MANOLET O.
LAVIDES, petitioner,
vs.
HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS; HON. ROSALINA L. LUNA PISON, Judge Presiding over Branch 107,
RTC, Quezon City; and PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.
MENDOZA, J.:
Petitioner Manolet Lavides was arrested on April 3, 1997 for child abuse under R.A. No. 7610 (AN ACT PROVIDING
FOR STRONGER DETERRENCE AND SPECIAL PROTECTION AGAINST CHILD ABUSE, EXPLOITATION AND
DISCRIMINATION, PROVIDING PENALTIES FOR ITS VIOLATION, AND OTHER PURPOSES). His arrest was made
without a warrant as a result of an entrapment conducted by the police. It appears that on April 3, 1997, the parents of
complainant Lorelie San Miguel reported to the police that their daughter, then 16 years old, had been contacted by
petitioner for an assignation that night at petitioner's room at the Metropolitan Hotel in Diliman, Quezon City.
Apparently, this was not the first time the police received reports of petitioner's activities. An entrapment operation was
therefore set in motion. At around 8:20 in the evening of April 3, 1997, the police knocked at the door of Room 308 of
the Metropolitan Hotel where petitioner was staying. When petitioner opened the door, the police saw him with Lorelie,
who was wearing only a t-shirt and an underwear, whereupon they arrested him. Based on the sworn statement of
complainant and the affidavits of the arresting officers, which were submitted at the inquest, an information for violation
of Art. III, §5(b) of R.A. No. 7610 was filed on April 7, 1997 against petitioner in the Regional Trial Court, Quezon City,
where it was docketed as Criminal Case No. Q-97-70550. 1âwphi1.nêt
On April 10, 1997, petitioner filed an "Omnibus Motion (1) For Judicial Determination of Probable Cause; (2) For the
Immediate Release of the Accused Unlawfully Detained on an Unlawful Warrantless Arrest; and (3) In the Event of
Adverse Resolution of the Above Incident, Herein Accused be Allowed to Bail as a Matter of Right under the Law on
Which He is Charged.1
On April 29, 1997, nine more informations for child abuse were filed against petitioner by the same complainant, Lorelie
San Miguel, and by three other minor children, Mary Ann Tardesilla, Jennifer Catarman, and Annalyn Talingting. The
cases were docketed as Criminal Case Nos. Q-97-70866 to Q-97-70874. In all the cases, it was alleged that, on
various dates mentioned in the informations, petitioner had sexual intercourse with complainants who had been
"exploited in prostitution and . . . given money [by petitioner] as payment for the said [acts of] sexual intercourse."
No bail was recommended. Nonetheless, petitioner filed separate applications for bail in the nine cases.
On May 16, 1997, the trial court issued an order resolving petitioner's Omnibus Motion, as follows:
WHEREFORE, IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, this Court finds that:
1. In Crim. Case No. Q-97-70550, there is probable cause to hold the accused under detention, his
arrest having been made in accordance with the Rules. He must therefore remain under detention until
further order of this Court;
2. The accused is entitled to bail in all the above-entitled case. He is hereby granted the right to post
bail in the amount of P80,000.00 for each case or a total of P800,000.00 for all the cases under the
following conditions:
a) The accused shall not be entitled to a waiver of appearance during the trial of
these cases. He shall and must always be present at the hearings of these cases;
b) In the event that he shall not be able to do so, his bail bonds shall be
automatically cancelled and forfeited, warrants for his arrest shall be immediately
issued and the cases shall proceed to trial in absentia;
c) The hold-departure Order of this Court dated April 10, 1997 stands; and
d) Approval of the bail bonds shall be made only after the arraignment to
enable this Court to immediately acquire jurisdiction over the accused;
3. Let these cases be set for arraignment on May 23, 1997 at 8:30 o'clock in the morning. 2
On May 20, 1997, petitioner filed a motion to quash the informations against him, except those filed in Criminal Case
No. Q-97-70550 or Q-97-70866. Pending resolution of his motion, he asked the trial court to suspend the arraignment
scheduled on May 23, 1997. 3 Then on May 22, 1997, he filed a motion in which he prayed that the amounts of bail
bonds be reduced to P40,000.00 for each case and that the same be done prior to his arraignment. 4
On May 23, 1997, the trial court, in separate orders, denied petitioner's motions to reduce bail bonds, to quash the
informations, and to suspend arraignment. Accordingly, petitioner was arraigned during which he pleaded not guilty to
the charges against him and then ordered him released upon posting bail bonds in the total amount of P800,000.00,
subject to the conditions in the May 16, 1997 order and the "hold-departure" order of April 10, 1997. The pre-trial
conference was set on June 7, 1997.
On June 2, 1997, petitioner filed a petition for certiorari (CA-G.R. SP No. 44316) in the Court of Appeals, assailing the
trial court's order, dated May 16, 1997, and its two orders, dated May 23, 1997, denying his motion to quash and
maintaining the conditions set forth in its order of May 16, 1997, respectively.
While the case was pending in the Court of Appeals, two more informations were filed against petitioner, bringing the
total number of cases against him to 12, which were all consolidated.
On June 30, 1997, the Court of Appeals rendered its decision, the dispositive portion of which reads:
WHEREFORE, considering that the conditions imposed under Nos. 2-a) and 2-b), 5 of the May 23
[should be May 16], 1997 Order, are separable, and would not affect the cash bond which petitioner
posted for his provisional liberty, with the sole modification that those aforesaid conditions are hereby
ANNULLED and SET ASIDE, the May 16, May 23 and May 23, 1997 Orders are MAINTAINED in all
other respects.6
The appellate court invalidated the first two conditions imposed in the May 16, 1997 order for the grant of bail
to petitioner but ruled that the issue concerning the validity of the condition making arraignment a prerequisite
for the approval of petitioner's bail bonds to be moot and academic. It noted "that petitioner has posted the cash bonds;
that when arraigned, represented by lawyers, he pleaded not guilty to each offense; and that he has already been
released from detention." The Court of Appeals thought that the aforesaid conditions in the May 16, 1997 order were
contrary to Art. III, §14(2) of the Constitution which provides that "[a]fter arraignment, trial may proceed notwithstanding
the absence of the accused provided that he has been duly notified and his failure to appear is unjustifiable."
With respect to the denial of petitioner's motion to quash the informations against him, the appellate court held that
petitioner could not question the same in a petition for certiorari before it, but what he must do was to go to
trial and to reiterate the grounds of his motion to quash on appeal should the decision be adverse to him.
Hence this petition. Petitioner contends that the Court of Appeals erred 7 —
1. In ruling that the condition imposed by respondent Judge that the approval of petitioner's bail bonds
"shall be made only after his arraignment" is of no moment and has been rendered moot and
academic by the fact that he had already posted the bail bonds and had pleaded not guilty to all the
offenses;
2. In not resolving the submission that the arraignment was void not only because it was made under
compelling circumstance which left petitioner no option to question the respondent Judge's arbitrary
action but also because it emanated from a void Order;
3. In ruling that the denial of petitioner's motion to quash may not be impugned in a petition
for certiorari ; and
4. In not resolving the legal issue of whether or not petitioner may be validly charged for violation of
Section 5(b) of RA No. 7610 under several informations corresponding to the number of alleged acts
of child abuse allegedly committed against each private complainant by the petitioner.
We will deal with each of these contentions although not in the order in which they are stated by petitioner.
First. As already stated, the trial court's order, dated May 16, 1997, imposed four conditions for the grant of
bail to petitioner:
a) The accused shall not be entitled to a waiver of appearance during the trial of these cases. He shall
and must always be present at the hearings of these cases;
b) In the event that he shall not be able to do so, his bail bonds shall be automatically cancelled and
forfeited, warrants for his arrest shall be immediately issued and the cases shall proceed to trial in
absentia;
c) The hold-departure Order of this Court dated April 10, 1997 stands; and
d) Approval of the bail bonds shall be made only after the arraignment to enable this Court to
immediately acquire jurisdiction over the accused;
The Court of Appeals declared conditions (a) and (b) invalid but declined to pass upon the validity of condition (d) on
the ground that the issue had become moot and academic. Petitioner takes issue with the Court of Appeals with
respect to its treatment of condition (d) of the May 16, 1997 order of the trial court which makes petitioner's
arraignment a prerequisite to the approval of his bail bonds. His contention is that this condition is void and that his
arraignment was also invalid because it was held pursuant to such invalid condition.
We agree with petitioner that the appellate court should have determined the validity of the conditions imposed
in the trial court's order of May 16, 1997 for the grant of bail because petitioner's contention is that his
arraignment was held in pursuance of these conditions for bail.
In requiring that petitioner be first arraigned before he could be granted bail, the trial court apprehended that if
petitioner were released on bail he could, by being absent, prevent his early arraignment and thereby delay his trial
until the complainants got tired and lost interest in their cases. Hence, to ensure his presence at the arraignment,
approval of petitioner's bail bonds should be deferred until he could be arraigned. After that, even if petitioner does not
appear, trial can proceed as long as he is notified of the date of hearing and his failure to appear is unjustified, since
under Art. III, §14(2) of the Constitution, trial in absentia is authorized. This seems to be the theory of the trial court in
its May 16, 1997 order conditioning the grant of bail to petitioner on his arraignment.
This theory is mistaken. In the first place, as the trial court itself acknowledged, in cases where it is authorized, bail
should be granted before arraignment, otherwise the accused may be precluded from filing a motion to quash.
For if the information is quashed and the case is dismissed, there would then be no need for the arraignment of the
accused. In the second place, the trial court could ensure the presence of petitioner at the arraignment precisely by
granting bail and ordering his presence at any stage of the proceedings, such as arraignment. Under Rule 114, §2(b) of
the Rules on Criminal Procedure, one of the conditions of bail is that "the accused shall appear before the proper court
whenever so required by the court or these Rules," while under Rule 116, §1(b) the presence of the accused at the
arraignment is required.
On the other hand, to condition the grant of bail to an accused on his arraignment would be to place him in a position
where he has to choose between (1) filing a motion to quash and thus delay his release on bail because until his
motion to quash can be resolved, his arraignment cannot be held, and (2) foregoing the filing of a motion to quash so
that he can be arraigned at once and thereafter be released on bail. These scenarios certainly undermine the
accused's constitutional right not to be put on trial except upon valid complaint or information sufficient to charge him
with a crime and his right to bail. 8
It is the condition in the May 16, 1997 order of the trial court that "approval of the bail bonds shall be made only
after arraignment," which the Court of Appeals should instead have declared void. The condition imposed in the
trial court's order of May 16, 1997 that the accused cannot waive his appearance at the trial but that he must be
present at the hearings of the case is valid and is in accordance with Rule 114. For another condition of bail under Rule
114, §2(c) is that "The failure of the accused to appear at the trial without justification despite due notice to him or his
bondsman shall be deemed an express waiver of his right to be present on the date specified in the notice. In such
case, trial shall proceed in absentia."
Art. III, §14(2) of the Constitution authorizing trials in absentia allows the accused to be absent at the trial but
not at certain stages of the proceedings, to wit: (a) at arraignment and plea, whether of innocence or of guilt, 9 (b)
during trial whenever necessary for identification purposes, 10 and (c) at the promulgation of sentence, unless it is for a
light offense, in which case the accused may appear by counsel or representative. 11 At such stages of the proceedings,
his presence is required and cannot be waived. As pointed out in Borja v. Mendoza,12 in an opinion by Justice, later
Chief Justice, Enrique Fernando, there can be no trial in absentia unless the accused has been arraigned.
Undoubtedly, the trial court knew this. Petitioner could delay the proceedings by absenting himself from the
arraignment. But once he is arraigned, trial could proceed even in his absence. So it thought that to ensure petitioner's
presence at the arraignment, petitioner should be denied bail in the meantime. The fly in the ointment, however, is that
such court strategy violates petitioner's constitutional rights.
Second. Although this condition is invalid, it does not follow that the arraignment of petitioner on May 23, 1997 was also
invalid. Contrary to petitioner's contention, the arraignment did not emanate from the invalid condition that "approval of
the bail bonds shall be made only after the arraignment." Even without such a condition, the arraignment of petitioner
could not be omitted. In sum, although the condition for the grant of bail to petitioner is invalid, his arraignment and the
subsequent proceedings against him are valid.
Third. Petitioner concedes that the rule is that the remedy of an accused whose motion to quash is denied is not to file
a petition for certiorari but to proceed to trial without prejudice to his right to reiterate the grounds invoked in his motion
to quash during trial on the merits or on appeal if an adverse judgment is rendered against him. However, he argues
that this case should be treated as an exception. He contends that the Court of Appeals should not have evaded the
issue of whether he should be charged under several informations corresponding to the number of acts of child abuse
allegedly committed by him against each of the complainants.
In Tano v. Salvador,13 the Court, while holding that certiorari will not lie from a denial of a motion to quash, nevertheless
recognized that there may be cases where there are special circumstances clearly demonstrating the inadequacy of an
appeal. In such cases, the accused may resort to the appellate court to raise the issue decided against him. This is
such a case. Whether petitioner is liable for just one crime regardless of the number of sexual acts allegedly committed
by him and the number of children with whom he had sexual intercourse, or whether each act of intercourse constitutes
one crime is a question that bears on the presentation of evidence by either party. It is important to petitioner as well as
to the prosecution how many crimes there are. For instance, if there is only one offense of sexual abuse regardless of
the number of children involved, it will not matter much to the prosecution whether it is able to present only one of the
complainants. On the other hand, if each act of sexual intercourse with a child constitutes a separate offense, it will
matter whether the other children are presented during the trial.
The issue then should have been decided by the Court of Appeals. However, instead of remanding this case to the
appellate court for a determination of this issue, we will decide the issue now so that the trial in the court below can
proceed without further delay.
Petitioner's contention is that the 12 informations filed against him allege only one offense of child abuse,
regardless of the number of alleged victims (four) and the number of acts of sexual intercourse committed with
them (twelve). He argues that the act of sexual intercourse is only a means of committing the offense so that the acts
of sexual intercourse/lasciviousness with minors attributed to him should not be subject of separate informations. He
cites the affidavits of the alleged victims which show that their involvement with him constitutes an "unbroken chain of
events," i.e., the first victim was the one who introduced the second to petitioner and so on. Petitioner says that child
abuse is similar to the crime of large-scale illegal recruitment where there is only a single offense regardless of the
number of workers illegally recruited on different occasions. In the alternative, he contends that, at the most, only four
informations, corresponding to the number of alleged child victims, can be filed against him.
Art. III, §5 of R.A. No. 7160 under which petitioner is being prosecuted, provides:
Sec. 5 Child Prostitution and Other Sexual Abuse . — Children, whether male or female, who for
money, profit, or any other consideration or due to the coercion or influence of any adult, syndicate or
group, indulge in sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct, are deemed to be children exploited in
prostitution and other sexual abuse.
The penalty of reclusion temporal in its medium period to reclusion perpetua shall be imposed upon
the following:
xxx xxx xxx
(b) Those who commit the act of sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct with a child exploited in
prostitution or subjected to other sexual abuse.
The elements of the offense are as follows: (1) the accused commits the act of sexual intercourse or lascivious
conduct; (2) that said act is performed with a child exploited in prostitution or subjected to other sexual abuse; and (3)
the child,14 whether male or female, is or is deemed under 18 years of age. Exploitation in prostitution or other sexual
abuse occurs when the child indulges in sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct (a) for money, profit, or any other
consideration; or (b) under the coercion or influence of any adult, syndicate, or group.
Each incident of sexual intercourse and lascivious act with a child under the circumstances mentioned in Air. III, §5 of
R.A. No. 7160 is thus a separate and distinct offense. The offense is similar to rape or act of lasciviousness under the
Revised Penal Code in which each act of rape or lascivious conduct should be the subject of a separate information.
This conclusion is confirmed by Art. III, §5(b) of R.A. No. 7160, which provides:
[t]hat when the victim is under twelve (12) years of age, the perpetrators shall be prosecuted under
Article 335, paragraph 3, for rape and Article 336 of Act No. 3815, as amended, the Revised Penal
Code, for rape or lascivious conduct, as the case may be: Provided, That the penalty for lascivious
conduct when the victim is under twelve (12) years of age shall be reclusion temporal in its medium
period;
WHEREFORE, the decision of the Court of Appeals is SET ASIDE and another one is RENDERED declaring the
orders dated May 16, 1997 and May 23, 1997 of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 107, Quezon City to be valid, with the
exception of condition (d) in the second paragraph of the order of May 16, 1997 (making arraignment a prerequisite to
the grant of bail to petitioner), which is hereby declared void. 1âwphi1.nêt
SO ORDERED.
HAYDEE HERRAS TEEHANKEE, petitioner,
vs.
LEOPOLDO ROVIRA, ANTONIO QUIRINO, and POMPEYO DIAZ, respondents.
Vicente J. Francisco for petitioner.
Respondent Judges in their own behalf.
HILADO, J.:
Petitioner Haydee Herras Teehankee is a political detainee delivered by the Counter Intelligence Corps, United
States Army, to the Commonwealth Government, pursuant to the Proclamation of General of the Army Douglas
MacArthur, dated December 29, 1944. She was one of the petitioners in case No. L-44, "Raquiza vs. Bradford," of this
court (p. 50, ante). She is now confined in the Correctional Institution for Women under the custody of the
Commonwealth Government since October, 1945, when she was thus delivered to the said government.
Under the date of October 2, 1945, petitioner, through her husband, Alberto Teehankee, filed with the People's Court a
petition wherein, invoking the provisions of Executive Order No. 65, promulgated by His Excellency, the President of
the Philippines, dated September 3, 1945, she prayed that her immediate release be ordered on the ground that no
evidence exists upon which she could be charged with any act punishable by law , or, alternatively, that the
People's Court fix the bail for her provisional liberty, in conformity with the aforesaid executive order, and upon approval
of such bail, that an order be forthwith issued directing then officer having official custody of her person to immediately
release her.
On October 4, 1945, the Hon. Antonio Quirino, one of the Associate Judges of the People's Court, upon considering
the said petition, required the Solicitor General "to file his comment and recommendation as soon as possible."
On October 5, 1945, the Solicitor General filed recommendation in compliance with said order, stating: "that on the
strength of the evidence at hand, the reasonable basil recommended for the provisional release of the petitioner be
fixed at Fifty Thousand Pesos (50,000)."
On October 9, 1945, the Hon. Leopoldo Rovira, Presiding Judge of the People's Court, entered an order referring the
petition for provisional release above mentioned for consideration by the Fifth Division of said Court, but adding the
following statement: "in my opinion, it should be denied notwithstanding the recommendation of the Solicitor General
for her provisional release under a bond of Fifty Thousand Pesos (50,000)."
On the same date, October 9, 1945, the Hon. Pompeyo Diaz, Associate Judge of said Court, entered an order
disposing of said petition and denying the same "in view of the gravity of the offense as can be deduced from the
fact that the office of the Special Prosecutors recommends as high as Fifty Thousand Pesos (50,000) for her
provisional release."
A motion having been filed by petitioner with the People's Court praying said court to reconsider its order of October 9,
1945, denying her petition for provisional release the Court, through Associate Judge Pompeyo Diaz, denied said
motion.
In her present petition for the writs of certiorari and mandamus originally filed with this Court on October 19, 1945,
petitioner avers that the above-mentioned Judges of the People's Court, in denying her petition for provisional
liberty under bail, as well as her motion for reconsideration, acted in excess of jurisdiction and with grave abuse
of discretion. Paragraph VII of this petition contains her allegations in support of this charge.
Under the date of October 21, 1945, respondent Judge Pompeyo Diaz filed his answer stating that the order denying
bail "was issued under express mandate of the law", citing section 19 of Commonwealth Act No. 682.
