The Supreme Court (SC) has affirmed the life sentence imposed on an Australian national for trafficking of four minors for prostitution and sexual exploitation.

Affirmed by the SC was the life imprisonment imposed by the Court of Appeals (CA) on Martin Cook, who was 76 years old at the time of his conviction by the Regional Trial Court (RTC).

In a decision written by Associate Justice Antonio T. Kho Jr., the SC found Cook guilty of trafficking four boys between 11 and 13 years old. Aside from life imprisonment, Cook was also ordered to pay a fine of P2 million and P600,000 in damages to each of the four victims.

In a press briefer, the SC’s Office of the Spokesperson said that the RTC convicted Cook of qualified trafficking under Republic Act No. (RA) 9208, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, as amended by RA 10364. It found that Cook maintained the minors in his house to sexually exploit them.

However, the RTC held that it could not impose life imprisonment because Cook’s advanced age was a privileged mitigating circumstance that reduced the penalty by one or two degrees under the Revised Penal Code (RPC).

Instead, the RTC imposed the penalty of reclusion temporal, or 12 years and one day to 20 years in prison, without eligibility for parole.

The CA affirmed Cook’s conviction but increased the penalty to life imprisonment. It said that life imprisonment must still be imposed because it is an indivisible penalty and therefore does not have periods.

The SC affirmed the CA’s decision as it clarified that the rules on penalties under the RPC, including the treatment of mitigating circumstances, do not apply to special penal laws like RA 9208, unless those laws adopt the penalty terms used in the RPC.

Since RA 9208, as amended by RA 10364, does not adopt the RPC’s penalty framework, its rules on modifying circumstances do not apply, the SC said as it pointed out that any mitigating circumstance in favor of Cook must be disregarded.

In its decision, the SC found all the elements of qualified trafficking present. It said that trafficking happens when individuals are recruited or harbored—whether or not they give consent—through deception, coercion, or abuse of power for exploitative purposes like prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation.

The SC explained that in child trafficking cases, the means by which trafficking is committed is not relevant. It said that the prosecution does not need to prove that force, coercion, or deception was used because a child cannot legally consent to being trafficked.