CLARITY and uniform interpretation over
both time and space are thought to be appealing characteristics of laws.
Nothing is as straightforward as the classic “eye for an eye and tooth
for a tooth,” or the command to “flog the man and woman guilty of
fornication each with a hundred stripes.” Or even (when it existed) the
death penalty for the crime of rape or for drug dealing. As long as
society continues to hold to these correspondences between crimes and
their respective penalties, “justice” as society conceives it is
implemented uniformly, regardless of time and place.
But certainty and timelessness are easy to
come by only in existential extremes such as the above (what economists
might call “corner solutions,” such as death). Things become more
complex when gradations and distinctions are necessary. This is nowhere
more evident than when monetary values are incorporated in the law.
Precision frequently demands that framers of the law prescribe definite
monetary amounts. Examples of this abound. Prison terms for estafa and
qualified theft will vary depending on the peso amounts stolen.
Individual and corporate income taxes under the tax code are defined by a
schedule that depends on a person’s or corporation’s peso earnings. The
tax on cigarettes depends on whether the brand costs more or less than
P11.50 per pack. (At the University of the Philippines, our own
subsidised tuition and and assistance scheme requires different fees
from students according to levels of their family’s peso incomes.)
The problem, of course, is that those same money amounts used to define
categories, penalties and obligations -- clear and unambiguous enough
when the laws and rules were crafted -- no longer have the same meaning
as time passes. Inflation is the prime culprit. Changes in the general
price level alter the value of of the money unit and render the money
metric like a rubber ruler, whose length can be stretched and distorted
through time. Because of this, one is no longer certain that justice is
faithfully and uniformly served across time.
This is highlighted by a case recently decided by the Supreme Court
(Lito Corpuz v. People of the Philippines; GR 180016). A person was
found guilty of having committed estafa in 1991 involving P98,000. The
Revised Penal Code (passed in 1930 and unchanged to this day) imposes
varying amounts of jail time for estafa depending on the monetary
amounts involved. The maximum amount is “P22,001 and above,” which
corresponds to a jail penalty of “eight years and one day, plus one year
for every additional P10,000” but not to exceed 20 years. This
correspondence between the monetary offense and penalty embodied
society’s sense of justice and proportion at the time. Applying the
letter of the existing law to the present case, the convicted would have
to serve a total of 15 years.
But P98,000 in 1991 prices is certainly not the same as P98,000 in 1930
prices. With high inflation over the years, the equivalent amount in
1930 prices is obviously far less, and therefore so should be the
corresponding penalty.
In a lucid dissenting opinion (shared by Justice Marvic Leonen), Justice
Roberto Abad makes an educated estimate that prices may have increased a
hundredfold between the two periods. If so, then the same offense would
merit a far lower penalty: “The P98,000 jewelry items subject of the
offense would have a value of only P980 in 1932. Consequently, had [the
convicted person] committed the crime in that year, he would have been
imprisoned for only two years and four months maximum. But since he
committed it 59 years later in 1991 when the jewelry items are now
valued at P98,000 due to inflation, he would be imprisoned for 15 years
maximum -- the same crime, the same law, yet a shockingly higher
penalty. This result would undoubtedly deny Corpuz his constitutional
right to equal protection of the law.”
In the end, the rest of the Supreme Court did not support Abad’s and
Leonen’s opinions. While half-conceding the validity of the substantive
points raised, the other justices refrained from acting on them, on the
ground that doing so would amount to revising the law, which is the job
of Congress. In the meantime, some obvious injustice is being committed
every day not only in this case but in all other instances where
superannuated schedules based on nominal money values are applied --
most important are unwarrantedly long deprivations of liberty handed by
the courts, no less.
If the Supreme Court persists in its view that it will not interpret
real versus nominal values, then clearly the ball is in the
legislature’s court. House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., in a
memorandum to the court, essentially stood upon Congress’ prerogative to
prescribe punishment (“the recodification of the Revised Penal Code is
already being done by Congress”), but more significantly he also denied
the need to amend the schedule of penalties, or the need to maintain
consistency or “proportionality” in penalties through time. Indeed, he
says, the greater punitiveness arising from the change in the peso
values has unintentionally but fortuitously made the penalty scheme
“more reasonable” and “protective of the poor.” (The Speaker neglects to
explain how a penal code that punishes estafa worth P100 with a jail
term of four to six months can be pro-poor.) In other words, the Supreme
Court has tossed the problem to Congress, and therefore we can expect
Congress to do... nothing.
This is unfortunate -- as well as inconsistent. After all, Congress has
not shied away from indexing the sin taxes to inflation, increasing the
nominal amounts of tax by 4% annually to protect the real value of
government revenues. In the opposite manner, however, it has also
tarried in adjusting income brackets in the tax code, effectively
allowing inflation to push people up the tax brackets and pay higher
average and marginal tax rates -- again resulting in higher revenues for
government. Index some things but not others. Where is consistency?
All of this can only lead to the suspicion that the government is
assiduous only when it comes to protecting the real value of its claims
against its citizens -- especially when these claims are in pecuniary
form. But it is niggardly and slow in dispensing that most basic and
minimal non-monetary claim citizens expect from it -- justice and fair
treatment.
(The author is an Oscar M. Lopez professor at the UP School of Economics and an IDEA Fellow.)
source: Businessworld
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