With the signing of Republic Act 10951 which adjusted the fines imposed on crimes of theft and robbery under the Revised Penal Code, penalties for selling, buying, receiving or possessing stolen property must also be increased, Senator Koko Pimentel III said.
Pimentel said the Anti-Fencing Law, or Presidential Decree 1612, should be amended to be commensurate to the offense committed.
“The Anti-Fencing Law should be amended to commensurate to the offense committed.”
RA 10951, which was enacted into law in 2017 during the First Regular Session of the 17th Congress, adjusted the amounts or the values of property and damage on which the penalties provided in the Revised Penal Code are based.
“However, the enactment of RA 10951 does not result in the concomitant adjustment of the penalties provided under PD 1612 or the Anti-Fencing Law,” the legislator said.
The lawmaker stressed that like the offenses of robbery and theft punished under the Revised Penal Code, the penalties provided for the crime of fencing are hinged on the value of property fenced.
“Without an adjustment of the values of property that serve as the bases for the penalties under PD 1612, a situation may arise where a fence – who is in theory a mere accessory to the offense of robbery or theft – will be punished more severely than a robber or a thief,” the senator said.
He has introduced Senate Bill 1812 “to cure this incongruence” by adjusting the values of property that serve as the bases for penalties under PD 1612.
“Senate Bill 1812 will cure this incongruence.”
Under Pimentel’s proposal, the penalty of prision mayor, or an imprisonment of 6 years and 1 day to 12 years, should be imposed if the value of property involved is more than P1.2 million but not exceeding P2.2 million.
Currently, a person guilty of fencing could be slapped with prision mayor if the value of property is more than P12,000 but not exceeding P22,000.
A penalty of reclusion temporal (12 years and 1 day to 20 years) should be imposed if the value of the property involved exceeds P2.2 million, adding one year each for each additional P1 million.
If the value of the property robbed or stolen is more than P600,000, from the present P6,000, but not exceeding P1.2 million (from P12,000), the penalty is prision correccional in its medium and maximum periods.
A minimum penalty of one day imprisonment should be imposed if the value of the property robbed does not exceed P500, from the current P5.