Article III, section 1 (16) of the Commonwealth Constitution provides that:
All persons shall before conviction be bailable by sufficient sureties , except those charged with
capital offenses when evidence of guilt is strong. Excessive bail shall not be required.
Rule 110 of the Rules of Court provides in the following sections:
SEC. 3. Offenses less than capital before conviction by the Court of First Instance. — After judgement
by a justice of the peace and before conviction by the court of First Instance, the defendant shall be
admitted to bail as of right.
SEC. 4. Noncapital offenses after conviction by the Court of First
Instance. — After conviction by the Court of First Instance, defendant may, upon application, be bailed
at the discretion of the court.
SEC. 5. Capital offenses defined. — A capital offense, as the term the time of its commission, and at
the time of the application to be admitted to bail, may be punished by death.
 SEC. 6. Capital offense not bailable. — No person in custody for the commission of a capital offense
shall be admitted to bail if the evidence of his guilt is strong.
SEC. 7. Capital offenses — burden of proof. — On the hearing of an application for admission to bail
made by any person who is in custody for the commission of a capital offense, the burden of showing
that evidence of guilt is strong is on the prosecution. lawphi1.net
SEC. 8. Notice of application to fiscal. — When admission to bail is a matter of discretion, the court
must require that reasonable notice of the hearing of the application for bail be given to the fiscal.
Section 66 of General Orders, No. 58 stipulates:
When admission to bail is a matter of discretion, the court must require that reasonable notice of the
hearing of the application for bail be given to the promotor fiscal.
Section 19 of Commonwealth Act No. 682 contains the following proviso:
SEC. 19. . . . Provided, however, That existing provisions of law to the contrary notwithstanding, the
aforesaid political prisoners may, in the discretion of the People's Court, after due notice to the office of
Special Prosecutors and hearing, be released on bail, even prior to the presentation of the
corresponding information, unless the Court finds that there is strong evidence of the commission of a
capital offense. . . . .
Section 22 of Commonwealth Act No. 682 ordains:
SEC. 22. The prosecution, trial and disposal of cases before the People's Court shall be governed by
existing laws and rules of court, unless otherwise expressly provided herein . . . .
Against the petitioner herein no information had yet been presented when she filed her petition dated October
2, 1945, containing the alternative prayer for the fixing of bail for her provisional liberty. She there invokes Executive
Order No. 65 of the President of the Philippines, date September 3, 1945. The proviso above quoted from section 19 of
the People's Court Act (Commonwealth At No. 682) also existed in the statute books at the time.
The able arguments adduced on both sides have received the most careful consideration of the Court as befits the
importance of the questions involved. However, in the view we take of the case, a majority of the Court are of opinion
that the only question calling for decision at this time are: (1) whether Article III, section 1 (16) of the
Commonwealth Constitution is applicable to the instant case; (2) whether a hearing should be held of the application
for bail with attendance of the petitioner and the Solicitor General or the latter's representative; and (3) if so, what kind
of hearing it should be.
1. As to the first question, we hold that Article III, section 1 (16) of the Commonwealth Constitution is applicable to the
instant case. This Constitutional mandate refers to all persons, not only to persons against whom a complaint or
information has already been formally filed. It lays down the rule that all persons shall before conviction be bailable
except those charged with capital offenses when evidence of guilt is strong. According to this provision, the general
rule is that any person, before being convicted of any criminal offense, shall be bailable, except when he is charged
with a capital offense and the evidence of his guilt is strong. Of course, only those persons who have been either
arrested, detained or otherwise deprived of their liberty will ever have occasion to seek the benefits of said
provision. But in order that a person can invoke this constitutional precept, it is not necessary that he should wait until a
formal complaint or information is filed against him. From the moment he is placed under arrest, detention or restraint
by the officers of the law, he can claim this guarantee of the Bill of Rights, and this right he retains unless and until he is
charged with a capital offense and evidence of his guilt is strong. Indeed if, as admitted on all sides, the precept
protects those already charged under a formal complaint or information, there seems to be no legal or just reason for
denying its benefits to one as against whom the proper authorities may even yet conclude that there exists no sufficient
evidence of guilt. To place the former in a more favored position than the latter would be, to say the least, anomalous
and absurd. If there is a presumption of innocence in favor of one already formally charged with criminal offense
(Constitution, Article III, section 1[17], a fortiori , this presumption should be indulged in favor of one not yet so
charged, although already arrested or detained.
In Cooleys Constitutional Limitations, 7th edition, pages 436-438, we read the following:
Perhaps the most important of the protections to personal liberty consists in the mode of trial which is
secured to every person accused of crime. At the common law, accusations of felony were made in the
form of an indictment by a grand jury; and this process is still retained in many of the States, while
others have substituted in its stead an information filed by the prosecuting officer of the State or
county. The mode of investigating the facts, however, is the same in all; and this is through a trial by
jury, surrounded by certain safeguards which are a well-understood part of the system, and which the
government cannot dispense with.
First, we may mention that the humanity of our law always presumes an accused party innocent until
he is proved to be guilty. This is a presumption which attends all the proceedings against him, from
their initiation until they result in a verdict, which either finds the party guilty or converts the
presumption of innocence into an adjudged fact.
If there were any mode short of confinement which would, with reasonable certainty, insure the
attendance of the accused to answer the accusation, it would not be justifiable to inflict upon him that
indignity, when the effect is to subject him, in a greater or less degree, to the punishment of a guilty
person, while as yet it is not determined that he has committed any crime. If the punishment on
conviction cannot exceed in severity the forfeiture of a large sum of money, then it is reasonable to
suppose that such a sum of money, or an agreement by responsible parties to pay it to the
government in case the accused should fail to appear, would be sufficient security for his attendance;
and therefore, at the common law, it was customary to take security of this character in all cases of
misdemeanor; one or more friends of the accused undertaking for his appearance for trial, and
agreeing that a certain sum of money should be levied of their goods and chattels, lands and
tenements, if he made default. But in the case of felonies, the privilege of giving bail before trial was
not a matter of right; and in this country, although the criminal code is much more merciful than it
formerly was in England, and in some cases the allowance of bail is almost a matter of course, there
are others in which it is discretionary with the magistrate to allow it or not, and where it will sometimes
be refused if the evidence of guilty is strong or the presumption great. Capital offenses are not
generally regarded as bailable; at least, after indictment, or when the party is charged by
the finding of a coroner's jury; . . . ."
All the Justice Cooley says in the foregoing quotations regarding the humanity of the law in his jurisdiction and its
presumption that an accused party is innocent until he is proved to be guilty, is distinctly true also in ours where the
constitutional, statutory, and reglementary provisions on the point have been borrowed from America. The same should
be said of what he says regarding the granting of bail for provisional liberty before conviction, and even after, in
exceptional cases, of course, always subject to the limitation established by our own Constitutional, laws and rules of
court. From the last part of said quotation it follows, firstly, that before indictment or charge by the corner's jury, in the
jurisdiction to which the author refers, there may be cases in which even a capital offense is bailable, and, secondly,
that even after indictment or the finding of a corner's jury in these jurisdictions, there may be exceptional cases where a
capital offense is still bailable. Under our Constitution, as we have seen, all offenses are bailable before conviction
except capital offenses when evidence of guilt is strong. In consonance with this constitutional provision, section 3 of
Rule 110 of the Rules of Court stipulates that non-capital offenses before conviction by the Court of First
Instance shall be bailable as of right; section 4 of the same Rule provides that after conviction by the Court of
First Instance such offense may, upon application, be bailable at the discretion of the court; and section 6 of the said
Rule provides that "no person in custody for the commission of a capital offense shall be admitted to bail if
the evidence of his guilt is strong."
By the common law, all offenses including treason, murder, and other felonies, were bailable before
indictment found, although the granting or refusing of such bail in case of capital offenses was a matter
within the discretion of the court. (6 C. J., 953; emphasis supplied.)
2. As to the second question, we hold that upon application by a political prisoner or detainee to the People's Court for
provisional release under bail, a hearing, summary or otherwise, should be held with due notice to the Office of Special
Prosecutors, as well as to the prisoner or detainee. It will be remembered that section 22 of the People's Court Act
subjects the prosecution, trial, and disposal of cases before the People's Court to existing laws and rules of court,"
unless otherwise expressly provide in said act. Consequently, the hearing and disposal of application for bail for
provisional release before the People's Court should be governed by existing laws and rules of court, the hearing and
disposal of such applications being a mere part of the "prosecution, trial, and disposal" of the corresponding cases
before said court. If attention should be directed to the clause "unless otherwise expressly provided herein " in said
section 22, in connection with the first proviso of section 19 of the same act, it should be borne in mind that the
provisions of said act should be construed in harmony with those of the Constitution, under the well-settled rule of the
statutory construction that legislative enactments should be construed, wherever possible, in manner that would avoid
their conflicting with the fundamental law.
3. As to the third question. While it is true that the Solicitor General on October 3, 1945, recommended Fifty
Thousand Pesos (P50,000) as a reasonable bail "on the strength of the evidence at hand," it may happen
that thereafter his office may have secured additional evidence which in addition to or in connection with the already
possessed, in his opinion is sufficiently strong to prove petitioner's guilt for a capital offense, in which case, he may
yet decide to oppose the application for bail heretofore filed by petitioner at the hearing thereof hereinafter
ordered. It will be remembered that petitioner, while under the custody of the Counter Intelligence Corps, United
States Army, was charged with (a) "Active Collaboration with the Japanese" and ( b) "Previous Association with the
enemy" (Raquiza vs. Bradford, p. 50, ante). Under the definition of the treason in the Revised Penal Code, active
collaboration with the Japanese and association with them during the war in the Philippines may constitute
treason, a capital offense.
ART. 114. Any person who, owing allegiance to the United States or the Government of the Philippine
Islands, not being a foreigner, . . . adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort within the
Philippine Islands or elsewhere, shall be punished by reclusion temporal to death and shall pay a fine
not to exceed 20,000 pesos. (Revised Penal Code.)
Of course, it may also happen that either because no such further evidence has come into his possession or because,
in his judgement, the public interest would be better served by him withholding the evidence that he has until the trial in
the merits, he would prefer not to oppose the application for bail. At the hearing of the application the Solicitor General
will be free to adopt one course or the other. If he opposes, the burden of proof will be on him to show the petitioner is
not entitled to bail. Petitioner will have the right to offer evidence to prove her right thereto. In fine, the hearing is for the
purpose of enabling the People's Court to exercise its sound discretion as to whether or not under the Constitution and
laws in force petitioner is entitled to provisional release under bail.
WHEREFORE, it is the judgement of this Court that: (a) the order of the People's Court, dated October 9, 1945,
denying petitioner's petition for provisional release under bail, and the order of said Court, dated October 13, 1945,
denying petitioner's motion for reconsideration of said order of October 9, 1945, which we declare to have been
entered with grave abuse of discretion, be set aside; and (b) that for the proper application of the pertinent
constitutional, statutory, and reglementary provisions alluded to in the body of this decision , a hearing of
the petitioner's application for bail be held before the People's Court with due notice to the Solicitor
General, as well as to the petitioner, as hereinabove outlined, said hearing, whether summary or otherwise, to be
such as would enable the People's Court to exercise its sound discretion in the disposal of the aforesaid petition.
Without costs. So ordered.
MIGUEL P. PADERANGA, petitioner,
vs.
COURT OF APPEALS and PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.
REGALADO, J.:
The adverse decision in this case promulgated by respondent Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. SP No.
32233 on November 24, 1993, as well as its resolution of April 26, 1994 denying the motion for
reconsideration thereof, are challenged by petitioner Miguel P. Paderanga in this appeal
by certiorari through a petition which raises issues centering mainly on said petitioner's right to be
admitted to bail.
On January 28, 1990, petitioner was belatedly charged in an amended information as a co-conspirator
in the crime of multiple murder in Criminal Case No. 86-39 of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 18 of
Cagayan de Oro City for the killing of members of the Bucag family sometime in 1984 in Gingoog
City of which petitioner was the mayor at the time. The original information, filed on October 6, 1986
with the Regional Trial Court of Gingoog City, 1 had initially indicted for multiple murder eight accused
suspect, namely, Felipe Galarion, Manuel Sabit, Cesar Sabit, Julito Ampo, Eddie Torion, John Doe,
 Peter Doe And Richard Doe as the alleged conspirators in the indiscriminate slaying of the spouses
Romeo and Juliet Bucag and their son, Romeo, Jr. However, only one of the accused, Felipe
Galarion, was apprehended, tried and eventually convicted. Galarion later escaped from
prison. The others have remained at large up to the present. 2
In a bizarre twist of events, one Felizardo ("Ely") Roxas was implicated in the crime. In an amended
information dated October 6, 1988, he was charged as a co-accused therein. As herein petitioner was
his former employer and thus knew him well, Roxas engaged the former's services as counsel in said
case. Ironically, in the course of the preliminary investigation therein, said accused, in a signed
affidavit dated March 30, 1989 but which he later retracted on June 20, 1990, implicated
petitioner as the supposed mastermind behind the massacre of the Bucag family. 3
Then, upon the inhibition of the City Prosecutor of Cagayan de Oro City from the case per his
resolution of July 7, 1989, the Department of Justice, at the instance of said prosecutor, designated a
replacement, State Prosecutor Henrick F. Gingoyon, for purposes of both the preliminary investigation
and prosecution of Criminal Case No. 86-39. Pursuant to a resolution of the new prosecutor dated
September 6, 1989, petitioner was finally charged as a co-conspirator in said criminal case in a
second amended information dated October 6, 1992. Petitioner assailed his inclusion therein as a co-
accused all the way to this Court in G.R. No. 96080 entitled "Atty. Miguel P. Paderanga vs. Hon.
Franklin M. Drilon, Hon. Silvestre H. Bello III, Atty. Henrick F. Gingoyon, Helen B. Canoy and Rebecca
B. Tan." In an en banc decision promulgated on April 19, 1991, the Court sustained the filing of the
second amended information against him. 4
Under this backdrop, the trial of the base was all set to start with the issuance of an arrest warrant for
petitioner's apprehension but, before it could be served on him, petitioner through counsel, filed on
October 28, 1992 a motion for admission to bail with the trial court which set the same for hearing on
November 5, 1992. Petitioner duly furnished copies of the motion to State Prosecutor Henrick F.
Gingoyon, the Regional State Prosecutor's Office, and the private prosecutor, Atty. Benjamin Guimong.
On November 5, 1992, the trial court proceeded to hear the application for bail. Four of petitioner's
counsel appeared in court but only Assistant Prosecutor Erlindo Abejo of the Regional State
Prosecution's Office appeared for the prosecution. 5
As petitioner was then confined at the Cagayan Capitol College General Hospital due to "acute
costochondritis," his counsel manifested that they were submitting custody over the person of their
client to the local chapter president of the integrated Bar of the Philippines and that, for purposes of
said hearing of his bail application, he considered being in the custody of the law. Prosecutor Abejo, on
the other hand, informed the trial court that in accordance with the directive of the chief of their office,
Regional State prosecutor Jesus Zozobrado, the prosecution was neither supporting nor opposing the
application for bail and that they were submitting the same to the sound discretion of the trail judge. 6
Upon further inquiries from the trial court, Prosecutor Abejo announced that he was waiving any further
presentation of evidence. On that note and in a resolution dated November 5, 1992, the trial court
admitted petitioner to bail in the amount of P200,000.00. The following day, November 6, 1992,
petitioner, apparently still weak but well enough to travel by then, managed to personally appear
before the clerk of court of the trial court and posted bail in the amount thus fixed. He was thereafter
arraigned and in the trial that ensued, he also personally appeared and attended all the
scheduled court hearings of the case. 7
The subsequent motion for reconsideration of said resolution filed twenty (20) days later on November 26, 1992 by
Prosecutor Gingoyon who allegedly received his copy of the petition for admission to bail on the day after the hearing,
was denied by the trial court in its omnibus order dated March 29, 1993. On October 1, 1993, or more than six (6)
months later, Prosecutor Gingoyon elevated the matter to respondent Court of Appeals through a special civil action
for certiorari . Thus were the resolution and the order of the trial court granting bail to petitioner annulled on
November 24, 1993, in the decision now under review, on the ground that they were tainted with grave abuse
of discretion. 8
Respondent court observed in its decision that at the time of petitioner's application for bail, he
was not yet "in the custody of the law," apparently because he filed his motion for admission to
bail before he was actually arrested or had voluntarily surrendered. It further noted that apart from the
circumstance that petitioner was charged with a crime punishable by reclusion perpetua, the evidence
of guilt was strong as borne out by the fact that no bail was recommended by the prosecution, for
which reasons it held that the grant of bail was doubly improvident. Lastly, the prosecution, according
to respondent court, was not afforded an opportunity to oppose petitioner's application for bail contrary
to the requirements of due process. Hence,
Petitioner argues that, in accordance with the ruling of this Court in Santiago vs. Vasquez etc., et
al., 9 his filing of the aforesaid application for bail with the trial court effectively conferred on
the latter jurisdiction over his person. In short, for all intents and purposes, he was in the
custody of the law. In petitioner's words, the "invocation by the accused of the court's jurisdiction by
filing a pleading in court is sufficient to vest the court with jurisdiction over the person of the accused
and bring him within the custody of the law."
Petitioner goes on to contend that the evidence on record negates the existence of such strong
evidence as would bar his provisional release on bail . Furthermore, the prosecution, by reason
of the waiver by Prosecutor Abejo of any further presentation of evidence to oppose the application for
bail and whose representation in court in behalf of the prosecution bound the latter, cannot legally
assert any claim to a denial of procedural due process. Finally, petitioner points out that the special
civil action for certiorari was filed in respondent court after an unjustifiable length of time.
On the undisputed facts , the legal principles applicable and the equities involved in this case, the
Court finds for petitioner.
1. Section 1 of Rule 114, as amended, defines bail as the security given for the release of a person in
custody of the law, furnished by him or a bondsman, conditioned upon his appearing before any court
as required under the conditions specified in said Rule. Its main purpose, then, is to relieve an
accused from the rigors of imprisonment until his conviction and yet secure his appearance at the
trial. 10 As bail is intended to obtain or secure one's provisional liberty, the same cannot be posted
before custody over him has been acquired by the judicial authorities, either by his lawful arrest or
voluntary surrender. 11 As this Court has put it in a case "it would be incongruous to grant bail to
one who is free." 12
The rationale behind the rule is that it discourages and prevents resort to the former pernicious
practice whereby an accused could just send another in his stead to post his bail, without recognizing
the jurisdiction of the court by his personal appearance therein and compliance with the requirements
therefor. 13 Thus, in Feliciano vs. Pasicolan, etc., et al., 14 where the petitioner who had been charged
with kidnapping with murder went into hiding without surrendering himself, and shortly thereafter filed a
motion asking the court to fix the amount of the bail bond for his release pending trial, the Supreme
Court categorically pronounced that said petitioner was not eligible for admission to bail.
As a paramount requisite then, only those persons who have either been arrested, detained, or other
wise deprived of their freedom will ever have occasion to seek the protective mantle extended by
the right to bail. The person seeking his provisional release under the auspices of bail need not even
wait for a formal complaint or information to be filed against him as it is available to "all
persons" 15 where the offense is bailable. The rule is, of course, subject to the condition or
limitation that the applicant is in the custody of the law . 16
On the other hand, a person is considered to be in the custody of the law (a) when he is arrested
either by virtue of a warrant of arrest issued pursuant to Section 6, Rule 112, or by warrantless
arrest under Section 5, Rule 113 in relation to Section 7, Rule 112 of the revised Rules on Criminal
Procedure, or (b) when he has voluntarily submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the court by
surrendering to the proper authorities. 17in this light, the ruling, vis-a-vis the facts in Santiago
vs. Vasquez, etc., et al., 18 should be explained.
