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Community Service

Local government units cannot lawfully impose community service for violations of their ordinances, as the Local Government Code only allows fines or imprisonment as penalties set by local Sanggunians. While a new law allows courts to impose community service for minor crimes, this does not apply to ordinance violations. For community service to be a legal penalty for ordinances, Congress would need to pass a law expressly giving local governments this authority.

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1K views

Community Service

Local government units cannot lawfully impose community service for violations of their ordinances, as the Local Government Code only allows fines or imprisonment as penalties set by local Sanggunians. While a new law allows courts to impose community service for minor crimes, this does not apply to ordinance violations. For community service to be a legal penalty for ordinances, Congress would need to pass a law expressly giving local governments this authority.

Uploaded by

JosephineFadul
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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April Julie Mae P.

Gonzaga

This is pursuant as to whether or not Local Government Unit can lawfully


imposed community service on its ordinances and if not, is there a way to legally
making it possible.

Community service is defined as work done by a person or group of people that


benefits others. It is often done near the area where you live, so your own community
reaps the benefits of your work. Recently, President Duterte signed the Community
Service Act (Republic Act No. 11362) allowing courts to impose community service as
penalty for minor offenses punishable by arresto menor and arresto mayor, in lieu of
imprisonment.

Under the Revised Penal Code, the duration of the penalty of arresto mayor is
imprisonment of one month and one day to six months while arresto menor has a
duration of one day to thirty days’ imprisonment (Article 27, Act No. 3815). Offenses
punishable by arresto mayor and menor include alarms and scandal, malicious mischief,
offending religious feelings, unjust vexation, using false certificates, slight physical
injuries, among others. Under the new law, the community service must be rendered in
the place of the commission of the crime, under such terms which the court may
determine, taking into consideration the gravity of the offense and the circumstances of
the case.

But this act is different as to imposing penalty or punishment in lieu of


ordinances created by the Local Government Unit. As stated in the Local Government
Code, among the powers of the Sangguniang Barangay is to prescribe fines in amounts
not exceeding One thousand pesos (P1,000.00) for violation of barangay ordinances;
(Section 391 (a)14, Local Government Code). In the case of Municipalities, the
Sangguniang Bayan has the power to approve ordinances imposing a fine not
exceeding Two thousand five hundred pesos (P2,500.00) or an imprisonment for a
period not exceeding six (6) months, or both in the discretion of the court, for the
violation of a municipal ordinance; [Section 447 (a)1(iii)].

Community service has not been mentioned in any of the above-quoted sections
of the Local Government Code because imprisonment and/or fine are the only penalties
allowed by the Code for the local Sanggunian to impose. Hence, the local Sanggunian
cannot add through an ordinance, another kind of penalty other than the two
mentioned. It simply does not have this power since local governments and its offices
were merely created by law enacted by Congress. There is a fine line between the
penalty imposed by courts and penalty sanctioned as a result of the violation of the
ordinances.

In able for this to be legally possible as a penalty for the violation of the
ordinance, the Congress must create a law that would allow the local government to
have community service as penalty. Just how the local government was created
through the enactment of the Congress.

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