WHEREAS, crime and violence continue to proliferate despite
the sustained vigorous efforts of the government to effectively contain
them;
WHEREAS, to discourage public indifference or apathy towards
the apprehension and prosecution of criminal offenders, it is necessary to
penalize acts which obstruct or frustrate or tend to obstruct or frustrate the
successful apprehension and prosecution of criminal offenders;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the
Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by law do hereby decree and
order the following:
SECTION 1. The penalty of prision correctional in its
maximum period, or a fine ranging from 1,000 to 6,000 pesos, or both, shall be
imposed upon any person who knowingly or wilfully obstructs, impedes, frustrates
or delays the apprehension of suspects and the investigation and prosecution of
criminal cases by committing any of the following acts:
- preventing witnesses from testifying in any criminal proceeding or from
reporting the commission of any offense or the identity of any offender/s by
means of bribery, misrepresentation, deceit, intimidation, force or threats;
- altering, destroying, suppressing or concealing any paper, record, document,
or object, with intent to impair its verity, authenticity, legibility,
availability, or admissibility as evidence in any investigation of or official
proceedings in, criminal cases, or to be used in the investigation of, or
official proceedings in, criminal cases;
- harboring or concealing, or facilitating the escape of, any person he knows,
or has reasonable ground to believe or suspect, has committed any offense under
existing penal laws in order to prevent his arrest, prosecution and conviction;
- publicly using a fictitious name for the purpose of concealing a crime,
evading prosecution or the execution of a judgment, or concealing his true name
and other personal circumstances for the same purpose or purposes;
- delaying the prosecution of criminal cases by obstructing the service of
process or court orders or disturbing proceedings in the fiscal's offices, in
Tanodbayan, or in the courts;
- making, presenting or using any record, document, paper or object with
knowledge of its falsity and with intent to affect the course or outcome of the
investigation of, or official proceedings in, criminal cases;
- soliciting, accepting, or agreeing to accept any benefit in consideration of
abstaining from, discontinuing, or impeding the prosecution of a criminal
offender;
- threatening directly or indirectly another with the infliction of any wrong
upon his person, honor or property or that of any immediate member or members of
his family in order to prevent such person from appearing in the investigation
of, or official proceedings in, criminal cases, or imposing a condition, whether
lawful or unlawful, in order to prevent a person from appearing in the
investigation of or in official proceedings in, criminal cases;
- giving of false or fabricated information to mislead or prevent the law
enforcement agencies from apprehending the offender or from protecting the life
or property of the victim; or fabricating information from the data gathered in
confidence by investigating authorities for purposes of background information
and not for publication and publishing or disseminating the same to mislead the
investigator or the court.
If any of the acts mentioned herein is penalized by any other law with a
higher penalty, the higher penalty shall be imposed.
SEC. 2. If any of the foregoing acts is committed by a
public official or employee, he shall in addition to the penalties
provided thereunder, suffer perpetual disqualification from holding
public office.
SEC. 3. This Decree shall take effect immediately.
Done in the City of Manila, this 16th day of January, in the year of Our
Lord, nineteen hundred and eighty-one.
|
(Sgd.) FERDINAND E. MARCOS President of the
Philippines |
|
|
|
By the President: |
|
|
|
(Sgd.) JUAN C. TUVERA |
|
|
|
Presidential Executive
Assistant |