In said case, the petitioner who was charged before the Sandiganbayan for violation of the Anti-Graft
and Corrupt Practices Act, filed through counsel what purported to be an "Urgent Ex-parte Motion for
Acceptance of Cash Bail Bond." Said petitioner was at the time confined in a hospital recuperating
from serious physical injuries which she sustained in a major vehicular mishap. Consequently, she
expressly sought leave "that she be considered as having placed herself under the jurisdiction of (the
Sandiganbayan) for purposes of the required trial and other proceedings." On the basis of said ex-
parte motion and the peculiar circumstances obtaining in that incident, the Sandiganbayan authorized
petitioner to post a cash bail bond for her provisional liberty without need of her personal appearance
in view of her physical incapacity and as a matter of humane consideration.
When the Sandiganbayan later issued a hold departure order against her, she question the
jurisdiction of that court over her person in a recourse before this Court, on the ground that "she
neither been arrested nor has she voluntarily surrendered, aside from the fact that she has not validly
posted bail since she never personally appeared before said court" In rejecting her arguments, the
Court held that she was clearly estopped from assailing the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan for by
her own representations in the urgent ex parte motion for bail she had earlier recognized such
jurisdiction. Furthermore, by actually posting a cash bail was accepted by the court, she had
effectively submitted to its jurisdiction over her person. Nonetheless, on the matter of bail, the
Court took pains to reiterate that the same cannot be posted before custody of the accused has been
acquired by the judicial authorities either by his arrest or voluntary surrender.
In the case of herein petitioner, it may be conceded that he had indeed filed his motion for
admission to bail before he was actually and physically placed under arrest. He may, however, at
that point and in the factual ambience therefore, be considered as being constructively and
legally under custody. Thus in the likewise peculiar circumstance which attended the filing of his bail
application with the trail court, for purposes of the hearing thereof he should be deemed to have
voluntarily submitted his person to the custody of the law and, necessarily, to the jurisdiction of the trial
court which thereafter granted bail as prayed for. In fact, an arrest is made either by actual restraint of
the arrestee or merely by his submission to the custody of the person making the arrest. 19 The latter
mode may be exemplified by the so-called "house arrest" or, in case of military offenders, by being
"confined to quarters" or restricted to the military camp area.
It should be stressed herein that petitioner, through his counsel, emphatically made it known to the
prosecution and to the trail court during the hearing for bail that he could not personally appear as he
was then confined at the nearby Cagayan Capitol College General Hospital for acute costochondritis,
and could not then obtain medical clearance to leave the hospital. The prosecution and the trial court,
notwithstanding their explicit knowledge of the specific whereabouts of petitioner, never lifted a finger
to have the arrest warrant duly served upon him. Certainly, it would have taken but the slightest effort
to place petitioner in the physical custody of the authorities, since he was then incapacitated and
under medication in a hospital bed just over a kilometer away, by simply ordering his confinement or
placing him under guard.
The undeniable fact is that petitioner was by then in the constructive custody of the law.
Apparently, both the trial court and the prosecutors agreed on that point since they never attempted to
have him physically restrained. Through his lawyers, he expressly submitted to physical and legal
control over his person, firstly, by filing the application for bail with the trail court; secondly, by
furnishing true information of his actual whereabouts; and, more importantly, by unequivocally
recognizing the jurisdiction of the said court. Moreover, when it came to his knowledge that a warrant
for his arrest had been issued, petitioner never made any attempt or evinced any intent to evade the
clutches of the law or concealed his whereabouts from the authorities since the day he was charged in
court, up to the submission application for bail, and until the day of the hearing thereof.
At the hearing, his counsel offered proof of his actual confinement at the hospital on account of an
acute ailment, which facts were not at all contested as they were easily verifiable. And, as a
manifestation of his good faith and of his actual recognition of the authority of trial court, petitioner's
counsel readily informed the court that they were surrendering custody of petitioner to the president of
the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Misamis Oriental Chapter. 20 In other words, the motion for
admission to bail was filed not for the purpose or in the manner of the former practice which the law
proscribes for the being derogatory of the authority and jurisdiction of the courts, as what had
happened in Feliciano. There was here no intent or strategy employed to obtain bail in absentia and
thereby be able to avoid arrest should the application therefore be denied.
2. Section 13, Article III of the Constitution lays down the rule that before conviction, all indictees shall be allowed bail,
except only those charged with offenses punishable by reclusion perpetua when the evidence of guilt is strong. In
pursuance thereof, Section 4 of Rule 114, as amended, now provides that all persons in custody shall, before
conviction by a regional trial court of an offense not punishable by death, reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, be
admitted to bail as a matter of right. The right to bail, which may be waived considering its personal nature 21 and
which, to repeat, arises from the time one is placed in the custody of the law, springs from the presumption of
innocence accorded every accused upon whom should not be inflicted incarceration at the outset since after trial he
would be entitled to acquittal, unless his guilt be established beyond reasonable doubt. 22
Thus, the general rule is that prior to conviction by the regional trial court of a criminal offense, an accused is entitled to
be released on bail as a matter of right, the present exceptions thereto being the instances where the accused is
charged with a capital offense or an offense punishable by reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment 23and the evidence
of guilt is strong. Under said general rule, upon proper application for admission to bail, the court having custody of the
accused should, as a matter of course, grant the same after a hearing conducted to specifically determine the
conditions of the bail in accordance with Section 6 (now, Section 2) of Rule 114. On the other hand, as the grant of bail
becomes a matter of judicial discretion on the part of the court under the exceptions to the rule, a hearing, mandatory in
nature and which should be summary or otherwise in the discretion of the court, 24 is required with the participation of
both the defense and a duly notified representative of the prosecution, this time to ascertain whether or not the
evidence of guilt is strong for the provisional liberty of the applicant. 25 Of course, the burden of proof is on the
prosecution to show that the evidence meets the required quantum. 26
Where such a hearing is set upon proper motion or petition, the prosecution must be give an opportunity to present,
within a reasonable time, all the evidence that it may want to introduce before the court may resolve the application,
since it is equally entitled as the accused to due process. 27 If the prosecution is denied this opportunity, there would be
a denial of procedural due process, as a consequence of which the court's order in respect of the motion or petition is
void. 28 At the hearing, the petitioner can rightfully cross-examine the witnesses presented by the prosecution and
introduce his own evidence in rebuttal. 29 When, eventually, the court issues an order either granting or refusing bail,
the same should contain a summary of the evidence for the prosecution, followed by its conclusion as to whether or not
the evidence of guilt is strong. 30 The court, though, cannot rely on mere affidavits or recitals of their contents, if timely
objected to, for these represent only hearsay evidence, and thus are insufficient to establish the quantum of evidence
that the law requires. 31
In this appeal, the prosecution assails what it considers to be a violation of procedural due process when the court
below allowed Assistant Prosecutor Erlindo Abejo of the Regional State Prosecutor's Office to appear in behalf of the
prosecution, instead of State Prosecutor Henrick P. Gingoyon who is claimed to be the sole government prosecutor
expressly authorized to handle the case and who received his copy of the motion only on the day after the hearing had
been conducted. Accordingly, the prosecution now insists that Prosecutor Abejo had no authority at all to waive the
presentation of any further evidence in opposition to the application for bail and to submit the matter to the sound
discretion of the trial court. In addition, they argue that the prosecution was not afforded "reasonable time" to oppose
that application for bail.
We disagree. Firstly, it is undisputed that the Office of the Regional State Prosecutor acted as the collaborating
counsel, with State Prosecutor Henrick Gingoyon, in Criminal Case No. 86-39 on the basis of an authority from then
Chief State Prosecutor Fernando de Leon which was sent through radio message on July 10, 1992 and duly received
by the Office of the Regional State Prosecutor on the same date. This authorization, which was to be continuing until
and unless it was expressly withdrawn, was later confirmed and then withdrawn only on July 12, 1993 by then
Secretary of Justice Franklin M. Drilon. This was done after one Rebecca Bucag-tan questioned the authority of
Regional State Prosecutor Jesus Zozobrado and State Prosecutor II Erlindo Abejo to enter their appearance as
collaborating government prosecutors in said criminal case. 32 It was in fact by virtue of this arrangement that the same
Prosecutor Zozobrado and Prosecutor Perseverando Arana entered their appearance as collaborating prosecutor in
the previous hearing in said case. 33 Hence, on the strength of said authority and of its receipt of the notice of the
hearing for bail, the Regional State Prosecutor's Office, through Prosecutor Abejo, could validly represent the
prosecution in the hearing held on November 5, 1992.
Secondly, although it is now claimed that Prosecutor Abejo was allegedly not familiar with the case, he
nonetheless was explicitly instructed about the position of the Regional State Prosecutor's Office on
the matter. Prosecutor Zozobrado, whose office received its copy of the motion on the very day when it
was sent, that is, October 28, 1992, duly instructed Prosecutor Abejo to manifest to the court that the
prosecution was neither supporting nor opposing the application for bail and that they were submitting
the matter to its sound discretion. Obviously, what this meant was that the prosecution, at that
particular posture of the case, was waiving the presentation of any countervailing evidence. When the
court a quo sought to ascertain whether or not that was the real import of the submission by
Prosecutor Abejo, the latter readily answered in the affirmative.
The following exchanges bear this out:
It is further evident from the foregoing that the prosecution, on the instructions of Regional State
prosecutor Zozobrado, had no intention at all to oppose the motion for bail and this should be so
notwithstanding the statement that they were "neither supporting nor opposing" the motion. What is of
significance is the manifestation that the prosecution was "submitting (the motion) to the sound
discretion of the Honorable Court." By that, it could not be any clearer. The prosecution was
dispensing with the introduction of evidence en contra and this it did at the proper forum and stage of
the proceedings, that is, during the mandatory hearing for bail and after the trial court had fully
satisfied itself that such was the position of the prosecution.
3. In Herras Teehankee vs. Director of Prisons, 35 it was stressed that where the trial court has reasons
to believe that the prosecutor's attitude of not opposing the application for bail is not justified, as when
he is evidently committing a gross error or a dereliction of duty, the court, in the interest of Justice,
must inquire from the prosecutor concerned as the nature of his evidence to determine whether or not
it is strong. And, in the very recent administrative matter Re: First Indorsement Dated July 21, 1992 of
Hon. Fernando de Leon, Chief State Prosecutor, Department of Justice; Alicia A. Baylon, City
Prosecutor of Dagupan City vs. Judge Deodoro Sison, 36 the Court, citing Tucay vs. Domagas,
etc., 37 held that where the prosecutor interposes no objection to the motion of the accused, the trial
court should nevertheless set the application for hearing and from there diligently ascertain from the
prosecution whether the latter is really not contesting the bail application.
No irregularity, in the context of procedural due process, could therefore be attributed to the trial court
here as regards its order granting bail to petitioner. A review of the transcript of the stenographic notes
pertinent to its resolution of November 5, 1992 and the omnibus order of March 29, 1993 abundantly
reveals scrupulous adherence to procedural rules. As summarized in its aforementioned order, the
lower court exhausted all means to convince itself of the propriety of the waiver of evidence on the part
of the prosecution. Moreover, the omnibus order contained the requisite summary of the evidence of
both the prosecution and the defense, and only after sifting through them did the court conclude that
petitioner could be provisionally released on bail. Parenthetically, there is no showing that, since then
and up to the present, petitioner has ever committed any violation of the conditions of his bail.
As to the contention that the prosecutor was not given the opportunity to present its evidence within a
reasonable period of time, we hold otherwise. The records indicate that the Regional State
Prosecutor's Office duly received its copy of the application for bail on the very same day that the it
was filed with the trial court on October 28, 1992. Counted from said date up to the day of the hearing
on November 5, 1992, the prosecution had more than one (1) week to muster such evidence as it
would have wanted to adduce in that hearing in opposition to the motion. Certainly, under the
circumstances, that period was more than reasonable. The fact that Prosecutor Gingoyon received his
copy of the application only on November 6, 1992 is beside the point for, as already established, the
Office of the Regional State Prosecutor was authorized to appear for the People.
4. What finally militates against the cause of the prosecutor is the indubitably unreasonable period of
time that elapsed before it questioned before the respondent court the resolution and the omnibus
order of the trial court through a special civil action for certiorari. The Solicitor General submits that the
delay of more than six (6) months, or one hundred eighty-four (184) days to be exact, was reasonable
due to the attendant difficulties which characterized the prosecution of the criminal case against
petitioner. But then, the certiorari proceeding was initiated before the respondent court long after trial
on the merits of the case had ensued in the court below with the active participation of prosecution
lawyers, including Prosecutor Gingoyon. At any rate, the definitive rule now in that the special civil
action for certiorari should not be instituted beyond a period of the three months, 38 the same to be
reckoned by taking into account the duration of time that had expired from the commission of the acts
complained to annul the same. 39
ACCORDINGLY, the judgment of respondent Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. SP No. 32233, promulgated on November
24, 1993, annulling the resolution dated November 5, 1992 and the omnibus order dated March 29, 1993 of the
Regional Trial Court of Cagayan de Oro City, as well as said respondent court's resolution of April 26, 1994 denying the
motion for reconsideration of said judgment, are hereby REVERSED and SET ASIDE. The aforesaid resolution and
omnibus order of the Regional Trail Court granting bail to petitioner Miguel P. Paderanga are hereby REINSTATED.
SO ORDERED.
JUAN PONCE ENRILE, Petitioner,
vs.
SANDIGANBAYAN (THIRD DIVISION), AND PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Respondents.
DECISION
BERSAMIN, J.:
The decision whether to detain or release an accused before and during trial is ultimately an incident of the judicial
power to hear and determine his criminal case. The strength of the Prosecution's case, albeit a good measure of the
accused’s propensity for flight or for causing harm to the public, is subsidiary to the primary objective of bail, which is to
ensure that the accused appears at trial.1
The Case
Before the Court is the petition for certiorari filed by Senator Juan Ponce Enrile to assail and annul the resolutions
dated July 14, 20142 and August 8, 2014 3 issued by the Sandiganbayan (Third Division) in Case No. SB-14-CRM-0238,
where he has been charged with plunder along with several others. Enrile insists that the resolutions, which
respectively denied his Motion To Fix Bail and his Motion For Reconsideration, were issued with grave abuse of
discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.
Antecedents
On June 5, 2014, the Office of the Ombudsman charged Enrile and several others with plunder in the Sandiganbayan
on the basis of their purported involvement in the diversion and misuse of appropriations under the Priority
Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).4 On June 10, 2014 and June 16, 2014, Enrile respectively filed his
Omnibus Motion5 and Supplemental Opposition, 6 praying, among others, that he be allowed to post bail should
probable cause be found against him. The motions were heard by the Sandiganbayan after the Prosecution filed its
Consolidated Opposition. 7
On July 3, 2014, the Sandiganbaya n issued its resolution denying Enrile’s motion, particularly on the matter of bail, on
the ground of its prematurity considering that Enrile had not yet then voluntarily surrendered or been placed
under the custody of the law.8 Accordingly, the Sandiganbayan ordered the arrest of Enrile. 9
On the same day that the warrant for his arrest was issued, Enrile voluntarily surrendered to Director Benjamin
Magalong of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Camp Crame, Quezon City, and was later on
confined at the Philippine National Police (PNP) General Hospital following his medical examination. 10
Thereafter, Enrile filed his Motion for Detention at the PNP General Hospital ,11 and his Motion to Fix Bail ,
12
both dated July 7, 2014, which were heard by the Sandiganbayan on July 8, 2014. 13 In support of the motions, Enrile
argued that he should be allowed to post bail because: (a) the Prosecution had not yet established that the
evidence of his guilt was strong; (b) although he was charged with plunder, the penalty as to him would only be
reclusion temporal , not reclusion perpetua ; and (c) he was not a flight risk, and his age and physical condition must
further be seriously considered.
On July 14, 2014, the Sandiganbayan issued its first assailed resolution denying Enrile’s Motion to Fix Bail, disposing
thusly:
x x x [I]t is only after the prosecution shall have presented its evidence and the Court shall have made a
determination that the evidence of guilt is not strong against accused Enrile can he demand bail as a
matter of right. Then and only then will the Court be duty-bound to fix the amount of his bail.
To be sure, no such determination has been made by the Court. In fact, accused Enrile has not filed an application for
bail. Necessarily, no bail hearing can even commence. It is thus exceedingly premature for accused Enrile to ask the
Court to fix his bail.
Accused Enrile next argues that the Court should grant him bail because while he is charged with plunder, "the
maximum penalty that may be possibly imposed on him is reclusion temporal, not reclusion perpetua." He anchors this
claim on Section 2 of R.A. No. 7080, as amended, and on the allegation that he is over seventy (70) years old and that
he voluntarily surrendered. "Accordingly, it may be said that the crime charged against Enrile is not punishable by
reclusion perpetua, and thus bailable."
The argument has no merit.
x x x [F]or purposes of bail, the presence of mitigating circumstance/s is not taken into consideration. These
circumstances will only be appreciated in the imposition of the proper penalty after trial should the accused be found
guilty of the offense charged. x x x
Lastly, accused Enrile asserts that the Court should already fix his bail because he is not a flight risk and his physical
condition must also be seriously considered by the Court.
Admittedly, the accused’s age, physical condition and his being a flight risk are among the factors that are considered
in fixing a reasonable amount of bail. However, as explained above, it is premature for the Court to fix the amount of
bail without an anterior showing that the evidence of guilt against accused Enrile is not strong.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, accused Juan Ponce Enrile’s Motion to Fix Bail dated July 7, 2014 is
DENIED for lack of merit.
SO ORDERED.14
On August 8, 2014, the Sandiganbayan issued it s second assailed resolution to deny Enrile’s motion for
reconsideration filed vis-à-vis the July 14, 2014 resolution.15
Enrile raises the following grounds in support of his petition for certiorari , namely:
A. Before judgment of the Sandiganbayan, Enrile is bailable as a matter of right. Enrile may
be deemed to fall within the exception only upon concurrence of two (2) circumstances: (i)
where the offense is punishable by reclusion perpetua, and (ii) when evidence of guilt is
strong.
B. The prosecution failed to show clearly and conclusively that Enrile, if ever he would be
convicted, is punishable by reclusion perpetua; hence, Enrile is entitled to bail as a matter
of right.
C. The prosecution failed to show clearly and conclusively that evidence of Enrile’s guilt (if
ever) is strong; hence, Enrile is entitled to bail as a matter of right.
D. At any rate, Enrile may be bailable as he is not a flight risk. 16
Enrile claims that before judgment of conviction, an accused is entitled to bail as matter of right; th at it is the duty and
burden of the Prosecution to show clearly and conclusively that Enrile comes under the exception and cannot be
excluded from enjoying the right to bail; that the Prosecution has failed to establish that Enrile, if convicted of plunder,
is punishable by reclusion perpetua considering the presence of two mitigating circumstances – his age and his
voluntary surrender; that the Prosecution has not come forward with proof showing that his guilt for the crime of plunder
is strong; and that he should not be considered a flight risk taking into account that he is already over the age of 90, his
medical condition, and his social standing.
In its Comment ,17 the Ombudsman contends that Enrile’s right to bail is discretionary as he is charged with a capital
offense; that to be granted bail, it is mandatory that a bail hearing be conducted to determine whether there is strong
evidence of his guilt, or the lack of it; and that entitlement to bail considers the imposable penalty, regardless of the
attendant circumstances.
Ruling of the Court
The petition for certiorari is meritorious.
1.
Bail protects the right of the accused to
due process and to be presumed innocent
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved. 18 The presumption of
innocence is rooted in the guarantee of due process, and is safeguarded by the constitutional right to be released on
bail,19 and further binds the court to wait until after trial to impose any punishment on the accused. 20
It is worthy to note that bail is not granted to prevent the accused from committing additional crimes.[[21] The purpose
of bail is to guarantee the appearance of the accused at the trial, or whenever so required by the trial court. The
amount of bail should be high enough to assure the presence of the accused when so required, but it should be no
higher than is reasonably calculated to fulfill this purpose. 22 Thus, bail acts as a reconciling mechanism to
accommodate both the accused’s interest in his provisional liberty before or during the trial, and the society’s interest in
assuring the accused’s presence at trial.23
2.
