By: Atty. Gregorio B. Austral, CPA
The New Year and the legal order of time
Every January, we are surrounded by the language of “fresh starts”: resolutions, promises, and plans. But in a constitutional democracy, the changing of the calendar is more than a sentimental ritual. It reminds us that our public life is governed by rules about time—when laws take effect, when rights prescribe, when elections are held, when penalties change. The new year is a moment to reflect on how the rule of law quietly structures our sense of beginnings and endings, and why it matters that these transitions are anchored in clear legal rules rather than in the whims of those in power.
Lawyers are trained to pay attention to the small print that says when a law “shall take effect.” That clause is not a footnote; it is a safeguard. When the Supreme Court approved the Rules on the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and Related Laws (A.M. No. 22-02-19-SC), it did not leave their operation to guesswork. The Rules provide that they take effect on January 15, 2024, fifteen days after publication in the Official Gazette or in at least two newspapers of national circulation. That kind of clarity—an effective date tied to publication—is how the legal system tells citizens: you have a right to know in advance when the rules change, and government cannot spring new obligations on you overnight.
Timing also determines when the State loses the right to punish. In Republic v. Desierto (G.R. No. 136506, 16 January 2023), the Supreme Court revisited the “blameless ignorance” rule on prescription for anti-graft cases, stressing that prescription begins to run from the commission of the violation, or—if the violation was not known—from its discovery and the institution of proceedings for investigation and punishment. This doctrine protects both public interest and individual rights. It tells public officials that time will not easily wash away corruption hidden from view, but it also tells the State that it cannot sleep on its duty; delay has consequences. The new year, with its instinct for accounting—closing old books, opening new ones—reminds us that justice delayed can become justice denied, not only morally but legally.
The calendar can also soften the harshness of the criminal law. Our Revised Penal Code contains a humane rule: if a new penal law is favorable to the accused, it must be applied retroactively, so long as the person is not a habitual criminal. The Court gave this real bite in Inmates of the New Bilibid Prison, Muntinlupa City v. De Lima (G.R. No. 212719, 25 June 2019), holding that increased good conduct time allowances under a later statute must be applied to qualified prisoners because penal laws favorable to the accused have retroactive effect. More recently, in Dexter Bargado y Morgado v. People (G.R. No. 271081, 29 July 2024), the Court applied the same principle to an election-related prosecution. A law postponing the barangay elections had effectively removed the legal basis for the election period and the related gun-ban regime. Without a validly defined election period, there could be no conviction for the alleged offense. In both cases, the “new year” of a kinder law reached backward in time, cutting short what would otherwise have been longer or even wrongful punishment.
Even seemingly technical fiscal or administrative adjustments are framed around the passage of years. When Presidential Decree No. 1773 amended the National Internal Revenue Code in 1981, it provided that certain changes in personal exemptions would take effect for the taxable year 1980, while the rest of the decree took effect upon approval. This kind of retroactive application in tax law—designed to cushion inflation’s impact on ordinary taxpayers—shows another face of the rule of law: the ability to adapt to economic realities, but only within announced, legally defined periods. The taxpayer looking back on the year that was can ask, with some certainty: which rules governed my work, my salary, my liabilities?
The turn of the year often invites cynicism: another January, another set of promises that may or may not be kept. Yet the law’s quiet work with dates, effectivity clauses, prescriptive periods, retroactive benefits, and institutional continuity tells a different story. It is a story in which time is not just an enemy that erodes memories and resolves, but also a tool that can be structured to protect rights and temper power. To take the rule of law seriously is to recognize that each new year is not an empty slate. It is a new chapter in a legal narrative that stretches backward and forward, where the choices we make—in legislation, in adjudication, in enforcement—will decide whether time heals injustice or merely helps it hide.