Ex post facto law, generally, prohibits retrospectivity of penal laws. R.A. 8249 is not penal law. It is a substantive law on jurisdiction which is not penal in character.

"xxx.

Petitioner and entervenors further further argued that the retroactive application of R.A. 8249 to the Kuratong Baleleng cases constitutes an ex post facto law41 for they are deprived of their right to procedural due process as they can no longer avail of the two-tiered appeal which they had allegedly acquired under R.A. 7975.

Again, this contention is erroneous. There is nothing ex post facto in R.A. 8249. In Calder v. Bull,42 an ex post facto law is one —

(a) which makes an act done criminal before the passing of the law and which was innocent when committed, and punishes such action; or

(b) which aggravates a crime or makes it greater than when it was committed; or

(c) which changes the punishment and inflicts a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when it was committed.

(d) which alters the legal rules of evidence and recieves less or different testimony that the law required at the time of the commission of the offense on order to convict the defendant.43

(e) Every law which, in relation to the offense or its consequences, alters the situation of a person to his disadvantage.44

This Court added two more to the list, namely:

(f) that which assumes to regulate civil rights and remedies only but in effect imposes a penalty or deprivation of a right which when done was lawful;

(g) deprives a person accussed of crime of some lawful protection to which he has become entitled, such as the protection of a former conviction or acquittal, or a proclamation of a amnesty.45


Ex post facto law, generally, prohibits retrospectivity of penal laws.46 R.A. 8249 is not penal 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;47 or those that define crimes, treat of their nature, and provide dor their punishment.48 R.A 7975, which amended P.D. 1606 as regards the Sandiganbayan's 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, i.e. one which prescribes rules of procedure by which courts applying laws of all kinds can properly administer justice.49 Not being a penal law, the retroactive application of R.A. 8249 cannot be challenged as unconstitutional.

Xxx. "


G.R. No. 128096 January 20, 1999
PANFILO M. LACSON, petitioner,
vs.
THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, THE SANDIGANBAYAN, OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR, THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, MYRNA ABALORA, NENITA ALAP-AP, IMELDA PANCHO MONTERO, and THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondent.
ROMEO M. ACOP AND FRANCISCO G. ZUBIA, JR., petitioner-intervenors.