ESTRADA

V. SANDIGANBAYAN
G.R. No. 148560
19 NOVEMBER 2001
BELLOSILO, J.


FACTS:
Petitioner being prosecuted under R.A. No. 7080 (An Act Defining and Penalizing the
Crime of Plunder), assailed the constitutionality of the said act, arguing inter alia,
the failure of the law to provide statutory definition of terms of certain words and
phrases used in the said act. These omissions, according to petitioner, render the
Plunder Law unconstitutional for being impermissibly vague and overbroad and
deny him the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against
him, hence, violative of his fundamental right to due process.

ISSUE:
Whether or not the Plunder Law is unconstitutional for being vague or ambiguous.

HELD:
No. It is a well-settled principle of legal hermeneutics that words of a statute will be
interpreted in their natural, plain and ordinary acceptation and signification, unless
it is evident that the legislature intended a technical or special legal meaning to
those words. The intention of the lawmakers who are, ordinarily, untrained
philologists and lexicographers to use statutory phraseology in such a manner is
always presumed. Thus, Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary contains the following
commonly accepted definition of the words "combination" and "series:"
Combination the result or product of combining; the act or process of combining.
To combine is to bring into such close relationship as to obscure individual
characters. Series a number of things or events of the same class coming one after
another in spatial and temporal succession. That Congress intended the words
"combination" and "series" to be understood in their popular meanings is pristinely
evident from the legislative deliberations on the bill, which eventually became RA
7080 or the Plunder Law.

RATIO: (AIDS TO CONSTRUCTION, DICTIONARIES)
Dictionaries generally define words in their natural, plain, and ordinary acceptance
and significance. Where the law does not define the words used in the statute and
the legislature has not intended a technical or special legal meaning to those words,
the Court may adopt the ordinary meaning of the words as defined in the
dictionaries. For the intention of the lawmakers, who are ordinarily untrained
philologists and lexicographers, to use statutory phraseology in such a manner is
always presumed.

Prepared by: Frances Ann Teves