Bail may be granted as a
matter of right or of discretion
The right to bail is expressly afforded by Section 13, Article III (Bill of Rights) of the Constitution, viz.:
x x x All persons, except those charged with offenses punishable by reclusion perpetua when evidence of guilt is
strong, shall, before conviction, be bailable by sufficient sureties, or be released on recognizance as may be provided
by law. The right to bail shall not be impaired even when the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is suspended.
Excessive bail shall not be required.
This constitutional provision is repeated in Section 7, Rule 114 24 of the Rules of Court , as follows:
Section 7. Capital offense or an offense punishable by reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, not bailable. — No
person charged with a capital offense, or an offense punishable by reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, shall be
admitted to bail when evidence of guilt is strong, regardless of the stage of the criminal prosecution.
A capital offense in the context of the rule refers to an offense that, under the law existing at the time of its commission
and the application for admission to bail, may be punished with death. 25
The general rule is, therefore, that any person, before being convicted of any criminal offense, shall be
bailable, unless he is charged with a capital offense, or with an offense punishable with reclusion perpetua
or life imprisonment, and the evidence of his guilt is strong. Hence, from the moment he is placed under arrest,
or is detained or restrained by the officers of the law, he can claim the guarantee of his provisional liberty under
the Bill of Rights, and he retains his right to bail unless he is charged with a capital offense, or with an
offense punishable with reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, and the evidence of his guilt is
strong. 26 Once it has been established that the evidence of guilt is strong, no right to bail shall be
recognized. 27
As a result, all criminal cases within the competence of the Metropolitan Trial Court, Municipal Trial Court, Municipal
Trial Court in Cities, or Municipal Circuit Trial Court are bailable as matter of right because these courts have no
jurisdiction to try capital offenses, or offenses punishable with reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment. Likewise, bail is
a matter of right prior to conviction by the Regional Trial Court (RTC) for any offense not punishable by death, reclusion
perpetua , or life imprisonment, or even prior to conviction for an offense punishable by death, reclusion perpetua , or
life imprisonment when evidence of guilt is not strong. 28
On the other hand, the granting of bail is discretionary: (1) upon conviction by the RTC of an offense not
punishable by death, reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment; 29 or (2) if the RTC has imposed a penalty of
imprisonment exceeding six years, provided none of the circumstances enumerated under paragraph 3 of Section
5, Rule 114 is present, as follows:
(a) That he is a recidivist, quasi-recidivist, or habitual delinquent, or has committed the crime
aggravated by the circumstance of reiteration;
(b) That he has previously escaped from legal confinement, evaded sentence, or violated the
conditions of his bail without valid justification;
(c) That he committed the offense while under probation, parole, or conditional pardon;
(d) That the circumstances of hi s case indicate the probability of flight if released on bail; or
(e) That there is undue risk that he may commit another crime during the pendency of the appeal.
3.
Admission to bail in offenses punished
by death, or life imprisonment, or reclusion
perpetua is subject to judicial discretion
For purposes of admission to bail, the determination of whether or not evidence of guilt is strong in criminal cases
involving capital offenses, or offenses punishable with reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment lies within the discretion
of the trial court. But, as the Court has held in Concerned Citizens v. Elma , 30 "such discretion may be exercised only
after the hearing called to ascertain the degree of guilt of the accused for the purpose of whether or not he should be
granted provisional liberty." It is axiomatic, therefore, that bail cannot be allowed when its grant is a matter of discretion
on the part of the trial court unless there has been a hearing with notice to the Prosecution. 31 The indispensability of the
hearing with notice has been aptly explained in Aguirre v. Belmonte, viz. :32
x x x Even before its pronouncement in the Lim case, this Court already ruled in People vs. Dacudao, etc., et al. that a
hearing is mandatory before bail can be granted to an accused who is charged with a capital offense, in this wise:
The respondent court acted irregularly in granting bail in a murder case without any hearing on the motion asking for it,
without bothering to ask the prosecution for its conformity or comment, as it turned out later, over its strong objections.
The court granted bail on the sole basis of the complaint and the affidavits of three policemen, not one of whom
apparently witnessed the killing. Whatever the court possessed at the time it issued the questioned ruling was intended
only for prima facie determining whether or not there is sufficient ground to engender a well-founded belief that the
crime was committed and pinpointing the persons who probably committed it. Whether or not the evidence of guilt is
strong for each individual accused still has to be established unless the prosecution submits the issue on whatever it
has already presented. To appreciate the strength or weakness of the evidence of guilt, the prosecution must be
consulted or heard. It is equally entitled as the accused to due process.
Certain guidelines in the fixing of a bailbond call for the presentation of evidence and reasonable opportunity for the
prosecution to refute it. Among them are the nature and circumstances of the crime, character and reputation of the
accused, the weight of the evidence against him, the probability of the accused appearing at the trial, whether or not
the accused is a fugitive from justice, and whether or not the accused is under bond in other cases. (Section 6, Rule
114, Rules of Court) It is highly doubtful if the trial court can appreciate these guidelines in an ex-parte determination
where the Fiscal is neither present nor heard.
The hearing, which may be either summary or otherwise, in the discretion of the court, should primarily determine
whether or not the evidence of guilt against the accused is strong. For this purpose, a summary hearing means:
x x x such brief and speedy method of receiving and considering the evidence of guilt as is practicable and consistent
with the purpose of hearing which is merely to determine the weight of evidence for purposes of bail. On such hearing,
the court does not sit to try the merits or to enter into any nice inquiry as to the weight that ought to be allowed to the
evidence for or against the accused, nor will it speculate on the outcome of the trial or on what further evidence may be
therein offered or admitted. The course of inquiry may be left to the discretion of the court which may confine itself to
receiving such evidence as has reference to substantial matters, avoiding unnecessary thoroughness in the
examination and cross examination. 33
In resolving bail applications of the accused who is charged with a capital offense, or an offense punishable by
reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, the trial judge is expected to comply with the guidelines outlined in Cortes v.
Catral,34 to wit:
1. In all cases, whether bail is a matter of right or of discretion, notify the prosecutor of the hearing of
the application for bail or require him to submit his recommendation (Section 18, Rule 114 of the Rules
of Court, as amended);
2. Where bail is a matter of discretion, conduct a hearing of the application for bail regardless of
whether or not the prosecution refuses to present evidence to show that the guilt of the accused is
strong for the purpose of enabling the court to exercise its sound discretion; (Section 7 and 8, supra)
3. Decide whether the guilt of the accused is strong based on the summary of evidence of the
prosecution;
4. If the guilt of the accused is no t strong, discharge the accused upon the approval of the bailbond
(Section 19, supra) Otherwise petition should be denied.
3.
Enrile’s poor health justifies his admission to bail
We first note that Enrile has averred in his Motion to Fix Bail the presence of two mitigating circumstances that should
be appreciated in his favor, namely: that he was already over 70 years at the time of the alleged commission of the
offense, and that he voluntarily surrendered. 35
Enrile’s averment has been mainly uncontested by the Prosecution, whose Opposition to the Motion to Fix Bail has
only argued that –
8. As regards the assertion that the maximum possible penalty that might be imposed upon Enrile is only reclusion
temporal due to the presence of two mitigating circumstances, suffice it to state that the presence or absence of
mitigating circumstances is also not consideration that the Constitution deemed worthy. The relevant clause in Section
13 is "charged with an offense punishable by." It is, therefore, the maximum penalty provided by the offense that has
bearing and not the possibility of mitigating circumstances being appreciated in the accused’s favor.36
Yet, we do not determine now the question of whether or not Enrile’s averment on the presence of the two mitigating
circumstances could entitle him to bail despite the crime alleged against him being punishable with reclusion perpetua ,
37
simply because the determination, being primarily factual in context, is ideally to be made by the trial court.
Nonetheless, in now granting Enrile’s petition for certiorari, the Court is guided by the earlier mentioned principal
purpose of bail, which is to guarantee the appearance of the accused at the trial, or whenever so required by the court.
The Court is further mindful of the Philippines’ responsibility in the international community arising from the national
commitment under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to:
x x x uphold the fundamental human rights as well as value the worth and dignity of every person. This commitment is
enshrined in Section II, Article II of our Constitution which provides: "The State values the dignity of every human
person and guarantees full respect for human rights." The Philippines, therefore, has the responsibility of protecting
and promoting the right of every person to liberty and due process, ensuring that those detained or arrested can
participate in the proceedings before a court, to enable it to decide without delay on the legality of the detention and
order their release if justified. In other words, the Philippine authorities are under obligation to make available to every
person under detention such remedies which safeguard their fundamental right to liberty. These remedies include the
right to be admitted to bail.38
This national commitment to uphold the fundamental human rights as well as value the worth and dignity of every
person has authorized the grant of bail not only to those charged in criminal proceedings but also to extraditees upon
a clear and convincing showing: (1 ) that the detainee will not be a flight risk or a danger to the community; and (2 )
that there exist special, humanitarian and compelling circumstances. 39
In our view, his social and political standing and his having immediately surrendered to the authorities upon his being
charged in court indicate that the risk of his flight or escape from this jurisdiction is highly unlikely. His personal
disposition from the onset of his indictment for plunder, formal or otherwise, has demonstrated his utter respect for the
legal processes of this country. We also do not ignore that at an earlier time many years ago when he had been
charged with rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder, he already evinced a similar personal disposition of
respect for the legal processes, and was granted bail during the pendency of his trial because he was not seen as a
flight risk.40 With his solid reputation in both his public and his private lives, his long years of public service,
and history’s judgment of him being at stake, he should be granted bail.
The currently fragile state of Enrile’s health presents another compelling justification for his admission to bail, but which
the Sandiganbayan did not recognize.
In his testimony in the Sandiganbayan, 41 Dr. Jose C. Gonzales, the Director of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH),
classified Enrile as a geriatric patient who was found during the medical examinations conducted at the UP-PGH to be
suffering from the following conditions:
(1) Chronic Hypertension with fluctuating blood pressure levels on multiple drug therapy; (Annexes
1.1, 1.2, 1.3);
(2) Diffuse atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease composed of the following :
a. Previous history of cerebrovascular disease with carotid and vertebral artery
disease ; (Annexes 1.4, 4.1)
b. Heavy coronary artery calcifications; (Annex 1.5)
c. Ankle Brachial Index suggestive of arterial calcifications. (Annex 1.6)
(3) Atrial and Ventricular Arrhythmia (irregular heart beat) documented by Holter monitoring ; (Annexes
1.7.1, 1.7.2)
(4) Asthma-COPD Overlap Syndrom (ACOS) and postnasal drip syndrome; (Annexes 2.1, 2.2)
(5) Ophthalmology:
a. Age-related mascular degeneration, neovascular s/p laser of the Retina, s/p
Lucentis intra-ocular injections; (Annexes 3.0, 3.1, 3.2)
b. S/p Cataract surgery with posterior chamber intraocular lens. (Annexes 3.1, 3.2)
(6) Historical diagnoses of the following:
a. High blood sugar/diabetes on medications;
b. High cholesterol levels/dyslipidemia;
c. Alpha thalassemia;
d. Gait/balance disorder;
e. Upper gastrointestinal bleeding (etiology uncertain) in 2014;
f. Benign prostatic hypertrophy (with documented enlarged prostate on recent
ultrasound).42
Dr. Gonzales attested that the following medical conditions, singly or collectively, could pose significant risk s to the life
of Enrile, to wit: (1) uncontrolled hypertension, because it could lead to brain or heart complications, including
recurrence of stroke; (2) arrhythmia, because it could lead to fatal or non-fatal cardiovascular events, especially under
stressful conditions; (3) coronary calcifications associated with coronary artery disease, because they could indicate a
future risk for heart attack under stressful conditions; and (4) exacerbations of ACOS, because they could be triggered
by certain circumstances (like excessive heat, humidity, dust or allergen exposure) which could cause a deterioration in
patients with asthma or COPD.43
Based on foregoing, there is no question at all that Enrile’s advanced age and ill health required special medical
attention. His confinement at the PNP General Hospital, albeit at his own instance, 44 was not even recommended by
the officer-in-charge (O IC) and the internist doctor of that medical facility because of the limitations in the medical
support at that hospital. Their testimonies ran as follows:
Your Honor, in case of emergency situation we can handle it but probably if the condition of the patient worsen, we
have no facilities to do those things, Your Honor. 45
Bail for the provisional liberty of the accused, regardless of the crime charged, should be allowed
independently of the merits of the charge, provided his continued incarceration is clearly shown to be
injurious to his health or to endanger his life. Indeed, denying him bail despite imperiling his health and life
would not serve the true objective of preventive incarceration during the trial.
Granting bail to Enrile on the foregoing reasons is not unprecedented. The Court has already held in Dela Rama v. The
People’s Court:46
x x x This court, in disposing of the first petition for certiorari, held the following:
x x x [ U]nless allowance of bail is forbidden by law in the particular case, the illness of the prisoner,
independently of the merits of the case, is a circumstance, and the humanity of the law makes it a consideration which
should, regardless of the charge and the stage of the proceeding, influence the court to exercise its discretion to admit
the prisoner to bail ;47
xxx
Considering the report of the Medical Director of the Quezon Institute to the effect that the petitioner "is actually
suffering from minimal, early, unstable type of pulmonary tuberculosis, and chronic, granular pharyngitis," and that in
said institute they "have seen similar cases, later progressing into advance stages when the treatment and medicine
are no longer of any avail;" taking into consideration that the petitioner’s previous petition for bail was denied by the
People’s Court on the ground that the petitioner was suffering from quiescent and not active tuberculosis, and the
implied purpose of the People’s Court in sending the petitioner to the Quezon Institute for clinical examination and
diagnosis of the actual condition of his lungs, was evidently to verify whether the petitioner is suffering from active
tuberculosis, in order to act accordingly in deciding his petition for bail; and considering further that the said People’s
Court has adopted and applied the well-established doctrine cited in our above-quoted resolution, in several cases,
among them, the cases against Pio Duran (case No. 3324) and Benigno Aquino (case No. 3527), in which the said
defendants were released on bail on the ground that they were ill and their continued confinement in New Bilibid Prison
would be injurious to their health or endanger their life; it is evident and we consequently hold that the People’s Court
acted with grave abuse of discretion in refusing to re lease the petitioner on bail. 48
It is relevant to observe that granting provisional liberty to Enrile will then enable him to have his medical
condition be properly addressed and better attended to by competent physicians in the hospitals of his
choice. This will not only aid in his adequate preparation of his defense but, more importantly , will
guarantee his appearance in court for the trial.
On the other hand, to mark time in order to wait for the trial to finish before a meaningful consideration of the
application for bail can be had is to defeat the objective of bail, which is to entitle the accused to provisional liberty
pending the trial. There may be circumstances decisive of the issue of bail – whose existence is either admitted by the
Prosecution, or is properly the subject of judicial notice – that the courts can already consider in resolving the
application for bail without awaiting the trial to finish. 49 The Court thus balances the scales of justice by protecting the
interest of the People through ensuring his personal appearance at the trial, and at the same time realizing for him the
guarantees of due process as well as to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Accordingly, we conclude that the Sandiganbayan arbitrarily ignored the objective of bail to ensure the appearance of
the accused during the trial; and unwarrantedly disregarded the clear showing of the fragile health and advanced age
of Enrile. As such, the Sandiganbayan gravely abused its discretion in denying Enrile’s Motion To Fix Bail .
Grave abuse of discretion, as the ground for the issuance of the writ of certiorari , connotes whimsical and capricious
exercise of judgment as is equivalent to excess, or lack of jurisdiction. 50 The abuse must be so patent and gross as to
amount to an evasion of a positive duty or to a virtual refusal to perform a duty enjoined by law, or to act at all in
contemplation of law as where the power is exercised in an arbitrary and despotic manner by reason of passion or
hostility.51 WHEREFORE, the Court GRANTS the petition for certiorari ; ISSUES the writ of certiorari ANNULING
and SETTING ASIDE the Resolutions issued by the Sandiganbayan (Third Division) in Case No. SB-14 CRM-0238 on
July 14, 2014 and August 8, 2014; ORDERS the PROVISIONAL RELEASE of petitioner Juan Ponce Enrile in Case No.
SB-14-CRM-0238 upon posting of a cash bond of P1,000,000.00 in the Sandiganbayan; and DIRECTS the immediate
release of petitioner Juan Ponce Enrile from custody unless he is being detained for some other lawful cause.
No pronouncement on costs of suit.
SO ORDERED.
IN THE ISSUANCE OF THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS FOR DR. AURORA PARONG, NORBERTO
PORTUGUESE, SABINO PADILLA, FRANCIS DIVINAGRACIA, IMELDA DE LOS SANTOS, BENJAMIN
PINEDA, ZENAIDA MALLARI, MARIANO SORIANO, TITO TANGUILIG, LETTY BALLOGAN, BIENVENIDA
GARCIA, EUFRONIO ORTIZ. JR., JUANITO GRANADA and TOM VASQUEZ. JOSEFINA GARCIA-
PADILLA, petitioner,
vs.
MINISTER JUAN PONCE ENRILE, GEN, FABIAN C. VER, GEN. FIDEL V. RAMOS, and FIDEL V. RAMOS,
and LT. COL. MIGUEL CORONEL, respondents.
Lorenzo M. Tanada, Jose W. Diokno, Joker P. Arroyo, Efren M Mercado and Alexander Padilla for petitioner.
The Solicitor General for respondents.
DE CASTRO, J.:
Petition for a writ of habeas corpus and mandamus seeking the following relief:
WHEREFORE, petitioners pray this Honorable Court:
1. To immediately issue a writ of habeas corpus directing respondents to appear and
produce the bodies of Dr. AURORA PARONG, NORBERTO PORTUGUESE,
SABINO PADILLA, FRANCIS DIVINAGRACIA, IMELDA DE LOS SANTOS,
BENJAMIN PINEDA, ZENAIDA MALLARI, MARIANO SORIANO, TITO TANGUILIG,
LETTY BALLOGAN, BIENVENIDA GARCIA, EUFRONIO ORTIZ, JR., JUANITO
GRANADA and TOM VASQUEZ, forthwith before this Honorable Court and to make
due return of the writ therewith;
2. To issue, in addition or in the alternative to the writ of habeas corpus, a writ of
mandamus compelling the respondents to disclose the petitioners' present place of
detention and to order the respondents to allow counsel and relatives to visit and
confer with the petitioners;
3. Pending the determination of the legality of their continued detention, to forthwith
release the detainees on bail upon such terms and conditions as the Court may fix,
and after hearing, to order petitioners' immediate release; and
4. To grant petitioners such other and further relief as may be deemed just and
equitable in the premises.
The records show that nine (9) of the fourteen (14) detainees herein were arrested on July 6, 1982 at about 1:45 p.m.
when three (3) teams of the PC/INP of Bayombong, Nueva Viscaya led by Lt. Col. Coronel, lst Lt. de Guzman and lst
Lt. Baria, after securing a Search Warrant No. S-82 issued by Judge Sofronio Sayo of the Court of First Instance of
Nueva Viscaya conducted a raid at the residence of Dra. Aurora Parong. Apprehended during the said raid were Dra.
Aurora Parong, Benjamin Pineda, Sabino Padilla, Francisco Divinagracia, Zenaida Mallari, Letty Ballogan, Norberto
Portuguese, and Mariano Soriano who were then having a conference in the dining room of Dra. Parong's residence
which had been doing on since 10:00 a.m. of that same day.
