GR L 4129; (November, 1950) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-4129. November 14, 1950.
TEODORO GABOR Y ORO, petitioner, vs. THE DIRECTOR OF PRISONS, respondent.
FACTS
Petitioner Teodoro Gabor y Oro was convicted on December 2, 1940, by the Court of First Instance of Maasin, Leyte, for homicide and frustrated parricide. He began serving his sentence on that date. During the Japanese occupation, the Superintendent of the Iwahig Penal Colony, acting under authority from the Japanese Commander in Chief in Palawan, reduced petitioner’s sentence by one-fifth for “loyalty.” Petitioner filed a petition for habeas corpus, arguing that he had fully served his principal penalties after considering good conduct time allowances and that his continued detention to serve a subsidiary imprisonment for the unpaid indemnity in the homicide case was illegal. He contended that under Article 39 of the Revised Penal Code, no subsidiary imprisonment may be imposed when the principal penalty is higher than prision correccional.
ISSUE
Whether the petitioner is entitled to release through a writ of habeas corpus based on the validity of the sentence reduction granted during the Japanese occupation and the legality of the subsidiary imprisonment.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied the petition. The Court held that the reduction of petitioner’s sentence by the Superintendent of the Iwahig Penal Colony, authorized by the Japanese Commander in Chief in Palawan, was null and void. Following prior jurisprudence (Sameth v. Director of Prisons, Caraos v. Daza, Botuyan v. Director of Prisons), the Court ruled that during the Japanese occupation, only the Commander in Chief of the Imperial Japanese military forces and the President of the so-called Republic of the Philippines had the power to pardon or grant sentence reductions. The Japanese Commander in Chief in Palawan lacked such authority. Consequently, the sentence reduction was invalid, and petitioner had not yet fully served his lawful sentences. The Court did not reach the issue of the subsidiary imprisonment’s legality, as the respondent had already conceded it was void and was not being enforced. Petitioner’s detention remained lawful under the original, unreduced sentences.
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