TOPIC: Effect and Application of Laws (Arts.

1-18, New Civil Code)

TICKLER: ART 4 AND ART 8 APPLICATION AND RETRSOPECTIVE OF PENALTY

DOCTRINE:

VALEROSO VS. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES G.R. No. 164815, February 22, 2008
Petitioner,

FACTS:

Jerry C. Valeroso, was charged with illegal possession of firearm and ammunition under P.D.
1866 and was found liable as charged before the RTC of Quezon City. On July 10, 1996, the
Central District Command served a duly issued warrant of arrest to Sr.Insp. Jerry Valeroso in a
case of kidnapping for ransom. Valeroso was found and arrested in INP Central Station in Culiat,
Quezon City where he was about to board a tricycle. He was bodily searched and after which a
firearm with live ammunition was found tucked in his waist. The subject firearm was later
verified by the Firearms and Explosive Division at Camp Crame and was confirmed and revealed
to have not been issued to the petitioner but to another person.
The defense on the other hand contended that Valeroso was arrested and searched in the
boarding house of his children in New Era Quezon City. He was aroused from his slumber when
four heavily armed men in civilian clothes bolted the room. The pointed their guns on him and
pulled him out of the room as the raiding team went back inside, searched and ransacked the
room. Moments later an operative came out of the room exclaiming that he has found a gun
inside. Adrian Yuson, an occupant to the adjacent room testified for the defense. SPO3 Timbol,
Jr. testified that the firearm with live ammunition was issued to Jerry Valeroso by virtue of a
Memorandum Receipt.

Firearms and Explosive Division at Camp Crame revealed that the petitioner has a lack of
authority to possess the firearm, Deriquito testified that a verification of the Charter Arms
Caliber .38 bearing serial No. 52315 was not issued to petitioner. It was registered in the name
of a certain Raul Palencia Salvatierra of Sampaloc, Manila. As a proof, Deriquito presented a
certification signed by Roque, the chief records officer of Firearms and Explosive Division at
Camp Crame.

P.D. No 1866 was the existing law at the time of the crime until it was repealed by R.A. No 8294,
where the penalty is reclusion perpetua.
RTA and CA convicted him, under R.A. No. 8294 with the penalty of prison correccional in its
maximum period and a fine of not less than Fifteen Thousand Pesos (P15,000).
ISSUE

HELD
YES. As stated in Article 4 of the Civil Code, Law shall have no retroactive effect, unless the
contrary is provided. A new law has a prospective, not retroactive, effect because the law looks
forward, never backward. However, penal laws that favor a guilty person, who is not a habitual
deliquent, shall be given retroactive effect. In the present case, although an additional fee of
P15,000 is imposed by R.A. No. 8294, the same is still advantageous to the accused, considering
that the imprisonment is lowered to prison correccional in its maximum period from reclusion
perpetua under P.D. No. 1866. Therefore, penalty imposed under R.A. No. 8294 should be
imposed upon the petitioner.
ALMENDARES
Does the penalty under R.A. No 8294 should be the one imposed upon the petitioner