Topic Outline 2

1. Repeal of laws
a. What are the two kinds of repeal of a law?
Answer:
1. Express repeal
2. Implied repeal

b. When is a law expressly repealed?

Answer:
There is an express repeal of laws if the law so expresses intent to repeal a law.

c. When is there an implied repeal of a law?

Answer:
There is an implied repeal of laws when the provisions of the subsequent law are inconsistent
when the provisions of the prior law. It must be observed however, that the following requisites
shall be present in the implied repeal of laws:
1. The prior and subsequent law must cover one subject matter
2. The subsequent law must be inconsistent or there is a necessary and irreconcilable
difference between the prior and subsequent law.

d. When is there revival of a repealed law?

Answer:
There is revival of law when a law impliedly repealing a law is itself repealed, the repeal of the
impliedly repealing law will revive the first impliedly repealed law unless the words of the last
law provides otherwise.

2. Judicial Decisions

a. Are judicial decisions laws?

Answer:
The law provides that judicial decisions interpreting the law form part of the legal system of the
Philippines means that Supreme Court cannot make or enact laws and its judicial decisions are not
sources of law but are interpretations of law which has a force and effect of law. Judicial decisions being
referred to under Article 8 of the Civil Code are of the Supreme Court and while the decisions
subordinate courts are not mandatory and are persuasive in nature.

b. What is the doctrine of stare decisis?

Answer:
This is a doctrine that calls for the adherence to the precedents. Once a case has been decided in one
way, involving exactly same issue, should be decided in the same manner. The purpose is based on the
necessity of securing certainty and stability of judicial decisions.
3.Duty of the judge to render judgment

Answer:
Article of 9 of the Civil Code provides that no judge or court shall decline to render judgment by reason
of silence, obscurity or insufficiency of the laws. The judge may apply any rules so long as it is in
accordance with general interest, order, morals and public policy. A judge may resort to the rules
statutory construction, customs that are contrary to law, public order or public policy, foreign and local
court decisions on similar cases, opinions of highly qualified writers and professors and similar
analogous instances.

4. Legal Periods

Answer:
Under article 13 of the Civil Code, it considered a year is composed of 365 days. Executive Order 292
Book 1 Section 31 repealed such provision of Article 13 with regard to the composition of a year which
EO 292 provides that a year now shall consist of 12 months.

“Section 31. Legal Periods. - "Year" shall be understood to be twelve calendar months; "month"
of thirty days, unless it refers to a specific calendar month in which case it shall be computed
according to the number of days the specific month contains; "day," to a day of twenty-four
hours; and "night," from sunset to sunrise.”

5. Penal laws

Answer:

a. What is the Generality Principle?

Answer:
Philippines penal laws shall be applicable to those who live and sojourn in the within Philippines
regardless of race, citizenship or gender. Hence, even the aliens in the Philippines may be
covered by the Philippine penal laws.

b. What is the Territoriality Principle?

Answer:
As a general rule, Philippine criminal laws are applicable and enforceable only within the
Philippine territory.

c. What is the Protective Theory?

Answer:
Under this theory it provides that primary purpose of the punishment under criminal law is the
protection of society from actual and potential wrongdoers. Consistent with this theory, the
mala prohibita principle which punishes an offense regardless of malice or criminal intent,
should not be utilized to apply the full harshness of the special law.
d. What is the exception to the Territoriality Principle?

Answer:
Article 2 of the RPC provides that exeption of territoriality principle of the penal code which are
as follows:

1. Should commit an offense while on a Philippine ship or airship;

2. Should forge or counterfeit any coin or currency note of the Philippine Islands or obligations
and securities issued by the Government of the Philippine Islands;
3. Should be liable for acts connected with the introduction into these islands of the obligations
and securities mentioned in the preceding number;
4. While being public officers or employees, should commit an offense in the exercise of their
functions; or
5. Should commit any of the crimes against national security and the law of nations, defined in
Title One of Book Two of this Code.

e. What is the Extra-Territoriality Principle?

Answer:
Under the international law, the courts will not have jurisdiction over criminal laws where there
is a treaty stipulation exempting person or persons from the jurisdiction of Philippine courts,
those who are exempted under the principle of international law where the diplomats enjoys
immunity from suit such as the heads of state, foreign ambassadors or diplomats, law of
preferential application or when the offense is committed in a public armed vessel of a foreign
country.

f. Crimes committed aboard a Public Vessel

Answer:
When a crime is committed in a public vessel, the Philippines will not have jurisdiction over the
criminal case even of the crime is committed within Philippine territory. The public vessel is
considered to be an extension of foreign country.

g. Crimes committed aboard a private or merchant vessel

Answer:
If a crime is committed in a private vessel in high seas, the country whose flag is flown on such
private vessel acquire the jurisdiction except those which are instances provided for under the
Article 2 of RPC. However, if in case a crime committed in such private vessel which is within
Philippine territory, the adherence of Philippine territory to English rule subjects such criminal
actunder the jurisdiction of Philippines courts except when such act are matter relating to the
order and discipline in the vessel or those which affects solely the ship and occupants.
h. What is the English Rule?

Answer:
This rule provides that territory where the crime was committed acquires jurisdiction over the
offense exept those which pertains to the discipline and order in the vessel or those which
affects sole the ship and occupants. This rules highlights the territoriality principle.

i. What is the French Rule?

Answer:
This rule provides that the state whose flag is flown by the vessel has jurisdiction over the crime
exept when such crime affects the public, order and safety of the territory.

j. Which rule (English or French Rule) is applied in the Philippines?

Answer:
English rule

People vs Wong Cheng

“There are two fundamental rules on this particular matter in connection with
International Law; to wit, the French rule, according to which crimes committed aboard
a foreign merchant vessels should not be prosecuted in the courts of the country within
whose territorial jurisdiction they were committed, unless their commission affects the
peace and security of the territory; and the English rule, based on the territorial
principle and followed in the United States, according to which, crimes perpetrated
under such circumstances are in general triable in the courts of the country within
territory they were committed. Of this two rules, it is the last one that obtains in this
jurisdiction, because at present the theories and jurisprudence prevailing in the United
States on this matter are authority in the Philippines which is now a territory of the
United States.”

“We have seen that the mere possession of opium aboard a foreign vessel in
transit was held by this court not triable by or courts, because it being the primary
object of our Opium Law to protect the inhabitants of the Philippines against the
disastrous effects entailed by the use of this drug, its mere possession in such a ship,
without being used in our territory, does not being about in the said territory those
effects that our statute contemplates avoiding. Hence such a mere possession is not
considered a disturbance of the public order.

But to smoke opium within our territorial limits, even though aboard a foreign
merchant ship, is certainly a breach of the public order here established, because it
causes such drug to produce its pernicious effects within our territory.”
US vs Look Chaw

“Although the mere possession of an article of prohibited use in the Philippine

Islands, aboard a foreign vessel in transit, in any local port, does not, as a general rule,
constitute a crime triable by the courts of the Islands, such vessel being considered as an
extension of its own nationality, the same rule does not apply when the article, the use
of which is prohibited in the Islands, is landed from the vessel upon Philippine soil; in
such a case an open violation of the laws of the land is committed, with respect to
which, as it is a violation of the penal law in force at the place of the commission of the
crime, no court other than that established in the said place has jurisdiction of the
offense, in the absence of an agreement under an international treaty.”