Estrada vs.

Sandiganbayan
G.R. No. 148560
November 19, 2001
Specific constitutional provision/s cited: A. 3, 1, Due Process Clause. [Substantive Due
Process]
FACTS:
Former President Joseph Ejercito-Estrada is prosecuted for violations of RA 7080, also
known as the Plunder Law.
His defense set to declare the Plunder Law, specifically Sections 1(d), 2 and 4, as depriving
Estrada of due process of law through fair notice of the nature and cause of the accusation,
thus unconstitutional for:
(a) being void for being vague,
(b) dispensing of reasonable doubt, the quantum of evidence for criminal prosecution, and
(c) abolishing the element of mens rea [guilty mind] in Revised Penal Code crimes.
The defense of void-for-vagueness were raised twice: (a) when the eight informations were
filed in the Sandiganbayan by the Ombudsman, and (b) when the Sandiganbayan found
probable cause and ordered the arrest of Estrada.
The Estrada defense specifically questioned the words combination or series, and pattern
in the Law as vague, and open to any arbitrary interpretation set by the Government, which
will deprive any accused of the right to fair notice.
ISSUE:
WON the Plunder Law is void for being vague, thus depriving Estrada of fair notice?
HELD:
NO.
A vague law lacks clarity or precision. Only a reasonable degree of certainty is needed, so
long as clear bounds are in the statute, flexibility is permissible. The test of determining voidfor-vagueness in a criminal statute is when a statutes language:
(a) does not give definite warning as to the proscribed conduct when measured by common
understanding or language, and
(b) it leaves law enforcers unbridled discretion in carrying out its provisions and becomes an
arbitrary flexing of the Government muscle.
Estrada can ascertain the nature of the alleged violation since the Plunder law contains
ascertainable standards and well-defined parameters, to wit: (a) public officer, who acts by
himself or in connivance, (b) acquired ill-gotten wealth through a combination or series of
[five listed] criminal acts, and (c) the total value of the ill-gotten wealth acquired is at least 50
million pesos.

Prepared By: Hezekiah D. Nicdao

Words of a statute are to be interpreted in their natural plain and ordinary acceptation and
signification, unless a technical or special legal meaning is intended by the legislature, one of
which who voted for the Pluder Law is Estrada, who should be presumed knowledgable. The
legislative records also show the intent of the framers. Thus combination is to be construed as
the result of putting together, series as things or events of the same class held in succession
and pattern as a combination or series of overt acts are directed towards a common purpose or
an overall unlawful scheme.
The void-for-vagueness doctrine do not apply to criminal cases in general and only to facial
challenges to statutes involving speech. Criminal statues, unlike statutes against protected
speech, have an in terrorem effect, in which no apparent construction suggests itself as a
vehicle for rehabilitating the statutes in a single prosecution, and when any arbitrary
construction by government may be adopted to interfere with protected speech.
To doubt is to sustain. The Estrada defense did not overcome the presumption of
constitutionality of any statute and failed to demonstrate beyond any tinge of doubt of an
infringement of the constitution.

Petition dismissed. Plunder Law constitutional.

Prepared By: Hezekiah D. Nicdao