PROJECT JURISPRUDENCE

RECOMMENDED CITATION: DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), “SC: DOJ has Rulemaking Power in Preliminary Investigation,” 24 PJP 21 , available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). PJP BLOG : Although this content has received a favorable recommendation for citation from the admin team of PJP, it is not yet considered a peer-reviewed journal entry. CONTACT US : For immediate action on requests, comments, concerns, suggestions, and other forms of feedback, please message us on Facebook at www.m.me/projectjuris . Recently, there have been doubts regarding the legality of the 2024 Department of Justice - National Prosecution Service Rules on Preliminary Investigation (2024 DOJ-NPS Rules), especially the part thereof that modifies the minimum penalty requirement for the conduct of such investigation from "at least four years two months and one day" to "at least six years....

RECOMMENDED CITATION : DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), “Richer Private International Law Jurisprudence in the US, Europe,” 23 PJP 21 , available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). PJP BLOG : Although this content has received a favorable recommendation for citation from the admin team of PJP, it is not yet considered a peer-reviewed journal entry. CONTACT US : For immediate action on requests, comments, concerns, suggestions, and other forms of feedback, please message us on Facebook at www.m.me/projectjuris . Reason for US and Europe’s richer jurisprudence on private international law It may be noticed that Philippine jurisprudence is not as rich in conflict of laws decisions as the US or as European countries. The reason for this is the geographical situation of the Philippines. In the US and in Europe, movement of persons and property across state lines is normal, if not rampant, as a result of the fact that their st...

RECOMMENDED CITATION : DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), “Reason for Municipal Law’s Reference to Foreign Laws,” 22 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). PJP BLOG : Although this content has received a favorable recommendation for citation from the admin team of PJP, it is not yet considered a peer-reviewed journal entry. CONTACT US : For immediate action on requests, comments, concerns, suggestions, and other forms of feedback, please message us on Facebook at www.m.me/projectjuris . Students may find it interesting to ask the question of why municipal laws point to the application of foreign laws. If the municipal law of the forum has sufficient rules in place for the resolution of a dispute, why is there still a need to invoke the application of a foreign law? There are a few reasons proposed for this. First, the status, condition, and legal capacity of persons are traditionally viewed to be beyond the powers of a foreign court. Bein...

RECOMMENDED CITATION:  DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), “Municipal Laws, Foreign Laws, and Their Variance,” 21 PJP 21 , available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). PJP BLOG :  Although this content has received a favorable recommendation for citation from the admin team of PJP, it is not yet considered a peer-reviewed journal entry. CONTACT US:  For immediate action on requests, comments, concerns, suggestions, and other forms of feedback, please message us on Facebook at  www.m.me/projectjuris . Definition of municipal laws As far as the Philippines is concerned, municipal laws refer to Philippine laws. Hence, the statement “municipal law points to the application of foreign law” refers to Philippine laws that call for the application of laws of countries other than the Philippines. The term “law,” in its broad sense, refers to the 1987 Constitution, statutes passed by Congress, and decisions of the Supreme Court which form part of the law o...

RECOMMENDED CITATION: DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), "The Case of People v. Montenegro (1939)," 20 PJP 21 , available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). PJP BLOG :  Although this content has received a favorable recommendation for citation from the admin team of PJP, it is not yet considered a peer-reviewed journal entry. CONTACT US : For immediate action on requests, comments, concerns, suggestions, and other forms of feedback, please message us on Facebook at  www.m.me/projectjuris . The case of People v. Montenegro (1939) [1] In the case of People v. Montenegro, in 1932, accused was charged for violating a United States (“US”) federal law prohibiting excessive attorney’s fees for pension claims. Note that, in the US, each state is a country in itself but, owing to its federal system of government, the federal government maintains an overarching authority over states on certain matters such as immigration and foreign relations. ...

RECOMMENDED CITATION: DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), “Definition of Foreign Laws,” 19 PJP 21 , available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). PJP UNDOCKETED : This content is yet to be be peer reviewed and has not yet received any favorable recommendation for citation. It may or may not be queued up for citation recommendation or peer review. Caution is advised. CONTACT US: For immediate action on requests, comments, concerns, suggestions, and other forms of feedback, please message us on Facebook at www.m.me/projectjuris . In the Philippine legal system foreign laws are those promulgated, issues or enacted by a country other than the Philippines. For purposes of private international law and from the viewpoint of the Philippines, the term “municipal law” refers to the laws of the Philippines. On the other hand, the laws of a country other than the Philippines are “foreign laws.” In other words, French laws are the municipal laws of Fran...

RECOMMENDED CITATION: DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), “Substantive or Procedural Nature of Private International Law Rules,” 18 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). LAST REVISION: [None]. There has been a long, ongoing and continuing debate on the question of whether private international law rules are substantive or procedural in nature. My journal, of course, does not aim to end such debate as the capacity to do so belongs to experts in the field of civil law and remedial law. However, the following observations are respectfully submitted. First, a substantive law in its broad sense is one that creates or abolishes a right. On the other hand, a procedural law in its broad sense is one that provides for the manner by which a right may be asserted or pursued. Justice Feria, in a dissenting opinion, once observed that substantive law is that part of the law which creates, defines, and regulates rights as opposed to ...

RECOMMENDED CITATION: DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), “The Case of Vinuya v. Romulo,” 17 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). LAST REVISION: [None]. --- The case of Vinuya v. Romulo (2010) [1] The case of Vinuya v. Romulo is about the tragic comfort women system, a legacy of the Rape of Nanking. In December 1937, Japanese military forces captured the City of Nanking in China and began a “barbaric campaign of terror” known as the “Rape of Nanking,” which included the rapes and murders of an estimated 20,000 to 80,000 Chinese women, including young girls, pregnant mothers, and elderly women. Later, this barbaric campaign reached the Philippines during the Japanese occupation. Petitioners in this case wanted the Executive Department to espouse their claims for an official apology from the Japanese Government and other forms of reparations against Japan. According to the Supreme Court, from a domestic law pers...

