G.R. No. 120549 . May 6, 1997.
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. ENRIQUITO UNARCE, accused-appellant.

FACTS

The Supreme Court, in a Resolution penned by Justice Melo, motu proprio corrected an error in its prior Decision dated April 4, 1997. In that original decision, the Court had applied Republic Act No. 7659 , the law re-imposing the death penalty for certain heinous crimes, to the case of accused-appellant Enriquito Unarce. Unarce had been convicted of the crime of murder.
Upon review, the Court identified a critical temporal discrepancy. The records established that the murder for which Unarce was convicted was committed on November 16, 1992. In contrast, Republic Act No. 7659 only took effect on December 31, 1993, over a year after the commission of the crime. This timeline rendered the application of the later law erroneous, as penal laws generally have no retroactive effect unless favorable to the accused.

ISSUE

The sole issue for resolution was the determination of the correct penal law to apply and the proper penalty to impose on the accused-appellant, given that the crime was committed before the effectivity of Republic Act No. 7659 .

RULING

The Court ruled that Republic Act No. 7659 was inapplicable. The governing law was Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code in its version prior to the 1993 amendment. That version prescribed the penalty of reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death for the crime of murder. The Court then proceeded to determine the specific penalty within this range.
In applying the pre-amendment Article 248, the Court considered the presence of the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender in favor of the accused. Pursuant to Article 64(2) of the Revised Penal Code, when a mitigating circumstance is present and no aggravating circumstance offsets it, the penalty imposable is the minimum period of the prescribed penalty. Therefore, the proper penalty was reduced to reclusion temporal in its maximum period.
Finally, applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law, the Court computed the indeterminate sentence. Citing People vs. Sarol, the minimum term was taken from the penalty next lower in degree, which is prision mayor in its maximum period. The maximum term remained reclusion temporal in its maximum period. Consequently, the Court modified the penalty to an indeterminate sentence of ten (10) years and one (1) day of prision mayor, as minimum, to seventeen (17) years, four (4) months, and one (1) day of reclusion temporal, as maximum. The appealed decision was modified accordingly.