the State is not a healthy development. The Court should not give the impression that Bill of Rights protections such as due process should equally extend to and protect the State in the same way that they protect individual persons. Again, this is not only error; it is also not healthy for the development of the law of the Constitution.

At any rate it is well to listen to Mr. Justice Black when he says that laws aimed at one political group and I may add, at one political personage, however rational these laws may be in their beginning, generate hatred and prejudices which rapidly spread beyond control. Too often it is fear which inspires such functions and nothing is more reckless or contagious.

In the present case, the concern involves not a law enacted by Congress but a judgment rendered by the Supreme Court. The importance of these kinds of decisions on national institutions and the development of law cannot be ignored or denied.

WHEREFORE, I dissent from the majority resolution. I vote to grant the respondents Motion for Reconsideration and to reinstate the Courts Resolution dated May 28, 2002.

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Endnotes:

¹ Separate Dissenting Opinions of Justices Reynato S. Puno and Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, with which I concurred, and of Justice Jose C. Vitug.

² See Salonga v. Hon. Pao, et al., G.R. No. 59524, 18 February 1985, 134 SCRA 438.

³ Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78 (1908).

⁴ Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319 (1937).

⁵ Snyder v. Massachusetts, 219 U.S. 97 (1934).

⁶ Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46 (1947).

⁷ Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516 (1884).

⁸ Ermita-Malate Hotel and Motel Operators Association v. City Mayor, 127 Phil. 306 (1967).

⁹ Constitution, Art. VIII, Sec. 5 (2) (e).

¹⁰ Resolution, April 1, 2003, p. 3.

¹¹ Ponce v. Sagario, 85 Phil. 84 (1949).

13 Constitution, Art. III, Section 1.

¹² Resolution, p. 10.

¹³ Id., p. 14, citing Tan v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 136368, 16 January 2002, 373 SCRA 524.

¹⁴ Id., pp. 14-15.

¹⁵ Bustos v. Lucero, 81 Phil. 640, 650 (1948); Aquino v. Military Commission No. 2, G.R. No. 37364, 9 May 1975, 63 SCRA 546; Subido, Jr. v. Sandiganbayan, 334 Phil. 346, 355-56 (1997); Tan v. Court of Appeals, supra.

¹⁶ 56 Phil. 741 (1927).

¹⁷ Hosana v. Diomano and Diomano, supra, citing Black on Interpretation of Laws, p. 265. See also Oas v. Sandiganbayan, G.R. No. 85999, 2 October 1989, 170 SCRA 261.

¹⁸ Gregorio v. Court of Appeals, 135 Phil. 224 (1968); Tinio v. Mina, 135 Phil. 504 (1968).

¹⁹ Billiones v. CIR, 122 Phil. 25 (1965); Systems Factors Corporation, et al. v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 143789, 27 November 2000, 346 SCRA 149; Unity Fishing Corporation, et al. v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 145415, 2 February 2001, 351 SCRA 140; Serrano v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 139420, 15 August 2001, 363 SCRA 223.

²⁰ Benguet Consolidated Mining Co. v. Pineda, 98 Phil 711 (1956); Laurel v. Misa, 76 Phil 372 (1946).

²¹ Resolution, pp. 11-12.

²² Hosana v. Diomano and Diomano, supra; Oas v. Sandiganbayan, supra.

²³ Hodges v. Yulo, 81 Phil. 622 (1954).

²⁴ People v. Estapia, 37 Phil. 17 (1917); People v. Jackson, 54 Phil. 176 (1929); People v. Yu Jai, 99 Phil. 725 (1956); People v. Terrado, 211 Phil. 1 (1983); People v. Deleverio, 352 Phil. 382 (1998).

²⁵ United States v. Abad Santos, 36 Phil. 243 (1917); United States v. Madrigal, 27 Phil. 347 (1914); People v. Atop, 349 Phil. 825 (1998).

²⁶ G.R. No. 93028, 29 July 1994, 234 SCRA 555.

²⁷ 315 Phil. 547 (1995).

²⁸ 313 Phil. 354 (1995).

²⁹ 331 Phil. 274 (1996).

³⁰ 331 Phil. 40 (1996).

³¹ Quoted in the Dissenting Opinion of Justice Gregorio Perfecto in Contreras and Gingco v. Felix and China Banking Corp., 78 Phil. 570, 583 (1947).

³² Fidelity Bank v. Swope, 274 U.S. 123.

³³ American Communications Association (CIO) v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382.