The other four (4) detainees herein, namely: Imelda de los Santos, Eufronio Ortiz, Jr., Juanita Granada, and
Bienvenida Garcia, were arrested on the following day, July 7, 1982 by the same PC teams.
On July 15, 1982, Tom Vasquez was arrested, and his Volkswagen car, bearing Plate No. DAP 347, was seized by the
PC authorities.
The herein fourteen (14) detainees (hereafter referred to sometimes as petitioners) were all detained at the PC/INP
Command Headquarters, Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya from July 6, 1982 until their transfer on the morning of August
10, 1982 to an undisclosed place reportedly to Camp Crame, Quezon City, to Echague, Isabela, and to Tuguegarao,
Cagayan.
Hence, this petition for the writ of habeas corpus and mandamus filed by Josefina Garcia-Padilla, mother of detained
petitioner Sabino G. Padilla, Jr. on August 13, 1982. The mandamus aspect of the instant petition has, however,
become moot and academic, and whereabouts of petitioners having already become known to petitioner Josefina
Garcia-Padilla.
It is alleged in the petition that the arrest of petitioners was patently unlawful and illegal since it was effected without
any warrant of arrest; that the PC/INP raiding team which made the arrest were only armed with a search warrant (No.
3-82) issued by Judge Sofronio G. Sayo of the Court of First Instance of Nueva Viscaya, and nowhere in said warrant
was authority given to make arrests, much less detention; that the search warrant which authorized respondents to
seize "subversive documents, firearms of assorted calibers, medicine and other subversive paraphernalia" in the house
and clinic of Dra. Aurora Parong was a roving and general warrant and is, therefore, illegal per se because it does not
state specifically the things that are to be seized (Stonehill vs. Diokno, 20 SCRA 383); that no criminal charges have as
of yet been filed against any of the detainees; that the fourteen (14) detainees were initially held at the PC/INP
Command in Bayombong, Nueva Viscaya from July 6 up to August 10, 1982, but were subsequently transferred by
helicopter in the morning of August 10, 1982 to a place or safehouse known only to respondents; that there is no
judgment, decree, decision or order from a court of law which would validate the continued detention of the petitioner;
that while it is true that a purported telegram stating the issuance of a Presidential Commitment Order (PCO) was
shown to the detainees on or about July 11 and 12, 1982, but counsel and the detainees have not yet been given a
copy of such PCO nor notified of its contents, raising a doubt whether such commitment order has in fact been issued.
It is further alleged that respondents are denying the detainees their constitutional right to counsel, averring that the
detainees were allowed regular visits by counsel and relatives during their period of detention from July 6 to August 10,
1982 at the PC/INP Command in Bayombong, Nueva Viscaya; however, when a certain Major Cristobal and Lt. Marcos
(alleged to be from the Camp Crame Intelligence Units) took full control of the investigation, counsels were allowed to
visit only on weekends; that when the detainees were transferred on August 10, 1982 to a place known only to
respondents, the detainees' counsels and relatives were not notified, raising the apprehension that petitioners'
constitutional rights to silence, to counsel and against self- incrimination are being violated; that counsels have tried to
locate if the detainees were taken to Camp Crame or Camp Bago Bantay but to no avail; that Major Forondo of the PC
Command in Nueva Viscaya informed Mrs. Josefina Padilla that the detainees were transferred to Tuguegarao,
Cagayan, others to Echague, Isabela; that there seems to be a deliberate and concerted effort by respondents to
conceal from counsel and relatives the detainees' place of detention, raising the apprehension that respondents are
using force, violence, threat, intimidation and other means which vitiate free will to obtain confession and statements
from the detainees in violation of their constitutional rights.
In the resolution of this Court en banc dated August 17, 1982, the writ of habeas corpus was issued and respondents
were required to make a return of the writ. Hearing on the petition was set on August 26, 1982.
In the return to the writ filed on August 23, 1982. respondents, through the Solicitor General, alleged, to wit:
I. AS TO HABEAS CORPUS
1. The detainees mentioned in the petition, with the exception of Tom Vasquez who
was temporarily released on July 17, 1982, after his arrest on July 15, 1982, are all
being detained by virtue of a Presidential Commitment Order (PCO) issued on July
12, 1982, pursuant to LOI No. 1211 dated March 9, 1982, in relation to Presidential
Proclamation No. 2045 dated January 17, 1981. The said PCO was issued by
President Ferdinand E. Marcos for violation of P.D. No. 885. ...
2. The corresponding charges against the said detainees have been filed in court and
before the Acting Provincial Fiscal of Nueva Viscaya where they are pleading. A
warrant of arrest against detainee Dra. Aurora Parong was issued on August 4, 1982,
by the Municipal Court of Bayombong, for illegal possession of firearm and
ammunition. ...
II. AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE ON HABEAS CORPUS
3. The persons named in the above-mentioned Presidential Commitment Order were
arrested and are being detained for offenses with respect to which under
Proclamation No. 2045, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus continues to be
suspended, thus:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS,
President/Prime Minister of the Philippines, by virtue
of the powers vested in me by the Constitution, do
hereby revoke Proclamation No. 1081 (Proclaiming
a state of Martial Law in the Philippines) and
Proclamation No. 1104 (Declaring the Continuation
of Martial Law) and proclaim the termination of the
state of martial law throughout the Philippines;
Provided, that the call to the Armed Forces of the
Philippines to prevent or suppress lawless violence,
insurrection, rebellion and subversion shall continue
to be in force and effect; and Provided that in the two
autonomous regions in Mindanao, upon the request
of the residents therein, the suspension of the
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shag
continue; and in all other places the suspension of
the privilege of the writ shall also continue with
respect to persons at present detained as well as
others who may hereafter be similarly detained for
the crimes of insurrection or rebellion, subversion,
conspiracy or proposals to commit such crimes, and
for all other crimes and offenses committed by them
in furtherance or on the occasion thereof, or incident
thereto, or in connection therewith. (Emphasis
supplied)
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is unavailing as to them. Courts cannot
inquire into the validity and cause of their arrest and detention.
4. The power of the President in an emergency, such as that which necessitated the
continued suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, to order the
detention of persons believed engaged in crimes related to national security is
recognized. (Aquino vs. Enrile, 59 SCRA 83; Luneta, et al. vs. Special Military
Commission, No. 1, et al., 102 SCRA 56).
5. In the instant petition, petitioner Josefina Garcia-Padilla does not appear to have
been authorized by the thirteen (13) other detainees to represent them in the case at
bar."
Accordingly, the petition was duly heard on August 26, 1982. After hearing, the Court issued the following resolution, to
wit:
G.R. No. 61388 (In the Matter of the Petition for the Insurance of the Writ of Habeas
Corpus of Dr. Aurora Parong, Norberto Portuguese, Sabino Padilla, Francis
Divinagracia, Imelda de los Santos, Benjamin Pineda, Zenaida Mallari, Mariano
 Soriano, Tito Tanguilig, Letty Ballogan, Bienvenida Garcia, Eufronio Ortiz, Jr., Juanito
Granada and Tom Vasquez; Josefina Garcia-Padilla vs. Minister Juan Ponce Enrile,
Gen. Fabian C. Ver, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos and Lt. Col. Miguel Coronel.)- The return of
the writ of habeas corpus and answer to the prayer for mandamus filed by the
Solicitor General for respondents in compliance with the resolution of August 17, 1982
is NOTED.
At the hearing of this case this morning, former Senator Jose W. Diokno, Attorneys
Alexander A. Padilla and Efren H. Mercado appeared for petitioner. Solicitor General
Estelito P. Mendoza and Assistant Solicitor General Ramon A. Barcelona, appeared
for the respondents. All of the detainees, except Tom Vasquez, who was temporarily
released on July 17, 1982, were present in Court; Dr. Aurora Parong, Norberto
Portuguese, Sabino Padilla, Francis Divinagracia, Imelda de los Santos, Benjamin
Pineda, Zenaida Mallari, Mariano Soriano, Tito Tanguilig, Letty Ballogan, Bienvenida
Garcia, Eufronio Ortiz, Jr. and Juanito Granada. Attorney Alexander A. Padilla argued
for the petitioner. Solicitor General Mendoza argued for the respondents. Former
Senator Diokno argued in the rebuttal. The Court Resolved to require the Solicitor
General to SUBMIT within five (5) days from date the documents relevant to the
issuance of the Presidential Commitment Order. Thereafter, the case shall be
considered SUBMITTED for resolution.
As required, the Solicitor General submitted the documents relevant to the issuance of the Presidential Commitment
Order on August 27, 1982, after which the case was submitted for resolution.
The fundamental issue here, as in all petitioner for the writ of habeas corpus, is whether or not petitioners' detention is
legal. We have carefully gone over the claims of the parties in their respective pleadings as well as in the oral argument
during the hearing on August 26, 1982, and We find that petitioners have not been illegally deprived of their
constitutional right to liberty, neither in the manner of their arrest, nor by their continued detention, and that the
circumstances attendant in the herein case do not warrant their release on a writ of habeas corpus.
1. At the time of the arrest of the nine (9) of the fourteen (14) detainees herein on July 6, 1982, records reveal that they
were then having conference in the dining room of Dra. Parong's residence from 10:00 a.m. of that same day. Prior
thereto, all the fourteen (14) detainees were under surveillance as they were then Identified as members of the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) engaging in subversive activities and using the house of detainee Dra.
Aurora Parong in Bayombong, Nueva Viscaya, as their headquarters. Caught in flagrante delicto, the nine (9)
detainees mentioned scampered towards different directions leaving in top of their conference table numerous
subversive documents, periodicals, pamphlets, books, correspondence, stationaries, and other papers, including a plan
on how they would infiltrate the youth and student sector (code-named YORK). Also found were one (1) .38 cal.
revolver with eight (8) live bullets, nineteen (19) rounds of ammunition for M16 armalite, eighteen thousand six hundred
fifty pesos (P18,650.00) cash believed to be CPP/NPA funds, assorted medicine packed and ready for distribution, as
sizeable quantity of printing paraphernalia, which were then seized. There is no doubt that circumstances attendant in
the arrest of the herein detainees fall under a situation where arrest is lawful even without a judicial warrant as
specifically provided for under Section 6(a), Rule 113 of the Rules of Court and allowed under existing jurisprudence on
the matter. As provided therein, a peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant, arrest a person when the
person to be arrested has committed or actually committing, or is about to commit an offense in his presence.
From the facts as above narrated, the claim of the petitioners that they were initially arrested illegally is, therefore,
without basis in law and in fact. The crimes of insurrection or rebellion, subversion, conspiracy or proposal to commit
such crimes, and other crimes and offenses committed in the furtherance on the occasion thereof, or incident thereto,
or in connection therewith under Presidential Proclamation No. 2045, are all in the nature of continuing offenses which
set them apart from the common offenses, aside from their essentially involving a massive conspiracy of nationwide
magnitude. Clearly then, the arrest of the herein detainees was well within the bounds of the law and existing
jurisprudence in our jurisdiction.
2. The arrest of persons involved in the rebellion whether as its fighting armed elements, or for committing non-violent
acts but in furtherance of the rebellion, is more an act of capturing them in the course of an armed conflict, to quell the
rebellion, than for the purpose of immediately prosecuting them in court for a statutory offense. The arrest, therefore,
need not follow the usual procedure in the prosecution of offenses which requires the determination by a judge of the
existence of probable cause before the issuance of a judicial warrant of arrest and the granting of bail if the offense is
bailable. Obviously, the absence of a judicial warrant is no legal impediment to arresting or capturing persons
committing overt acts of violence against government forces, or any other milder acts but equally in pursuance of the
rebellious movement. The arrest or capture is thus impelled by the exigencies of the situation that involves the very
survival of society and its government and duly constituted authorities. If killing and other acts of violence against the
rebels find justification in the exigencies of armed hostilities which is of the essence of waging a rebellion or
insurrection, most assuredly so in case of invasion, merely seizing their persons and detaining them while any of these
contingencies continues cannot be less justified. In the language of Moyer vs. Peabody, 1 cited with approval
in Aquino, et al. vs. Ponce Enrile, 2 the President " shall make the ordinary use of the soldiers to that end that he may
kill persons who resist, and, of course, that he may use the milder measure of seizing the bodies of those whom he
considers to stand in the way of restoring peace. Such arrests are not necessarily for punishment, but are by way of
precaution, to prevent the exercise of hostile power."
Thus characterized, the arrest and detention of persons ordered by the President through the issuance of Presidential
Commitment Order PCO is merely preventive. "When it comes to a decision by the head of the State upon a matter
involving its life, the ordinary rights of individuals must yield to what he deems the necessities of the moment. Public
danger warrants the substitution of executive process for judicial process." 3 What should be underscored is that if the
greater violation against life itself such as killing, will not be the subject of judicial inquiry, as it cannot be raised as
transgressing against the due process clause that protects life, liberty and property, lesser violations against liberty,
such as arrest and detention, may not be insisted upon as reviewable by the courts.
3. Transcendentally important, therefore, is the question of whether the issuance of a Presidential Commitment Order
(PCO) has provided the legal basis of the detention of herein detainees following their arrest for Proclamation No. 2045
covered offenses. This question has to be set at rest promptly and decisively, if We are to break a seemingly
continuous flow of petitions for habeas corpus, as what had been seen lately of such petitioners being filed in this Court
one after the other.
The function of the PCO is to validate, on constitutional ground, the detention of a person for any of the offenses
covered by Proclamation No. 2045 which continues in force the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus, if the arrest has been made initially without any warrant, its legal effect is to render the writ unavailing as a
means of judicially inquiring into the legality of the detention in view of the suspension of the privilege of the writ. The
grant of the power to suspend the said privilege provides the basis for continuing with perfect legality the detention as
long as the invasion or rebellion has not been repelled or quelled, and the need therefor in the interest of public safety
continues.
The significance of the conferment of this power, constitutionally upon the President as Commander-in-Chief, is that
the exercise thereof is not subject to judicial inquiry, with a view to determining its legality in the light of the bill of rights
guarantee to individual freedom. This must be so because the suspension of the privilege is a military measure the
necessity of which the President alone may determine as an incident of his grave responsibility as the Commander-in-
Chief of the Armed Forces, of protecting not only public safety but the very life of the State, the government and duly
constituted authorities. This should be clear beyond doubt in the case of "invasion," along which "rebellion" or
"insurrection" is mentioned by the Constitution, which contingency does not present a legal question on whether there
is a violation of the right to personal liberty when any member of the invading force is captured and detained.
The presidential responsibility is one attended with all urgency when so grave a peril to the life of the Nation besets the
country in times of the aforementioned contingencies. In the discharge of this awesome and sacred responsibility, the
President should be free from interference. The existence of warlike conditions as are created by invasion, rebellion or
insurrection, the direst of all emergencies that can possibly confront a nation, argues, beyond dispute, against
subjecting his actions in this regard to judicial inquiry or interference from whatever source. If freedom from judicial
review is conceded in the exercise of his peacetime powers as that of appointment and of granting pardon,
denominated as political powers of the President, it should incontestably be more so with his wartime power, as it were,
to adopt any measure in dealing with situations calling for military action as in case of invasion, rebellion or
insurrection.
The suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is one such measure. To be effective, the occasion for its
application on specific individuals should be left to the exclusive and sound judgment of the President, at least while
the exigencies of invasion, rebellion or insurrection persist, and the public safety requires it, a matter, likewise, which
should be left for the sole determination of the President as Commander-in-Chief of the Nation's armed forces. The
need for a unified command in such contingencies is imperative-even axiomatic-as a basic military concept in the art of
warfare.
4. From the clear language of the Lansang case, 4 "the function of Court is merely to check — not to supplant — the
Executive, or to ascertain merely whether he has gone beyond the constitutional limits of his jurisdiction, not to
exercise the power vested in him or to determine the wisdom of his act. " If, however, the constitutional right to bail is
granted to the herein petitioners by the court, through the procedure laid down under Rule 114 of the Rules of court,
what inevitably results is the supplanting of the decision of the President to detain pursuant to Proclamation No. 2045,
of persons who come under its coverage.
The specific mention in the Constitution of rebellion and insurrection along with invasion and imminent danger thereof,
shows that the terms "rebellion and insurrection" are used therein in the sense of a state or condition of the Nation, not
in the concept of a statutory offense. What, therefore, should determine the legality of imposing what is commonly
referred to as "preventive detention" resulting from the suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus, is the necessity of
its adoption as a measure to suppress or quell the rebellion, or beat off an invasion. The necessity for such measure as
a means of defense for national survival quite clearly transcends in importance and urgency the claim of those
detained to the right to bail to obtain their freedom. To hold otherwise would defeat the purpose of the constitutional
grant of the power to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus on the occasions expressly mentioned in the
charter. For what indeed could the purpose be of suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus other than to
restrict, at least for the duration of the emergency of invasion or rebellion, the right to personal liberty, dictated as it is,
in the greater interest of public safety and national security.
So it is that Proclamation No. 2045 mentions not only rebellion or insurrection as coming within the suspension of the
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, but also other offenses, including subversion which is not mentioned in the
Constitution, committed by reason or on the occasion of the rebellion, or in connection therewith, or in the furtherance
thereof. There need be no alarm over what libertarian jurists fear as violation of the constitutional right to personal
liberty when the President decrees the suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus. Only those who give cause for it
will be subject to restriction of their liberty, as the necessity therefor arises in the interest of national defense and
survival. The constitutional guarantee of individual freedom is intact in all its plenitude and sanctity, save only as the
Constitution has envisioned the need for its limitation, and only to a few, in relation to the entire population, as the
Constitution itself permits in case of overwhelming and imperious necessity.
5. Worthy of profound notice and keen appreciation is the fact that the authority to suspend the privilege of the writ of
habeas corpus has been deliberately vested on the President as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces,
together with the related power to call out the armed forces to suppress lawless violence and impose martial law. 5 The
choice could not have been more wise and sound, for no other official may, with equal capability and fitness, be
entrusted with the grave responsibility that goes with the grant of the authority. The legislature was considered in the
alternative upon which to lodge the power, or to share in its exercise, but the distilled wisdom of the Constitutional
Convention finally made its choice for the President alone.
As previously noted, "invasion" which is not a statutorily-defined offense and "imminent danger thereof" as mentioned
in the Constitution indicate that "rebellion and insurrection" are also mentioned therein not in their concept as
statutorily-defined public crimes, but as a state or condition of extreme emergency resulting from the existence of the
aforesaid events. Now, if captured enemies from the invading force may not be charged with any statutory offense that
would provide the occasion to demand the right to bail, it is obvious that persons engaged in rebellion or insurrection
may not claim the right to be released on bail when similarly captured or arrested during the continuance of the
aforesaid contingency. They may not even claim the right to be charged immediately in court, as they may rightfully do
so, were they being charged with an ordinary or common offense. This is so because according to legal writers or
publicists, the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus "has the sole effect of allowing the executive to
defer the trials of persons charged with certain offenses during the period of emergency." 6 This clearly means denial of
the right to be released on bail on being charged in court with bailable offenses.
The suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus must, indeed, carry with it the suspension of the right to
bail, if the government's campaign to suppress the rebellion is to be enhanced and rendered effective. If the right to bail
may be demanded during the continuance of the rebellion, and those arrested, captured and detained in the course
thereof will be released, they would, without the least doubt, rejoin their comrades in the field thereby jeopardizing the
success of government efforts to bring to an end the invasion, rebellion or insurrection.
