Dinapo, Gabrielle L.

ALM 2103 LM3A

dinapo.gabrielle@ue.edu.ph

Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else’s works or ideas and

passing them off as one’s own. (The Oxford’s Dictionary, 2005). The social
media became a platform for people who wants to share their creative
ideas and works. when a student posts others creative ideas like stories,
or even photographs without crediting the owner of the said works. To
prevent such actions the students should credit or cite the source. K
1. Discuss, by way of giving at least 5 examples and explaining said
examples, Classification of Legal Sources in the Philippines:
Classification by Authority. (20 points)
Distinguish laws passed by Congress and by Local Government Units
(LGUs). (10 points)
 On December 1, 2015 the Olongapo City Regional Trial Court
handed down a guilty verdict and sentenced Pemberton a minimum of
6 years to maximum of 12 years imprisonment. The US Marine was
found guilty beyond unreasonable doubt of homicide over the killing of
Jennifer Laude. To many, the verdict was a sigh of relief for it proved
that the justice system in the Philippines was not hopeless. However,
on September 7, 2020 President Duterte surprised the nation by
granting “Absolute Pardon” to Pemberton.

Going through the facts of the case you can see it is morally
wrong to grant pardon to someone who showed bigotry towards the
transgender woman. The optics on this decision was bad but legally we
cannot question the decision of the president on granting the pardon.

The Constitution provides under Article VII, Section 19 the

President the power to grant pardon and amnesty. Pardon is the “act of
grace from the Chief Executive absolving a person from the
punishment prescribed for the crime he has committed” as defined
under the Department of Justice 2003 report. The Indeterminate
Sentence Law (RA 4103) provided us the definition on the two types of
pardon namely Absolute and Conditional pardon. Absolute pardon is
the total extinction of the criminal liability of the individual without any
conditions whereas Conditional Pardon exempts an individual with
certain limits or conditions resulting in partial extinction of his criminal
liability.

The power of the President to grant pardon is absolute and

cannot be the subject of judicial review nor needs the approval of
Congress in granting. This was discussed in the case of US vs. Guarin
where the Supreme Court made it clear that:
The power to extend executive clemency in favor of persons convicted
of public crimes is unlimited. The exercise of that power lies in the
absolute and uncontrolled discretion of the Chief Executive. The
grounds upon which it is exercised are not open to judicial inquiry or
review (United States v Guarin, 30 Phil.85)

Even though the decision made by the President causes bad

optics, he has the absolute power to grant absolute pardon. He does
not need to justify his actions for he has the sole authority to grant
pardon.