RECOMMENDED CITATION: DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), “Differences: Private International Law and Public International Law,” 16 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). LAST REVISION: [None]. --- Public international law deals with rights, obligations, and interactions between and among states and international actors concerning their membership in the community of nations. On the other hand, private international law deals with the study of the determination, analysis, and application of the proper law -- whether domestic law or foreign law -- on a given set of facts with a foreign element, affecting contracts, property, obligations, and other private transactions between private individuals. A discussion of what “foreign element” means will be made in a separate journal. At this point, suffice it to say that a foreign element is a factual, not legal, situation that may involve the citizenship of parties, the location of the property, and, among ot...

RECOMMENDED CITATION: Mark Angelo S. Dela Peña (2024), “CHOICE OF LAW” AS A BETTER NAME THAN “CONFLICT OF LAWS”, 15 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). LAST REVISION: [None]. “Conflict of laws” is a misnomer. Like the term “private international law,” the term “conflict of laws” is also a misnomer. It creates confusion because it implies that there is necessarily a “conflict” or antagonism between the laws of the Philippines and those of a foreign country. The term itself frames the mind in the wrong way. The truth of the matter is that a conflict is not even necessary for the application of conflict of laws rules. Hence, for example, Philippine laws on legitime – a person’s compulsory share in the estate of a deceased person – may be the same with Chinese law on succession. The attention of private international law as a subject is not on the “conflict” itself but on the question of which law, between municipal law and foreign law, should ap...

RECOMMENDED CITATION: Mark Angelo S. Dela Peña (2024), DIFFICULTIES IN THE STUDY OF CONFLICT OF LAWS, 14 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). The study of private international law is a difficult one because conflict of laws rules (also called “conflicts rules”) are not codified in one statute. In other words, they are not neatly compiled in the same way that marriage rules are under the Family Code of the Philippines (FCP), succession rules are in the New Civil Code of the Philippines (NCC), penalties are in the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines (RPC), corporate liabilities are the Revised Corporation Code of the Philippines (RCC) and others. Instead, private international law rules and principles are scattered across different provisions of the 1987 Constitution, various statutes, numerous codes, and several pieces of jurisprudence. They usually rest inconspicuously among legal provisions that do not invite any attention, especially for those...

RECOMMENDED CITATION: Mark Angelo S. Dela Peña (2024), CONFLICT OF LAWS BEING "PRIVATE" BUT NOT "INTERNATIONAL", 13 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). LAST REVISION: [None]. The “private” aspect of conflict of laws Private international law is so-called “private” law because it involves the private transactions of private individuals. It does not concern itself with the rights and obligations of states and state actors. Rather, it deals with contracts, family relationships, and other forms of obligations between private parties. It is part of private law, not public law. While public law covers those fields such as criminal law that deals with crimes, private international law relates to contracts, successional rights, obligations arising from torts, and other such matters that do not involve the public at large. The “international law” aspect of conflict of laws The primary objection to the term “private international law”...

RECOMMENDED CITATION: Mark Angelo S. Dela Peña (2024), DEFINITION OF PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW, 12 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). LAST REVISION: [None]. --- Definition of private international law Private international law, otherwise known as conflict of laws, is a subdivision of private law under the civil law system . It is a bar examination area, covering at least one or two questions every calendar year. It deals with the proper approach or analysis in resolving a private dispute with a foreign element. This foreign element activates the municipal law of the forum, which points to the possible application of a foreign law. For example, suppose the case before the trial court involves the estate or the last will of an alien decedent. In that case, the New Civil Code of the Philippines (NCC) requires the forum to apply such decedent’s national law when it comes to the order of succession, amount of successiona...

RECOMMENDED CITATION:  Raul V. Babaran and Mark Angelo S. Dela Peña (2024), THE TRUE PURPOSE OF LAW SCHOOL RECITATION QUESTIONS, 11 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). LAST REVISED:  [None]. --- Law school is not at all one of the kindest places on earth. It is a training ground for future lawyers and the hazing involves the task to read thousands of pages which include but are not limited to textbooks, codals, decisions of the Supreme Court, rules and regulations, and notes. Another grueling aspect of law school is classroom recitations wherein students are asked by the professor to discuss the rule as provided by law or the ruling of the Supreme Court as laid down in jurisprudence. The tradition in law school is for the professor to ask puzzling questions and to expect only the brightest students to answer in a lawyer-like manner. Often, professors ask one student and raise the same que...

RECOMMENDED CITATION: Mark Angelo S. Dela Peña (2024), PENALTIES FOR SIMPLE THEFT WITH AMOUNT NOT EXCEEDING P22,000.00, 10 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>). LAST REVISION: September 21, 2024 at 4:09 PM. --- The penalty for simple theft, as a crime, depends on the value of the personal property stolen. This being the case, it is important to make sure that the penalty imposed by the trial court is based on the value proven by evidence during trial.[1] It cannot be that such value is based merely on the criminal information or on the uncorroborated testimonies presented by the prosecution. For example, in one case, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) reduced the value of the stolen jewelry from P1,000,000.00 to P500,000.00 on the basis of the complainant's social standing. This, the Supreme Court found to be devoid of evidentiary basis.[2] In that case, the High Court, citing People v. Paraiso,[3] People v. Marcos,[4] and F...