301 SCRA 298 G.R. NO. 12809620 JAN 1999) Lacson vs. Executive Secretary Facts
301 SCRA 298 G.R. NO. 12809620 JAN 1999) Lacson vs. Executive Secretary Facts
301 SCRA 298 G.R. NO. 12809620 JAN 1999) Lacson vs. Executive Secretary Facts
R.A. 8249 is not apenal law. It is a substantive law on jurisdiction which is not penal in character. Penal laws are
those acts of the Legislature which prohibit certain acts and establish penalties for their violations or those that
define crimes and provide for their punishment. R.A. 7975, as regards the Sandiganbayans jurisdiction, its mode of
appeal and other procedural matters, has been declared by the Court as not a penal law, but clearly a procedural
statute, one which prescribes rules of procedure by which courts applying laws of all kinds can properly administer
justice. Not being a penal law, the retroactive application of R.A. 8249 cannot be challenged as unconstitutional.
In People vs. Montejo, it was held that an offense is said to have been committed in relation to the office if it is
intimately connected with the office of the offender and perpetrated while he was in the performance of his official
functions. Such intimate relation must be alleged in the information which is essential in determining the jurisdiction
of the Sandiganbayan. However, upon examination of the amended information, there was no specific allegation of
facts that the shooting of the victim by the said principal accused was intimately related to the discharge of their
official duties as police officers. Likewise, the amended information does not indicate that the said accused arrested
and investigated the victim and then killed the latter while in their custody. The stringent requirement that the charge
set forth with such particularity as will reasonably indicate the exact offense which the accused is alleged to have
committed in relation to his office was not established.
Consequently, for failure to show in the amended informations that the charge of murder was intimately connected
with the discharge of official functions of the accused PNP officers, the offense charged in the subject criminal cases
is plain murder and, therefore, within the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Court and not the
Sandiganbayan