Realistically, a person engaged in the rebellion does not, upon being arrested or captured, cease to be as committed to
the cause of the movement. Through a grand conspiracy, as is of the essence of how rebellion is committed, involving
a great mass of confederates bound together by a common goal, he remains in a state of continued participation in the
criminal act or design. His heart still beats with the same emotion for the success of the movement of which he
continues to be an ardent adherent and ally. It is simple logic then to hold that there should be no legal compulsion for
a captured rebel to be charged in court, only to be released on bail, while he is, realistically and legally, still as much as
part and parcel of the movement, continuing as it is, as those still engaged in carrying on actively to attain their goal of
overthrowing the established regime. Hence, it is easy to perceive how impressed with absolute verity is the opinion
expressed by two acknowledged authorities on Constitutional law in our country, 7 which We quote:
... If the return to the writ shows that the person in custody was apprehended and
detained in areas where the privileges of the writ have been suspended or for the
 crimes mentioned in the executive proclamation, the court will suspend further
proceedings in the action.
Impeccable as it is, the opinion could not but find a resonant echo as it did in the recent case of Buscayno vs. Military
Commission; 8 decided after Proclamation No. 2045 was issued, which in terms clear and categorical, held that the
constitutional right to bail is unavailing when the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is suspended with respect to
certain crimes as enumerated or described in the abovementioned Proclamation.
It is, likewise, all too well-known that when the rebel forces capture government troopers or kidnap private individuals,
they do not accord to them any of the rights now being demanded by the herein petitioners, particularly to be set at
liberty upon the filing of bail. As a matter of common knowledge, captives of the rebels or insurgents are not only not
given the right to be released, but also denied trial of any kind. In some instances, they may even be liquidated
unceremoniously. What is then sought by the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is, among others,
to put the government forces on equal fighting terms with the rebels, by authorizing the detention of their own rebel or
dissident captives as the rebellion goes on. In this way, the advantage the rebellion forces have over those of the
government, as when they resort to guerilla tactics with sophisticated weapons, is, at least, minimized, thereby
enhancing the latter's chances of beating their enemy. It would, therefore, seem to be ignoring realities in the name of
misplaced magnanimity and compassion, and for the sake of humanity, to grant the demand for respect of rights
supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution by those who themselves seek to destroy that very same instrument,
trampling over it already as they are still waging war against the government. This stark actuality gives added force and
substance to the rationale of the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in case of invasion,
insurrection, rebellion, or imminent danger thereof, when public safety requires it.
6. Invoking the Lansang case, 9 however, petitioners would ask this Court to review the issuance of the PCO against
them, intimating that arbitrariness attended its issuance because, relying on the evidence supposedly available in the
hands of the military, they claim they are not guilty of rebellion. They also contend that the provisions of LOI No. 1211
have not been complied with.
The Lansang case went no further than to pronounce the suspension of the writ of the privilege of habeas corpus on
August 21, 1971, valid and constitutional, on a finding that there was no arbitrariness attendant to the suspension. It
never intended to suggest that for every individual case of arrest and detention, the writ of habeas corpus is available,
even after the suspension of this privilege, to question the legality of the arrest and detention on ground of
arbitrariness. When a person is charged in court for an ordinary offense, the law does not authorize the filing of a
petition for habeas corpus based on the ground that there is absolutely no evidence to hold him for trial, which, in
effect, constitutes an allegation of arbitrariness in the filing of the case against him. The law has afforded him adequate
safeguards against arbitrariness, such as the requirement of determining the existence of a probable cause by the
judge before the issuance of the warrant of arrest. The finding of such probable cause may not be immediately brought
for review by this Court in a habeas corpus proceeding, on the claim of arbitrariness. The matter is to be decided on
the basis of the evidence, and this Court is not the proper forum for the review sought, not being a trier of facts. If such
a procedure were allowed, it would be easy to delay and obstruct the prosecution of an offense by a resort to a petition
for habeas corpus based on arbitrariness, which most accuse, if not all, would be most inclined, specially when they
are out on bail. The petition now before Us is exactly one of this kind. If granted, the effect is to transfer the jurisdiction
of the trial courts in criminal cases to this Court, which is simply inconceivable. Moreover, arbitrariness, while so easy
to allege, is hard to prove, in the face of the formidable obstacle built up by the presumption of regularity in the
performance of official duty. Unexhilaratingly, this is the revealing experience of this Court in the Lansang case, where
it doubtlessly realized how hardly possible it is to adduce evidence or proof upon which to show the President having
acted with arbitrariness.
7. The last question relates to the legality of the Presidential Commitment Order (PCO) issued by the President on July
12, 1982, tested by the conformity of its issuance to the procedure laid down under LOI 1211, petitioners insisting that
the LOI limits the authority of the President to cause the arrest and detention of persons engaged in or charged with,
the crimes mentioned in Proclamation No. 2045. They contend that the procedure prescribed in the LOI not having
been observed, the PCO issued thereunder did not validate the initial illegal arrest of the herein petitioners as wen as
their continued detention.
It must be noted that LOI No. 1211, which provides the guidelines in the arrest and detention of persons engaged in, or
charged with, the crimes mentioned in Proclamation No. 2045, charged with, the crimes mentioned contemplates of
three situations when an arrest can be made, to wit:
1. The arrest and detention effected by virtue of a warrant issued by a judge;
2. The arrest and detention effected by a military commander or the head of a law
enforcement agency after it is determined that the person or persons to be arrested
would probably escape or commit further acts which would endanger public order and
safety. After the arrest, however, the case shall be immediately referred to the city or
provincial fiscal or to the municipal, city, circuit, or district judge for preliminary
examination or investigation who, if the evidence warrants, shall file the corresponding
charges and, thereafter, we a warrant of arrest;
3. The military commander or the head of the law enforcement agency may apply to
the President thru the Minister of National Defense, for a Presidential Commitment
Order under the following circumstances:
(a) When resort to judicial process is not possible or
expedient without endangering public order and
safety; or
(b) When the release on bail of the person or
persons already under arrest by virtue of a judicial
warrant would endanger said public order and
safety.
Petitioners appear to place entire reliance on paragraphs 1 and 2 of LOI No. 1211, ignoring paragraph 3 of LOI No.
1211, which provides:
3. The above notwithstanding, the military commander or the head of the law
enforcement agency may apply to the President thru the Minister of National Defense,
for a Presidential Commitment Order covering the person or persons believed to be
participants in the commission of the crimes referred to in paragraph 1 under the
following circumstances:
(a) When resort to judicial process is not possible or
expedient without endangering public order and
safety; or
(b) When the release on bail of the person or
persons already under arrest by virtue of a judicial
warrant would endanger said public order and
safety.
The reliance of petitioners on paragraphs 1 and 2 of LOI 1211 as to the alleged necessity of judicial warrant before a
person may be arrested and detained is not well-founded. Neither is the contention that paragraph 3 of LOI 1211
applies only when judicial process is not possible. This is a narrow and constricted interpretation of LOI 1211 when
viewed in its entirety. Even in instances when a resort to judicial process is possible, where, in the judgment of the
President, a resort thereto would not be expedient because it would endanger the public order or safety, a PCO is
justified. So, too, when release on bail in the ordinary judicial process will invite the same danger.
By its very nature, and clearly by its language, LOI 1211 is a mere directive of the President as Commander-in-Chief of
the Armed Forces of the Philippines to his subordinates or implementing officers for the ultimate objective of providing
guidelines in the arrest and detention of the persons covered by Presidential Proclamation No. 2045. The purpose is
"to insure protection to individual liberties without sacrificing the requirements of public order and safety and the
effectiveness of the campaign against those seeking the forcible overthrow of the government and duty constituted
authorities. " LOI 1211 does not, in any manner, limit the authority of the President to cause the arrest and detention of
persons engaged in, or charged with the crimes or offenses mentioned in said Proclamation in that he (President)
would subject himself to the superior authority of the judge who, under normal judicial processes in the prosecution of
the common offenses, is the one authorized to issue a judicial warrant after a preliminary investigation is conducted
with a finding of probable cause. Those who would read such an intention on the part of the President in issuing LOI
1211 seems to do so in their view that LOI forms part of the law of the land under the 1976 amendment of the
Constitution. 10 They would then contend that a PCO issued not in compliance with the provisions of the LOI would be
an illegality and of no effect.
To form part of the law of the land, the decree, order or LOI must be issued by the President in the exercise of his
extraordinary power of legislation as contemplated in Section 6 of the 1976 amendments to the Constitution, whenever
in his judgment, there exists a grave emergency or a threat or imminence thereof, or whenever the interim Batasan
Pambansa or the regular National Assembly fails or is unable to act adequately on any matter for any reason that in his
judgment requires immediate action. There can be no pretense, much less a showing, that these conditions prompted
the President to issue LOI 1211. Verily, not all LOI issued by the President should be dignified into forming part of the
law of the land.
In the event then that the judge believes no warrant shall issue, the President, under Presidential Proclamation No.
2045 and Letter of Instruction No. 1211, is not bound by such finding, as explicitly provided in paragraph 2 of LOI 1211.
That the President avails of the facilities of the judicial machinery, as is the clear intent of LOI 1211, to aid him in
exercising his power to restrain personal liberty, as dictated by the necessities and exigencies of the emergency, does
not indicate any intention on his part to renounce or to allow even mere curtailment of his power such that the judicial
process will thereupon take its normal course, under which the detainees or accused would then be entitled to demand
their right of due process, particularly in relation to their personal liberty. 11 The issuance of the PCO by the President
necessarily constitutes a finding that the conditions he has prescribed in LOI 1211 for the issuance of that PCO have
been met, and intends that the detention would be pursuant to the executive process incident to the government
campaign against the rebels, subversives and dissidents waging a rebellion or insurrection. The ruling in the Nava vs.
Gatmaitan case,* as above intimated, must have shown him that to prosecute the offense through the judicial process
of forthwith instead of deferring it, would neither be wise nor expedient if he were to deal effectively with the grave
emergency at hand.
What has been said above shows the need of reexamining the Lansang case with a view to reverting to the ruling
of Barcelon vs. Baker, 5 Phil. 87, a 1905 decision, and Montenegro vs. Castaneda, 91 Phil. 882 (1952), that the
President's decision to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is "final and conclusive upon the courts, and
all other persons." This well-settled ruling was diluted in the Lansang case which declared that the "function of the
Court is merely to check — not to supplant — the Executive, or ascertain merely whether he has gone beyond the
constitutional limits of his jurisdiction not to exercise the power vested in him or to determine the wisdom of his act."
Judicial interference was thus held as permissible, and the test as laid down therein is not whether the President acted
correctly but whether he acted arbitrarily. This would seem to be pure semanticism, if We consider that with particular
reference to the nature of the actions the President would take on the occasion of the grave emergency he has to deal
with, which, as clearly indicated in Section 9, Art. VII of the Constitution partakes of military measures, the judiciary
can, with becoming modesty, ill afford to assume the authority to check or reverse or supplant the presidential actions.
On these occasions, the President takes absolute command, for the very life of the Nation and its government, which,
incidentally, includes the courts, is in grave peril. In so doing, the President is answerable only to his conscience, the
people and to God. For their part, in giving him the supreme mandate as their President, the people can only trust and
pray that, giving him their own loyalty with utmost patriotism, the President will not fail them.
In his separate opinion in the Lansang case, then Justice Fernando, now our learned Chief Justice, went along with the
proposition that the decision of the Executive in the exercise of his power to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus is his alone, and in his own language, is "ordinarily beyond the ken of the Courts." This is so, as the Founding
Fathers must have felt that in the particular situations at hand, the Executive and the Judiciary should maintain a
mutually deferential attitude. This is the very essence of the doctrine of "political question, " as determining the
justiciability of a case. The wisdom of this concept remains well-recognized in advanced constitutional systems. To
erase it from our own system as seems to be what was done in the Lansang case, may neither be proper nor prudent.
A good example could be given in the exercise of the presidential power of pardon which is beyond judicial review,
specially under the new Constitution where the condition that it may be granted only after final conviction has been
done away with.
True, the Constitution is the law "equally in war and in peace," 12 as Chief Justice Fernando cited in his brilliant
separate opinion in the same Lansang case. Precisely, it is the Constitution that gives the President specific "military
power" in times of warlike conditions as exist on the occasion of invasion, insurrection or rebellion. Both power and
right are constitutionally granted, with the difference that the guarantee of the right to liberty is for personal benefit,
while the grant of the presidential power is for public safety. Which of the two enjoys primacy over the other is all too
obvious. For the power is intended as a limitation of the right, in much the same way as individual freedom yields to the
exercise of the police power of the State in the interest of general welfare. The difference again is that the power
comes into being during extreme emergencies the exercise of which, for complete effectiveness for the purpose it was
granted should not permit intereference, while individual freedom is obviously for full enjoyment in time of peace, but in
time of war or grave peril to the nation, should be limited or restricted. In a true sense then, our Constitution is for both
peacetime and in time of war; it is not that in time of war the Constitution is silenced. The Founding Fathers, with
admirable foresight and vision, inserted provisions therein that come into play and application in time of war or similar
emergencies. So it is that, as proclaimed by the Constitution, the defense of the State is a prime duty of government.
Compulsory military service may be imposed, certainly a mandate that derogates on the right to personal liberty. It,
therefore, becomes self-evident that the duty of the judiciary to protect individual rights must yield to the power of the
Executive to protect the State, for if the State perishes, the Constitution, with the Bill of Rights that guarantees the right
to personal liberty, perishes with it.
In times of war or national emergency, the legislature may surrender a part of its power of legislation to the
President. 13 Would it not be as proper and wholly acceptable to lay down the principle that during such crises, the
judiciary should be less jealous of its power and more trusting of the Executive in the exercise of its emergency powers
in recognition of the same necessity? Verily, the existence of the emergencies should be left to President's sole and
unfettered determination. His exercise of the power to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus on the
occasion thereof, should also be beyond judicial review. Arbitrariness, as a ground for judicial inquiry of presidential
acts and decisions, sounds good in theory but impractical and unrealistic, considering how well-nigh impossible it is for
the courts to contradict the finding of the President on the existence of the emergency that gives occasion for the
exercise of the power to suspend the privilege of the writ. For the Court to insist on reviewing Presidential action on the
ground of arbitrariness may only result in a violent collision of two jealous powers with tragic consequences, by all
means to be avoided, in favor of adhering to the more desirable and long-tested doctrine of "political question" in
reference to the power of judicial review. 14
Amendment No. 6 of the 1973 Constitution, as earlier cited, affords further reason for the reexamination of the Lansang
doctrine and reversion to that of Barcelon vs. Baker and Montenegro vs. Castaneda.
Accordingly, We hold that in times of war and similar emergency as expressly provided in the Constitution, the
President may suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, which has the effect of allowing the Executive to
defer the prosecution of any of the offenses covered by Proclamation No. 2045, including, as a necessary
consequence, the withholding for the duration of the suspension of the privilege, of the right to bail. The power could
have been vested in Congress, instead of the President, as it was so vested in the United States for which reason,
when President Lincoln himself exercised the power in 1861, Chief Justice Taney of the U.S. Supreme Court
expressed the opinion that Congress alone possessed this power under the Constitutional., 15 Incidentally, it seems
unimaginable that the judiciary could subject the suspension, if decreed through congressional action, to the same
inquiry as our Supreme Court did with the act of the President, in the Lansang case, to determine if the Congress acted
with arbitrariness.
We further hold that under LOI 1211, a Presidential Commitment Order, the issuance of which is the exclusive
prerogative of the President under the Constitution, may not be declared void by the courts, under the doctrine of
"political question," as has been applied in the Baker and Castaneda cases, on any ground, let alone its supposed
violation of the provision of LOI 1211, thus diluting, if not abandoning the doctrine of the Lansang case. The supreme
mandate received by the President from the people and his oath to do justice to every man should be sufficient
guarantee, without need of judicial overseeing, against commission by him of an act of arbitrariness in the discharge
particularly of those duties imposed upon him for the protection of public safety which in itself includes the protection of
life, liberty and property. This Court is not possessed with the attribute of infallibility that when it reviews the acts of the
President in the exercise of his exclusive power, for possible fault of arbitrariness, it would not itself go so far as to
commit the self-same fault.
Finally, We hold that upon the issuance of the Presidential Commitment Order against herein petitioners, their
continued detention is rendered valid and legal, and their right to be released even after the filing of charges against
them in court, to depend on the President, who may order the release of a detainee or his being placed under house
arrest, as he has done in meritorious cases.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition should be, as it is hereby dismissed.
SO ORDERED.
PATRICIO DUMLAO, ROMEO B. IGOT, and ALFREDO SALAPANTAN, JR., petitioners,
vs.
COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, respondent.
Raul M. Gonzales for petitioners
Office of the Solicitor General for respondent.
MELENCIO-HERRERA, J:
This is a Petition for Prohibition with Preliminary Injunction and/or Restraining Order filed by petitioners, in their own
behalf and all others allegedly similarly situated, seeking to enjoin respondent Commission on Elections (COMELEC)
from implementing certain provisions of Batas Pambansa Big. 51, 52, and 53 for being unconstitutional.
The Petition alleges that petitioner, Patricio Dumlao, is a former Governor of Nueva Vizcaya, who has filed his
certificate of candidacy for said position of Governor in the forthcoming elections of January 30, 1980. Petitioner,
Romeo B. Igot, is a taxpayer, a qualified voter and a member of the Bar who, as such, has taken his oath to support the
Constitution and obey the laws of the land. Petitioner, Alfredo Salapantan, Jr., is also a taxpayer, a qualified voter, and
a resident of San Miguel, Iloilo.
Petitioner Dumlao specifically questions the constitutionality of section 4 of Batas Pambansa Blg. 52 as discriminatory
and contrary to the equal protection and due process guarantees of the Constitution. Said Section 4 provides:
Sec. 4. Special Disqualification in addition to violation of section 10 of Art. XI I-C of the
Constitution and disqualification mentioned in existing laws, which are hereby
declared as disqualification for any of the elective officials enumerated in section 1
hereof.
Any retired elective provincial city or municipal official who has received payment of
the retirement benefits to which he is entitled under the law, and who shall have been
6,5 years of age at the commencement of the term of office to which he seeks to be
elected shall not be qualified to run for the same elective local office from which he
has retired (Emphasis supplied)
Petitioner Dumlao alleges that the aforecited provision is directed insidiously against him, and that the classification
provided therein is based on "purely arbitrary grounds and, therefore, class legislation."
For their part, petitioners igot and Salapantan, Jr. assail the validity of the following statutory provisions:
Sec 7. Terms of Office — Unless sooner removed for cause, all local elective officials
hereinabove mentioned shall hold office for a term of six (6) years, which shall
commence on the first Monday of March 1980.
.... (Batas Pambansa Blg. 51) Sec. 4.
Sec. 4. ...
Any person who has committed any act of disloyalty to the State, including acts
amounting to subversion, insurrection, rebellion or other similar crimes, shall not be
qualified to be a candidate for any of the offices covered by this Act, or to participate
in any partisan political activity therein:
provided that a judgment of conviction for any of the aforementioned crimes shall be
conclusive evidence of such fact and
the filing of charges for the commission of such crimes before a civil court or military
tribunal after preliminary investigation shall be prima fascie evidence of such fact.
... (Batas Pambansa Big. 52) (Paragraphing and Emphasis supplied).
Section 1. Election of certain Local Officials — ... The election shall be held on
January 30, 1980. (Batas Pambansa, Blg. 52)
Section 6. Election and Campaign Period — The election period shall be fixed by the
Commission on Elections in accordance with Section 6, Art. XII-C of the Constitution.
The period of campaign shall commence on December 29, 1979 and terminate on
January 28, 1980. (ibid.)
In addition to the above-cited provisions, petitioners Igot and Salapantan, Jr. also question the accreditation of some
political parties by respondent COMELEC, as authorized by Batas Pambansa Blg. 53, on the ground that it is contrary
to section 9(1)Art. XIIC of the Constitution, which provides that a "bona fide candidate for any public office shall be it.
from any form of harassment and discrimination. "The question of accreditation will not be taken up in this case but in
that of Bacalso, et als. vs. COMELEC et als. No. L-52232) where the issue has been squarely raised,
Petitioners then pray that the statutory provisions they have challenged be declared null and void for being violative of
the Constitution.
