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[UDK-12491.December 22, 1999]

EDGARDO ARTAMIA vs. DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF CORRECTIONS

SECOND DIVISION

Gentlemen:

Quoted hereunder, for your information, is a resolution of this Court dated DEC 22, 1999.

UDK-12491(Edgardo Artamia vs. Director of the Bureau of Corrections.)

For consideration are the letters of petitioner Edgardo Artamia received separately on 13 and 15 October 1999 requesting for a counsel de oficio to provide him legal assistance for his early release, as well as his letter of 29 October 1999 inquiring why he has not yet been released from prison and what legal steps he should take so he could be released.

Petitioner was convicted of illegal possession of .05 gram of shabu and was sentenced to a straight prison term of six (6) years by the Regional Trial Court, Br. 31, of San Pedro, Laguna, dated 9 March 1994.

On 13 January 1998 petitioner came to us on a petition for issuance of a writ of habeas corpus praying for the retroactive application to him of RA 7659, the law being favorable to him, and for his immediate release as a consequence thereof.

The Solicitor General, in his comment, invokes Sec. 20, 2nd par., RA 6425, as amended by RA 7659, and as construed in People v. Simon, ¹ G.R. No. 93028, 29 July 1994, 234 SCRA 555. that if the quantity of shabu involved is less than 200 grams the new penalty for the offense would be prision correccional in its medium period. He concludes that, applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law, petitioner should now be released from confinement having already served the maximum of his sentence if reduced according to RA 7659 and People v. Simon.

In the resolution of 26 August 1998, since petitioner failed to submit any authentic prison record which would show the duration of his confinement, the Court required the Director of the Bureau of Corrections to submit petitioner's record of confinement covering the period when he was first taken into custody up to the present. In compliance therewith, the Action Officer of the Bureau of Corrections, in a letter dated 26 August 1998, ² Rollo, p. 43. submitted a copy of the prison record of petitioner showing that he was received at the New Bilibid Prison on 30 July 1997. ³ Id., p. 44.

Section 20 of RA 6425, as amended by RA 7659, provides:

Sec. 20. Application of Penalties, Confiscation and Forfeiture of the Proceeds or Instruments of the Crime. - The penalties for offenses under Sections 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9 of Article II and Sections 14, 14-A, 15 and 16 of Article III of this Act shall be applied if the dangerous drug involved is in any of the following quantities: x x x x 3. 200 grams or more of shabu or methylamphetamine hydrochloride x x x x Otherwise, if the quantity involved is less than the foregoing quantities. the penalty shall range from prision correccional to reclusion perpetua depending upon the quantity.

This provision was amended and clarified in People v. Simon in that if the quantity involved is less than the quantities enumerated in Sec. 20 of RA 6425 as amended, the penalty shall range from prision correctional to reclusion temporal and not reclusion perpetua. The Court further ruled -

x x x (T)he law provides that the penalty shall be taken from said range "depending upon the quantity" of the drug involved in the case. The penalty in said second paragraph constitutes a complex one composed of three distinct penalties, that is, prision correccional, prision mayor. and reclusion temporal. In such a situation, the Code provides that each one shall form a period, with the lightest of them being the minimum, the next as the medium, and the more severe as the maximum period.

Ordinarily, and pursuant to Article 64 of the Code, the mitigating and aggravating circumstances determine which period of such complex penalty shall be imposed on the accused. The peculiarity of the second paragraph of Section 20, however, is its specific mandate, above quoted, that the penalty shall instead depend upon the quantity of the drug subject of the criminal transactions. Accordingly, by way of exception to Article 77 of the Code and to subserve the purpose of Section 20 of Republic Act No. 7659, each of the aforesaid component penalties shall be considered as a principal imposable penalty depending on the quantity of the drug involved. Thereby, the modifying circumstances will not altogether be disregarded. Since each component penalty of the total complex penalty will have to be imposed separately as determined by the quantity of the drug involved, then the modifying circumstances can be used to fix the proper period of that component penalty, as shall hereafter be explained.

It would, therefore, be in line with the provision of Section 20 in the context of our aforesaid disposition thereon that, unless there are compelling reasons for a deviation, the quantities of the drugs enumerated in its second paragraph be divided into three, with the resulting quotient, and double or treble the same, to be respectively the bases for allocating the penalty proportionately among the aforesaid periods according to the severity thereof. Thus, if the marijuana involved is below 250 grams, the penalty to be imposed shall be prision correccional; from 250 to 499 grams, prision mayor; and 500 to 749 grams, reclusion temporal. Parenthetically, fine is imposed as a conjunctive penalty only if the penalty is reclusion perpetua to death.

Applying the above disquisition, if the quantity involved is below 66.3 grams of shabu, the penalty to be imposed shall be prision correctional; from 66.3 grams, to 132.6 grams, prision mayor; and more than 132.6 but less than 200 grams, reclusion temporal.

Accordingly, the proper imposable penalty is the full range of prision correccional. In the absence of any modifying circumstance, the maximum penalty to be imposed upon the accused shall be prision correccional in its medium period. Applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law, the minimum penalty shall be arresto mayor in any of its periods, the range of which is one (1) month and one (1) day to six (6) months.

In the instant case, petitioner was convicted of illegal possession of .05 gram of shabu and has been confined since 30 July 1997. The accused having already served as of 22 December 1999 two (2) years four (4) months and twenty-two (22) days of prision correccional medium, the petition for habeas corpus is GRANTED, and the Director of the Bureau of Corrections is directed to IMMEDIATELY RELEASE petitioner from confinement unless he is detained for some other lawful cause, and to report to this Court within five (5) days from receipt hereof his compliance herewith.

SO ORDERED.

Very truly yours,

TOMASITA B. MAGAY-DRIS

Clerk of Court

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