Author Archive for Lito or Tokpi

Jurisdiction in habeas corpus cases involving custody of minors

Family courts are vested with original exclusive jurisdiction in custody cases, not in habeas corpus cases. The Court of Appeals (CA) and the Supreme Court (SC) had not been divested of their jurisdiction over habeas corpus cases involving custody of minors. This is the issue in the case discussed below.

Spouses Raymundo et. al. vs. Spouses Bandong (G.R. No. 171250, July 4, 2007) - Digest

Facts : Eulalia Raymundo (Eulalia) was engaged in the business of buying and selling large cattle for which she employed “biyaheros” whose task involved the procuring of large cattle with the financial capital provided by petitioner and delivering the procured cattle to her for further disposal. In order to secure the financial [...]

Writ of Amparo

(Added: Full text of The Rule on the Writ of Amparo or the Questions and Answers)
Concerned about the growing number of cases of disappearance in the country, the Supreme Court (SC) now contemplates introducing the writ of amparo into the legal system to give more protection to constitutional rights of a person as the [...]

Arson with quadruple homicide and robbery: Is it a complex crime?

During our final examination in Criminal Law II last semester in Harvardian College of Law (Pampanga), the following question was asked:
Harry, an overseas contract worker, arrived from Saudi Arabia with considerable savings. Knowing him to be “loaded,” his friends Jason, Manuel and Dave invited him to a poker session at a rented beach cottage. When [...]

Senator-elect Trillanes right to bail

In a recent press statement, Lieutenant Colonel Jose Feliciano Loi noted that under the military justice system, Trillanes should not be going out of his detention cell as in the case of other personnel charged before the military’s general court martial.
The statement suggests that there is no provision in military laws, particularly in the Articles [...]

Dominador Aytona vs. Andres Castillo, GR. No. L-19313, 19 January 1962

On June 15, 2007, Sun.Star Pampanga carried an interesting news report: “Vice guv rejects Panlilio’s plea to stop bidding“. Pampanga’s Acting Governor Guaio’s rejection stemmed from Governor-elect Eddie Panlilio’s request contained in his letter of June 13, 2007 asking Guiao to defer a scheduled bidding, saying “yours is no more than a caretaker administration” [...]

Is Lito Lapid Still A Senator?

There is an ongoing debate as to whether Senator Lito Lapid will be considered as having forfeited his Senate seat when he ran for Mayor of Makati City. Let me offer what I understood about this issue.Before the passage of Fair Election Act (Republic Act No. 9006), Sen. Lapid would have been considered as having [...]

Juvenile Justice and Privileged Mitigating Circumstance of Minority

In our recent final examination in Criminal Law II, the following question was propounded:
1. Where a minor under 18 years but over 9 years, who acted with discernment, is charged for an offense defined and penalized by the RPC which calls for the imposition of a capital penalty, is he entitled to a privilege mitigating [...]

Rape: insertion of a finger into the genital or anus of another

Republic Act 8353 (R.A. 8353) or the “Anti-Rape Act of 1997″, which amended Chapter III, Title 8 of the Revised Penal Code, expanded the definition of rape. The crime of rape now includes the insertion of the penis into another person’s mouth or anal orifice, or any other instrument or “object”, into the genital or [...]

Suggested Answers to the 2006 Bar Examination Questions

The “Suggested Answers to the 2006 Bar Examination Questions”, a 137-page book recently published by the Philippine Association of Law Schools (PALS), is not only very instructive and useful, but also an earnest manifestation of the organization’s goal of “honing the intellectual fitness of law students and improving legal education in the country, by giving [...]