I . The procedural Aspect
At the outset, it should be stated that this Petition suffers from basic procedural infirmities, hence, traditionally
unacceptable for judicial resolution. For one, there is a misjoinder of parties and actions. Petitioner Dumlao's interest is
alien to that of petitioners Igot and Salapantan Petitioner Dumlao does not join petitioners Igot and Salapantan in the
burden of their complaint, nor do the latter join Dumlao in his. The respectively contest completely different statutory
provisions. Petitioner Dumlao has joined this suit in his individual capacity as a candidate. The action of petitioners Igot
and Salapantan is more in the nature of a taxpayer's suit. Although petitioners plead nine constraints as the reason of
their joint Petition, it would have required only a modicum more of effort tor petitioner Dumlao, on one hand said
petitioners lgot and Salapantan, on the other, to have filed separate suits, in the interest of orderly procedure.
For another, there are standards that have to be followed inthe exercise of the function of judicial review, namely (1) the
existence of an appropriate case:, (2) an interest personal and substantial by the party raising the constitutional
question: (3) the plea that the function be exercised at the earliest opportunity and (4) the necessity that the
constiutional question be passed upon in order to decide the case (People vs. Vera 65 Phil. 56 [1937]).
It may be conceded that the third requisite has been complied with, which is, that the parties have raised the issue of
constitutionality early enough in their pleadings.
This Petition, however, has fallen far short of the other three criteria.
A. Actual case and controversy.
It is basic that the power of judicial review is limited to the determination of actual cases and controversies.
Petitioner Dumlao assails the constitutionality of the first paragraph of section 4 of Batas Pambansa Blg. 52, quoted
earlier, as being contrary to the equal protection clause guaranteed by the Constitution, and seeks to prohibit
respondent COMELEC from implementing said provision. Yet, Dumlao has not been adversely affected by the
application of that provision. No petition seeking Dumlao's disqualification has been filed before the COMELEC. There
is no ruling of that constitutional body on the matter, which this Court is being asked to review on Certiorari. His is a
question posed in the abstract, a hypothetical issue, and in effect, a petition for an advisory opinion from this Court to
be rendered without the benefit of a detailed factual record Petitioner Dumlao's case is clearly within the primary
jurisdiction (see concurring Opinion of now Chief Justice Fernando in Peralta vs. Comelec, 82 SCRA 30, 96 [1978]) of
respondent COMELEC as provided for in section 2, Art. XII-C, for the Constitution the pertinent portion of which reads:
"Section 2. The Commission on Elections shall have the following power and functions:
1) xxx
2) Be the sole judge of all contests relating to the elections, returns
and qualifications of all members of the National Assembly and elective provincial and
city officials. (Emphasis supplied)
The aforequoted provision must also be related to section 11 of Art. XII-C, which provides:
Section 11. Any decision, order, or ruling of the Commission may be brought to the
Supreme Court on certiorari by the aggrieved party within thirty days from his receipt
of a copy thereof.
B. Proper party.
The long-standing rule has been that "the person who impugns the validity of a statute must have a personal and
substantial interest in the case such that he has sustained, or will sustain, direct injury as a result of its enforcement"
(People vs. Vera, supra).
In the case of petitioners Igot and Salapantan, it was only during the hearing, not in their Petition, that Igot is said to be
a candidate for Councilor. Even then, it cannot be denied that neither one has been convicted nor charged with acts of
disloyalty to the State, nor disqualified from being candidates for local elective positions. Neither one of them has been
calle ed to have been adversely affected by the operation of the statutory provisions they assail as unconstitutional
Theirs is a generated grievance. They have no personal nor substantial interest at stake. In the absence of any litigate
interest, they can claim no locus standi in seeking judicial redress.
It is true that petitioners Igot and Salapantan have instituted this case as a taxpayer's suit, and that the rule enunciated
in People vs. Vera, above stated, has been relaxed in Pascual vs. The Secretary of Public Works (110 Phil. 331 [1960],
thus:
... it is well settled that the validity of a statute may be contested only by one who will
sustain a direct injury in consequence of its enforcement. Yet, there are many
decisions nullifying at the instance of taxpayers, laws providing for the disbursement
of public funds, upon the theory that "the expenditure of public funds, by an officer of
the State for the purpose of administering an unconstitutional act constitutes a
misapplication of such funds," which may be enjoined at the request of a taxpayer.
In the same vein, it has been held:
In the determination of the degree of interest essential to give the requisite standing to
attack the constitutionality of a statute, the general rule is that not only persons
individually affected, but also taxpayers have sufficient interest in preventing the
illegal expenditure of moneys raised by taxation and they may, therefore, question the
constitutionality of statutes requiring expenditure of public moneys. (Philippine
Constitution Association, Inc., et als., vs. Gimenez, et als., 15 SCRA 479 [1965]).
However, the statutory provisions questioned in this case, namely, sec. 7, BP Blg. 51, and sections 4, 1, and 6 BP Blg.
52, do not directly involve the disbursement of public funds. While, concededly, the elections to be held involve the
expenditure of public moneys, nowhere in their Petition do said petitioners allege that their tax money is "being
extracted and spent in violation of specific constitutional protections against abuses of legislative power" (Flast v.
Cohen, 392 U.S., 83 [1960]), or that there is a misapplication of such funds by respondent COMELEC (see Pascual vs.
Secretary of Public Works, 110 Phil. 331 [1960]), or that public money is being deflected to any improper purpose.
Neither do petitioners seek to restrain respondent from wasting public funds through the enforcement of an invalid or
unconstitutional law. (Philippine Constitution Association vs. Mathay, 18 SCRA 300 [1966]), citing Philippine
Constitution Association vs. Gimenez, 15 SCRA 479 [1965]). Besides, the institution of a taxpayer's suit, per se is no
assurance of judicial review. As held by this Court in Tan vs. Macapagal (43 SCRA 677 [1972]), speaking through our
present Chief Justice, this Court is vested with discretion as to whether or not a taxpayer's suit should be entertained.
C. Unavoidability of constitutional question.
Again upon the authority of People vs. Vera , "it is a wellsettled rule that the constitutionality of an act of the legislature
will not be determined by the courts unless that question is properly raised and presented in appropriate cases and is
necessary to a determination of the case; i.e., the issue of constitutionality must be the very lis mota presented."
We have already stated that, by the standards set forth in People vs. Vera, the present is not an "appropriate case" for
either petitioner Dumlao or for petitioners Igot and Salapantan. They are actually without cause of action. It follows that
the necessity for resolving the issue of constitutionality is absent, and procedural regularity would require that this suit
be dismissed.
II. The substantive viewpoint.
We have resolved, however, to rule squarely on two of the challenged provisions, the Courts not being entirely without
discretion in the matter. Thus, adherence to the strict procedural standard was relaxed in Tinio vs. Mina (26 SCRA 512
[1968]); Edu vs. Ericta (35 SCRA 481 [1970]); and in Gonzalez vs. Comelec (27 SCRA 835 [1969]), the Opinion in the
Tinio and Gonzalez cases having been penned by our present Chief Justice. The reasons which have impelled us are
the paramount public interest involved and the proximity of the elections which will be held only a few days hence.
Petitioner Dumlao's contention that section 4 of BP Blg. 52 is discriminatory against him personally is belied by the fact
that several petitions for the disqualification of other candidates for local positions based on the challenged provision
have already been filed with the COMELEC (as listed in p. 15, respondent's Comment). This tellingly overthrows
Dumlao's contention of intentional or purposeful discrimination.
The assertion that Section 4 of BP Blg. 52 is contrary to the safer guard of equal protection is neither well taken. The
constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws is subject to rational classification. If the groupings are based
on reasonable and real differentiations, one class can be treated and regulated differently from another class. For
purposes of public service, employees 65 years of age, have been validly classified differently from younger
employees. Employees attaining that age are subject to compulsory retirement, while those of younger ages are not so
compulsorily retirable.
In respect of election to provincial, city, or municipal positions, to require that candidates should not be more than 65
years of age at the time they assume office, if applicable to everyone, might or might not be a reasonable classification
although, as the Solicitor General has intimated, a good policy of the law would be to promote the emergence of
younger blood in our political elective echelons. On the other hand, it might be that persons more than 65 years old
may also be good elective local officials.
Coming now to the case of retirees. Retirement from government service may or may not be a reasonable
disqualification for elective local officials. For one thing, there can also be retirees from government service at ages,
say below 65. It may neither be reasonable to disqualify retirees, aged 65, for a 65 year old retiree could be a good
local official just like one, aged 65, who is not a retiree.
But, in the case of a 65-year old elective local official, who has retired from a provincial, city or municipal office, there is
reason to disqualify him from running for the same office from which he had retired, as provided for in the challenged
provision. The need for new blood assumes relevance. The tiredness of the retiree for government work is present, and
what is emphatically significant is that the retired employee has already declared himself tired and unavailable for the
same government work, but, which, by virtue of a change of mind, he would like to assume again. It is for this very
reason that inequality will neither result from the application of the challenged provision. Just as that provision does not
deny equal protection neither does it permit of such denial (see People vs. Vera, 65 Phil. 56 [1933]). Persons similarly
situated are sinlilarly treated.
In fine, it bears reiteration that the equal protection clause does not forbid all legal classification. What is proscribes is a
classification which is arbitrary and unreasonable. That constitutional guarantee is not violated by a reasonable
classification based upon substantial distinctions, where the classification is germane to the purpose of the law and
applies to all Chose belonging to the same class (Peralta vs. Comelec, 82 SCRA 30 [1978] citing Felwa vs. Salas, 18
SCRA 606 [1966]; Rafael v. Embroidery and Apparel Control and Inspection Board, 21 SCRA 336 [1967]; Inchong etc.,
et al. vs. Hernandez 101 Phil. 1155 [1957]). The purpose of the law is to allow the emergence of younger blood in local
governments. The classification in question being pursuant to that purpose, it cannot be considered invalid "even it at
times, it may be susceptible to the objection that it is marred by theoretical inconsistencies" (Chief Justice Fernando,
The Constitution of the Philippines, 1977 ed., p. 547).
There is an additional consideration. Absent herein is a showing of the clear invalidity of the questioned provision. Well
accepted is the rule that to justify the nullification of a law, there must be a clear and unequivocal breach of the
Constitution, not a doubtful and equivocal breach. Courts are practically unanimous in the pronouncement that laws
shall not be declared invalid unless the conflict with the Constitution is clear beyond reasonable doubt (Peralta vs.
COMELEC, 82 SCRA 55 [1978], citing Cooper vs. Telfair 4 Dall 14; Dodd, Cases on Constitutional Law, 3rd ed. 1942,
56). Lastly, it is within the compentence of the legislature to prescribe qualifications for one who desires to become a
candidate for office provided they are reasonable, as in this case.
In so far as the petition of Igot and Salapantan are concerned, the second paragraph of section 4 of Batas Pambansa
Blg. 52, quoted in full earlier, and which they challenge, may be divided in two parts. The first provides:
a. judgment of conviction jor any of the aforementioned crimes shall be conclusive
evidence of such fact ...
The supremacy of the Constitution stands out as the cardinal principle. We are aware of the presumption of validity that
attaches to a challenged statute, of the well-settled principle that "all reasonable doubts should be resolved in favor of
constitutionality," and that Courts will not set aside a statute as constitutionally defective "except in a clear case."
(People vs. Vera, supra). We are constrained to hold that this is one such clear case.
Explicit is the constitutional provision that, in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be presumed innocent until the
contrary is proved, and shall enjoy the right to be heard by himself and counsel (Article IV, section 19, 1973
Constitution). An accusation, according to the fundamental law, is not synonymous with guilt. The challenged proviso
contravenes the constitutional presumption of innocence, as a candidate is disqualified from running for public office on
the ground alone that charges have been filed against him before a civil or military tribunal. It condemns before one is
fully heard. In ultimate effect, except as to the degree of proof, no distinction is made between a person convicted of
acts of dislotalty and one against whom charges have been filed for such acts, as both of them would be ineligible to
run for public office. A person disqualified to run for public office on the ground that charges have been filed against him
is virtually placed in the same category as a person already convicted of a crime with the penalty of arresto, which
carries with it the accessory penalty of suspension of the right to hold office during the term of the sentence (Art. 44,
Revised Penal Code).
And although the filing of charges is considered as but prima facie evidence, and therefore, may be rebutted, yet. there
is "clear and present danger" that because of the proximity of the elections, time constraints will prevent one charged
with acts of disloyalty from offering contrary proof to overcome the prima facie evidence against him.
Additionally, it is best that evidence pro and con of acts of disloyalty be aired before the Courts rather than before an
administrative body such as the COMELEC. A highly possible conflict of findings between two government bodies, to
the extreme detriment of a person charged, will thereby be avoided. Furthermore, a legislative/administrative
determination of guilt should not be allowed to be substituted for a judicial determination.
Being infected with constitutional infirmity, a partial declaration of nullity of only that objectionable portion is mandated.
It is separable from the first portion of the second paragraph of section 4 of Batas Pambansa Big. 52 which can stand
by itself.
WHEREFORE, 1) the first paragraph of section 4 of Batas pambansa Bilang 52 is hereby declared valid. Said
paragraph reads:
SEC. 4. Special disqualification. — In addition to violation of Section 10 of Article
XII(C) of the Constitution and disqualifications mentioned in existing laws which are
hereby declared as disqualification for any of the elective officials enumerated in
Section 1 hereof, any retired elective provincial, city or municipal official, who has
received payment of the retirement benefits to which he is entitled under the law and
who shall have been 65 years of age at the commencement of the term of office to
which he seeks to be elected, shall not be qualified to run for the same elective local
office from which he has retired.
2) That portion of the second paragraph of section 4 of Batas Pambansa Bilang 52
providing that "... the filing of charges for the commission of such crimes before a civil
court or military tribunal after preliminary investigation shall be prima facie evidence of
such fact", is hereby declared null and void, for being violative of the constitutional
presumption of innocence guaranteed to an accused.
SO ORDERED.
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
FRISCO HOLGADO, defendant-appellant.
Mauricio Carlos for appellant.
Assistant Solicitor General Manuel P. Barcelona and Solicitor Felix V. Makasiar for appellee.
MORAN, C.J. :
Appellant Frisco Holgado was charged in the court of First Instance of Romblon with slight illegal detention because
according to the information, being a private person, he did "feloniously and without justifiable motive, kidnap and
detain one Artemia Fabreag in the house of Antero Holgado for about eight hours thereby depriving said Artemia
Fabreag of her personal liberty." On may 8, 1948, the day set for the trial, the trial court proceeded as follows:
Court:
Is this the case ready for trial?
Fiscal:
I am ready, your honor.
Court: — to the accused.
Q. do you have an attorney or are you going to plead guilty? — A. I have no lawyer and I will plead
guilty.
Court:
Arraign the accused.
Note:
Interpreter read the information to the accused in the local dialect after which he was asked this
question.
Q. What do you plead? — A. I plead guilty, but I was instructed by one Mr. Ocampo.
Q. Who is that Mr. Ocampo, what is his complete name? — A. Mr. Numeriano Ocampo.
The provincial fiscal is hereby ordered to investigate that man.
Fiscal:
I have investigated this case and found out that this Ocampo has nothing to do with the case and
I found no evidence against this Ocampo.
Court:
Sentenced reserved.
Two days later, or on May 10, 1948, the trial court rendered the following judgment:
[Criminal Case No. V-118]
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. FRISCO HOLGADO defendant-appellant.
SLIGHT ILLEGAL DETENTION
SENTENCE
The accused, Frisco Holgado, stands charged with the crime of kidnapping and serious illegal
detention in the following
INFORMATION
That on or about December 11, 1947, in the municipality of Concepcion, Province of
Romblon, Philippines and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the said
accused being a private individual, did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and
feloniously, and without justifiable motive, kidnap and detain one Artemia Fabreag in
the house of Antero Holgado for about 8 hours thereby depriving said Artemia
Fabreag of her personal liberty.
Contrary to law.
This case is called for trial on May 8, 1948. Upon arraignment the accused pleaded guilty to the
information above described.
The offense committed by the accused is kidnapping and serious illegal detention as defined by article
267 of the Revised Penal Code as amended by section 2 of Republic Act No. 18 and punished
by reclusion temporal in it minimum period to death. Applying indeterminate sentence law the penalty
shall be prision mayor in its maximum degree to reclusion temporal in the medium degree as
minimum, or ten years (10) and one (1) day of prision mayor to twenty (20) years, with the accessory
penalties provided for by law, with costs. The accused is entitled to one-half of his preventive
imprisonment.
It must be noticed that in the caption of the case as it appears in the judgment above quoted, the offense charged is
named SLIGHT ILLEGAL DETENTION while in the body of the judgment if is said that the accused "stands charged
with the crime of kidnapping and serious illegal detention." In the formation filed by the provincial fiscal it is said that he
"accuses Frisco Holgado of the crime of slight illegal detention." The facts alleged in said information are not clear as to
whether the offense is named therein or capital offense of "kidnapping and serious illegal detention" as found by the
trial judge in his judgment. Since the accused-appellant pleaded guilty and no evidence appears to have been
presented by either party, the trial judge must have deduced the capital offense from the facts pleaded in the
information.
Under the circumstances, particularly the qualified plea given by the accused who was unaided by counsel, it was not
prudent, to say the least, for the trial court to render such a serious judgment finding the accused guilty of a capital
offense, and imposing upon him such a heavy penalty as ten years and one day of prision mayor to twenty years,
without absolute any evidence to determine and clarify the true facts of the case.
The proceedings in the trial court are irregular from the beginning. It is expressly provided in our rules of Court, Rule
112, section 3, that:
If the defendant appears without attorney, he must be informed by the court that it is his right to have
attorney being arraigned., and must be asked if he desires the aid of attorney, the Court must assign
attorney de oficio to defend him. A reasonable time must be allowed for procuring attorney.
Under this provision, when a defendant appears without attorney, the court has four important duties to comply with: 1
— It must inform the defendant that it is his right to have attorney before being arraigned; 2 — After giving him such
information the court must ask him if he desires the aid of an attorney; 3 — If he desires and is unable to employ
attorney, the court must assign attorney de oficio to defend him; and 4 — If the accused desires to procure an attorney
of his own the court must grant him a reasonable time therefor.
Not one of these duties had been complied with by the trial court. The record discloses that said court did not inform
the accused of his right to have an attorney nor did it ask him if he desired the aid of one. The trial court failed to
inquire whether or not the accused was to employ an attorney, to grant him reasonable time to procure or assign an
attorney de oficio. The question asked by the court to the accused was "Do you have an attorney or are you going to
plead guilty?" Not only did such a question fail to inform the accused that it was his right to have an attorney before
arraignment, but, what is worse, the question was so framed that it could have been construed by the accused as a
suggestion from the court that he plead guilt if he had no attorney. And this is a denial of fair hearing in violation of the
due process clause contained in our Constitution.
One of the great principles of justice guaranteed by our Constitution is that "no person shall be held to answer for a
criminal offense without due process of law", and that all accused "shall enjoy the right to be heard by himself and
counsel." In criminal cases there can be no fair hearing unless the accused be given the opportunity to be heard by
counsel. The right to be heard would be of little avail if it does not include the right to be heard by counsel. Even the
most intelligent or educated man may have no skill in the science of the law, particularly in the rules of procedure, and,
without counsel, he may be convicted not because he is guilty but because he does not know how to establish his
innocence. And this can happen more easily to persons who are ignorant or uneducated. It is for this reason that the
right to be assisted by counsel is deemed so important that it has become a constitutional right and it is so
implemented that under our rules of procedure it is not enough for the Court to apprise an accused of his right to have
an attorney, it is not enough to ask him whether he desires the aid of an attorney, but it is essential that the court should
assign one de oficio if he so desires and he is poor grant him a reasonable time to procure an attorney of his own.
