Should the law be that harsh?

This is not to question the legality of the Sandiganbayan decision convicting Asst. Prosecutor Rosendo Brillantes to 18 years as maximum for the loss of shabu valued at P223 thousand in his official custody. Under the law (Art. 217(4), RPC), when the value of the funds or property involved exceeds P22 thousand, the imposable penalty is reclusion temporal maximum to reclusion perpetua (17 years, four months and one day as minimum) with perpetual disqualification. In effect, the meted sentence is a reduced penalty.

Prosecutor Brillantes is neither guilty of taking or appropriating, nor of malversing for his own benefit the seized shabu as subject of the crime, but of "abandonment" or "negligence" resulting in its loss under his official custody.

Just five days after he had joined the prosecution service on November 12, 2000, the seized shabu was turned over to him. Right on that day, he handed it over to the office custodian for safe-keeping who demurred from taking its custody for lack of storage safe and the office lock was defective. And so, he had it deposited in a steel cabinet of an office clerk inside his unlocked cubicle. And, that's where someone, perhaps also an insider, pilfered the stored evidence.

That in essence is the web of circumstances that the Sandiganbayan found as "abandonment" or "negligence", despite the exculpatory finding by the investigating panel of the prosecution office. Significantly, even the court acquitted him of the accompanying anti-graft charge for malversation of public property. And, the female employee holding the steel cabinet key appears to have been not indicted, or found to be not negligent as well.

Based on the court's hewing to the letter of the dictum "dura lex sed lex", some observers agree with alacrity to the stiff sentence, with one cruel pun that Brillantes' penalty as "brilliant sentence". They feel that the case serves as deterrent to similar future omissions.

To those unschooled in the law, the decision appears too harsh, given the facts of the case. Their perception is for the law to be applied rigorously to criminals in serious offenses against persons or property, or for graft and corruption, and other intentionally committed grave wrong-doings. To them, omission of the kind imputed to Brillantes deserves humane toning down of the law.

Some simple friends argue that big-time felons, say, drug lords, corrupt officials, rich offenders, etc. go scot-free. They posit that for simple negligence, if it were, it deserves some mercy. The kind of mercy that Shakespeare aptly says as mercy that falleth from heaven like rain?

Prosecutor Brillantes shall not lose hope. With his appeal to the Supreme Court as the court of last resort, who knows he may still find his saving grace. One expects the beleaguered prosecutor to have been aided actively by his colleagues and his boss, City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon himself, in his appeal brief to be a magnum opus of his life. Certainly, they have argued, inter alia, that in the given premises, no abandonment or negligence could be attributed to him.

The phrase "through abandonment or negligence" is the crux of the matter which is gauged by the degree or standard of diligence or care required under the obtaining circumstances. Will the care of a good father of the family suffice? Or, would it require more stringent diligence, such that, falling short, one becomes negligent or deemed to have "abandoned"?

This case finds similarity to the facts in US vs. Garces (3 Phils 637) where the court acquitted a municipal treasurer from abandonment of a public property which was stolen from the "aparador" of his office. Or, will the argument lie that the loss of the shabu that Brillantes failed to produce be exculpatory in the absence of any malice on his part? Moreover, as in Alvarez vs. Sandiganbayan (201 SCRA 557), there's no finding that Brillantes put the public property to his personal use. Besides, assuming arguendo that his diligence to be vulnerable, the state must rely on the strength of its proof (see: Bugayong vs. People, 202 SCRA 762) to overcome the presumption of innocence.

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