It must be added, in the instant case, that the accused who was unaided by counsel pleaded guilty but with the
following qualification: "but I was instructed by one Mr. Ocampo." The trial court failed to inquire as to the true import of
this qualification. the record does not show whether the supposed instructions was real and whether it had reference to
the commission of the offense or to the making of the plea guilty. No investigation was opened by the court on this
matter in the presence of the accused and there is now no way of determining whether the supposed instruction is a
good defense or may vitiate the voluntariness of the confession. Apparently the court became satisfied with the fiscal's
information that he had investigated Mr. Ocampo and found that the same had nothing to do with this case. Such
attitude of the court was wrong for the simple reason that a mere statement of the fiscal was not sufficient to overcome
a qualified plea of the accused. But above all, the court should have seen to it that the accused be assisted by counsel
specially because of the qualified plea given by him and the seriousness of the offense found to be capital by the court.
The judgment appealed from is reversed and the case is remanded to the Court below for a new arraignment and a
new trial after the accused is apprised of his right to have and to be assisted by counsel. So ordered.
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, appellee
vs.
JONATHAN BESONIA, appellant.
DECISION
DAVIDE, JR., C.J.:
From just a three-page, double-spaced decision 1 of the Regional Trial Court of Iloilo City, Branch 23, emanates the fiat
sentencing appellant Jonathan Besonia to two counts of the most severe penalty of death for having committed two
counts of murder. The decision leaves much to be desired. More than half of it was devoted to the narration about
Besonia’s plea of guilty and the consequent searching inquiry conducted by the trial court. After that narration is a
statement that he was not authorized to carry the fatal weapon recovered from him, which is immediately followed by
the dispositive portion, thus:
In the light of the evidence thus far adduced by the prosecution, both oral, real and documentary and with the attendant
qualifying aggravating circumstance of evident premeditation as well as the aggravating circumstance of the use of an
unlicensed firearm, the plea of guilty notwithstanding, judgment is hereby rendered finding the accused GUILTY
beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of Murder for two (2) counts in Criminal Cases Nos. 00-52307 and 00-52308,
hereby sentencing the accused to two (2) counts of the Supreme Penalty of Death, further condemning the said
accused to indemnify the heirs of the victims Ernesto Mospa Nieles and Jerry Sampiano the amount of P50,000.00 by
way of death compensation and P30,000.00 moral damages in each case.2
Besonia was charged with murder in two separate informations docketed as Criminal Cases Nos. 00-52307 and 00-
52308. Upon his arraignment on 22 August 2000, Besonia entered a plea of not guilty in each case. 3 Pre-trial was then
held, where the following facts were admitted by both the prosecution and the defense:
1. The identities of the victims Ernesto Mospa Nie[l]es and Jerry Sampiano as well as that of the
accused Jonathan Besonia;
2. The date and time of the incident, which is June 27, 2000 at 3:30 o’clock in the afternoon;
 3. The place of the incident which is at Guzman Street, Mandurriao, Iloilo City;
4. That the weapon used during the incident which resulted to the killing of the victims Ernesto Mospa
Nie[l]es and Jerry Sampiano was an unlicensed firearm; and
5. That Jerry Sampiano was a construction worker of the aunt of the accused at the time of the
incident.4
On 6 March 2001, before the start of the trial, Besonia, through his counsel Atty. Calixto Perez, manifested that he
would enter a plea of guilty to the lesser offense of homicide after a medical operation on his gall bladder. 5Thereafter,
the trial court ordered the prosecution to begin presenting its evidence. The prosecution thereupon presented as
witnesses Dr. Tito Doromal and SPO1 Ricardo Clarete.
Dr. Tito Doromal, the medico-legal officer who conducted an autopsy on the cadaver of the victim Ernesto Mospa
Nieles, testified that his autopsy findings revealed that Nieles had a bullet wound on the left side of his head and
another one on the thoraco-abdominal region at the left side of his body. He declared that the two bullet slugs
recovered from the body of Nieles came from a .38 caliber firearm, and that the cause of his death was the laceration
of the brain and internal hemorrhage secondary to bullet wounds. 6
SPO1 Ricardo Clarete, the duly authorized representative of the PNP Firearms and Explosives Division, declared that
based on the certification issued by his office after a verification from available records, 7 Besonia was not a licensed or
registered holder of a firearm of any kind and caliber.
At the continuation of the trial, Dr. Agustin P. Vencer testified that he examined the other victim Jerry Sampiano at the
West Visayas Medical Center on 27 June 2000. Sampiano had gunshot wounds on the right arm, extending to the right
lung and liver; and on the right eye, which extended to the respiratory center of the brain. 8 Since Sampiano’s abdomen
was distended, he was operated on twice. But a day after his second operation, or on 30 June 2000, he expired.
On 29 May 2001, Besonia manifested his desire to enter a plea of guilty to murder. Re-arraignment was then
scheduled on 5 June 2001. 9 On his re-arraignment, Besonia pleaded guilty to the two charges of murder. 10 The trial
court forthwith conducted a searching inquiry to determine the voluntariness and full comprehension of his plea. 11
Thereafter, the prosecution presented PO3 Efren Feliprada and PO3 Hilarion Roga, Jr., as additional witnesses to
testify on the aggravating circumstance of use of unlicensed firearm in perpetrating the crimes charged.
PO3 Feliprada testified that at about 3:30 p.m. of 27 June 2000 he, together with PO3 Gerardo Jison and PO2 Hagmay
Dignadice, responded to a report of a shooting incident in Guzman St., Mandurriao, Iloilo City. Later, while his
companions were carrying the body of Sampiano to be brought to the hospital, he gathered information from the
bystanders, who readily identified Besonia as the assailant. He was also informed that Besonia boarded a passenger
jeep en route to Leon, Iloilo. He and PO2 Dignadice immediately chased the jeep. In Barangay Buhay, Alimodian, they
saw Besonia alight. Upon noticing them, Besonia attempted to escape, but to no avail. PO2 Dignadice recovered from
Besonia’s waist a .38 caliber revolver with marking .38JB, 12 which was loaded with three live ammunition and two
empty shells. Thereafter, Besonia was brought to the police station for investigation, and the firearm was submitted to
the crime laboratory for gunpowder residue examination.
PO3 Hilarion Roga, the forensic examiner who examined the firearm subject of these cases, testified that he conducted
the test fire ballistic examination on the firearm and found that the three live ammunition and two empty shells
recovered by the police and submitted for examination came from the same .38 caliber firearm. 13
When recalled to the witness stand, PO3 Feliprada testified that the firearm examined by PO3 Roga and presented
before the trial court was the same firearm recovered from Besonia. 14
After the prosecution had rested its case, the defense manifested that it would not present any evidence. On 26 June
2001, the trial court promulgated judgment which is now the subject of this automatic review.
In the Appellant’s Brief, Besonia, through his new counsel de parte Atty. Jose B. Tiangco, prays for the reversal of the
judgment of conviction and his acquittal based on this sole assignment of error:
THE TRIAL COURT ERRED BY VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT OF [THE] ACCUSED NOT TO BE
COMPELLED TO TESTIFY AGAINST HIMSELF, AND HAVING SO COMPELLED HIM, RENDERED JUDGMENT
SENTENCING HIM TO DEATH.15
Besonia argues that the finding of guilt by the trial court was based mainly on his confession, which is inadmissible for
having been obtained in gross violation of his constitutional right against self-incrimination. Moreover, the prosecution
endeavored to prove the charges for murder by evidence other than the testimonies of the proclaimed eyewitnesses. In
the absence of evidence proving his guilt, he should be acquitted.
On the other hand, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) maintains that Besonia’s voluntary confession in open
court is valid in all respects. There is no indication that he was forced, intimidated, coerced, or lured by anybody into
admitting the crimes. His judicial confession is buttressed by the prosecution evidence that the .38 caliber revolver
taken from him was the same gun that fired the two slugs recovered from the cadaver of Nieles. However, his
admission that he planned the killing a couple of months before its perpetration is insufficient to prove the qualifying
circumstance of evident premeditation. Hence, the OSG recommends the downgrading in each case of (1) the crime
from murder to homicide, aggravated by the use of an unlicensed firearm, and (2) the penalty from death to an
indeterminate sentence of prision mayor in its maximum period, as minimum, to reclusion temporal in its maximum
period, as maximum. It also recommends that temperate damages of P10,000 be awarded in each case in favor of the
victims’ heirs, and that the award of moral damages be increased from P30,000 to P50,000.
In his Reply Brief,16 Besonia claims that his re-arraignment was "notoriously flawed" in that despite his endeavor to
plead guilty to the lesser crime of homicide, the trial court paid no attention to it, thus depriving him of the opportunity to
make such plea. Moreover, there is no basis for the recommendation of the OSG to hold Besonia guilty of the lesser
crime of homicide because of the failure of the prosecution to prove his guilt and the precise degree of his culpability.
The only support for such recommendation is the testimony of Besonia himself, which was obtained in gross violation
of his right not to be compelled to testify against himself. He then prays that the judgment in these cases be set aside
and that the cases be remanded to the trial court for re-arraignment and further proceedings.
We cannot fault the trial court for not acting on the manifestation of Besonia before the start of the trial on 6 May 2001
that he would plead guilty to the lesser crime of homicide. 17 It must be recalled that the intended change of plea was
still subject to a suspensive condition, i.e. after the operation on Besonia’s gall bladder, which nobody knew when. The
trial court could not afford to hold the trial in abeyance for an indefinite period of time. Besides, under Section 2 of Rule
116 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, as amended, a plea to a lesser offense that is necessarily included in
the crime charged must be with the consent of the offended party and the prosecutor. And as can be gleaned from the
use of the word may in the second sentence of that Section, it is discretionary upon the trial court whether to allow him
to make such plea. In any case, when two months later, or on 29 May 2001, Besonia again manifested his desire to
enter a plea of guilty, but this time, to the crime of murder, 18 the trial court set the re-arraignment to 5 June 2001.
We do not find anything irregular in the re-arraignment on 5 June 2001. It complied with Section 1 of Rule 116 of the
Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, as amended. Before Besonia pleaded guilty to both charges, the two
informations for murder were first read and translated to Ilonggo dialect, which was the language known to him.
The two informations, to which Besonia pleaded guilty, allege that the killing was attended by the qualifying
circumstance of evident premeditation and the aggravating circumstance of use of an unlicensed firearm, which if
proved would warrant the penalty of death. With such a plea of guilty to a capital offense, Section 3, Rule 116 of the
Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure will apply. The said Section reads:
Sec. 3. Plea of guilty to capital offense; reception of evidence. - When the accused pleads guilty to a capital offense,
the court shall conduct a searching inquiry into the voluntariness and full comprehension of the consequences of his
plea and shall require the prosecution to prove his guilt and the precise degree of culpability. The accused may present
evidence in his behalf.
We have already outlined, as early as in the case of People v. Camay,19 how compliance with the said rule could be
attained by the trial court, thus:
1. The court must conduct a searching inquiry into the voluntariness and full comprehension [by the
accused] of the consequences of his plea;
2. The court must require the prosecution to present evidence to prove the guilt of the accused and
precise degree of his culpability; and
3. The court must ask the accused whether he desires to present evidence in his behalf, and allow him
to do so if he so desires.
A searching inquiry must focus on the voluntariness of the plea and the full comprehension by the accused of the
consequences of the plea so that the plea of guilty can truly be said to be based on a free and informed judgment.
While there can be no hard and fast rule as to how a judge may conduct a searching inquiry, we declared in People v.
Aranzado, 20 citing a plethora of cases, that it would be well for the court to do the following:
(1) Ascertain from the accused himself (a) how he was brought into the custody of the law; (b) whether
he had the assistance of a competent counsel during the custodial and preliminary investigations; and
(c) under what conditions he was detained and interrogated during the investigations. These the court
shall do in order to rule out the possibility that the accused has been coerced or placed under a state
of duress by actual threats of physical harm coming from malevolent or avenging quarters.
(2) Ask the defense counsel a series of questions as to whether he had conferred with, and completely
explained to, the accused the meaning and consequences of a plea of guilty.
(3) Elicit information about the personality profile of the accused, such as his age, socio-economic
status, and educational background, which may serve as a trustworthy index of his capacity to give a
free and informed plea of guilty.
(4) Inform the accused the exact length of imprisonment or nature of the penalty under the law and the
certainty that he will serve such sentence. Not infrequently indeed an accused pleads guilty in the
hope of a lenient treatment or upon bad advice or because of promises of the authorities or parties of
a lighter penalty should he admit guilt or express remorse. It is the duty of the judge to see to it that the
accused does not labor under these mistaken impressions.
(5) Require the accused to fully narrate the incident that spawned the charges against him or make
him reenact the manner in which he perpetrated the crime, or cause him to supply missing details of
significance.
Moreover, in some cases,21 we ruled that the trial court should also explain to the accused the essential elements of the
crime charged, as well as the penalty and civil liabilities.
We quote in full the searching inquiry that was conducted by the trial court, thus:
Clearly, the trial court has substantially followed the aforementioned parameters for the conduct of a searching inquiry.
We cannot subscribe to Besonia’s claim that his confession and admissions during the searching inquiry were elicited
in violation of his constitutional right not to be compelled to testify against himself. The right against self-
incrimination23 is intended to prevent the State, with all its coercive powers, from extracting from the suspect testimony
that may convict him and to avoid a person subjected to such compulsion to perjure himself for his own protection. 24 It
does not apply where, as in these cases, the testimony was freely and voluntarily given by the accused himself without
any compulsion from the agents of the State. There is nothing in the records that would indicate that Besonia was
forced, intimidated, or compelled by the trial court or by anybody into admitting the crimes. At any rate, his plea of guilty
and confession or admissions during the searching inquiry cannot be the sole basis for his conviction.
It must be stressed that a plea of guilty is only a supporting evidence or secondary basis for a finding of culpability, the
main proof being the evidence presented by the prosecution to prove the accused’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Once an accused charged with a capital offense enters a plea of guilty, a regular trial shall be conducted just the same
as if no such plea was entered. 25 The court cannot, and should not, relieve the prosecution of its duty to prove the guilt
of the accused and the precise degree of his culpability by the requisite quantum of evidence. The reason for such rule
is to preclude any room for reasonable doubt in the mind of the trial court, or the Supreme Court on review, as to the
possibility that the accused might have misunderstood the nature of the charge to which he pleaded guilty, and to
ascertain the circumstances attendant to the commission of the crime which may justify or require either a greater or
lesser degree of severity in the imposition of the prescribed penalties.
In these cases, the trial court did not comply with the second requisite mentioned in Section 3 of Rule 116 of the
Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, which is to order the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused and the
precise degree of his culpability. It only required the prosecution to present evidence "to prove the guilt or degree of
culpability of the accused for the use of [an] unlicensed firearm." Thus, the evidence presented by the prosecution were
merely the testimonies of the police officers on the aggravating circumstance of use of unlicensed firearm in the
commission of the crime, apart from those of the doctors on the injuries sustained by the victims. Doubtless, they are
insufficient to establish the guilt of Besonia.
It must be noted that among the witnesses listed in the complaint for murder was Mildred Besonia, the aunt of Besonia
who was allegedly an eyewitness to the crime and who had executed an affidavit 26 narrating the shooting incident and
identifying the appellant as the perpetrator thereof. On the hearing of 16 April 2001, the trial court ordered the issuance
of a subpoena for her to testify in court.27 However, she was not made to testify anymore obviously because of the plea
of guilt of Besonia.
Worth noting also is that, apart from the Besonia’s admissions during the searching inquiry, the only evidence
mentioned by the trial court in the decision subject of this automatic review were the testimonies regarding the use of
an unlicensed firearm. There was neither a discussion on the guilt of the appellant, the reasons for the appreciation of
the qualifying circumstance of evident premeditation, the penalty, and the civil liabilities.
Apparently, the trial court and the prosecution unduly relied on Besonia’s plea of guilty and his admissions made during
the searching inquiry. The prosecution did not discharge its obligation as seriously as it would have had there been no
plea of guilt on the part of Besonia.28 Its presentation of its case was lacking in assiduity that is necessarily expected in
a prosecution for a capital offense; it was too meager to be accepted as being the standard constitutional due process
at work enough to forfeit a human life.29 It has been held that where the plea of guilt to a capital offense has adversely
influenced or impaired the presentation of the prosecution’s case, the remand of the case to the trial court for further
proceedings is imperative.30
Additionally, we observe that Besonia’s defense counsel Atty. Perez merely performed a lackadaisical and perfunctory
representation of the appellant before and during the trial. First, he failed to question before the arraignment the legality
of Besonia’s arrest, which failure is deemed as a waiver of the right to raise that question once an accused enters a
plea. Second, he failed to object to the admissibility of the firearm seized after Besonia’s arrest. Third, there is no
showing that he advised Besonia of the consequences of his plea of guilty to the crimes of murder. Fourth, he
remained silent throughout the searching inquiry. Fifth, he did not cross-examine the police officers, 31 and his cross-
examination of the two doctors was limited to only two questions each. 32Lastly, he did not present any evidence on
behalf of Besonia. These are all indicative of his failure to effectively provide Besonia with qualified and competent
representation. His behavior irrefutably falls short of the demanding mandate required of a lawyer to defend an
accused no matter how guilty the latter may seem to be. In short, his deportment evinces an apparent disregard of his
fidelity to his oath as a lawyer and responsibility as an officer of the court to aid in the administration and dispensation
of justice.
Enlightening is the Court’s discourse on a counsel’s avowed passionate dedication and resolve in his duty, viz.:
… The right to counsel proceeds from the fundamental principle of due process which basically means that a person
must be heard before being condemned. The due process requirement is a part of a person’s basic rights; it is not a
mere formality that may be dispensed with or performed perfunctorily.
The right to counsel must be more than just the presence of a lawyer in the courtroom or the mere propounding of
standard questions and objections. The right to counsel means that the accused is amply accorded legal assistance
extended by a counsel who commits himself to the cause for the defense and acts accordingly. The right assumes an
active involvement by the lawyer in the proceedings, particularly at the trial of the case, his bearing constantly in mind
of the basic rights of the accused, his being well-versed on the case, and his knowing the fundamental procedures,
essential laws and existing jurisprudence. The right of an accused to counsel finds substance in the performance by
the lawyer of his sworn fidelity to his client. Tersely put, it means an efficient and truly decisive legal assistance and not
a simple perfunctory representation. 33
We reiterate that the constitutional behest that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due
process of law is solemn and inflexible. Absolute heedfulness of this constitutional injunction is most pronounced in
criminal cases where the accused is in the gravest jeopardy of losing his life. It constantly behooves the courts to
proceed with utmost care in each and every case before them; but perhaps nothing can be more demanding of judges
in that respect than when the punishment is in its severest form – death -- a penalty that, once carried out, is
irreversible and irreparable. 34
Therefore, given the attendant circumstances, we are constrained to remand these cases to the court a quo for further
reception of evidence. No matter how outrageous the crimes charged might be or how depraved the offender would
appear to be, the uncompromising demand of due process and of the rule of law must still prevail. 35
WHEREFORE, the decision of the Regional Trial Court of Iloilo City, Branch 23, in Criminal Cases Nos. 00-52307-08,
finding appellant Jonathan Besonia guilty of two counts of murder and sentencing him to suffer the penalty of death in
each case is hereby SET ASIDE, and Criminal Cases Nos. 00-52307 and 00-52308 are hereby ordered REMANDED
to the trial court for further reception of evidence and rendition of a new judgement.
Costs de oficio.
SO ORDERED.
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
BRYAN FERDINAND DY y LA MADRID and GIOVAN BERNARDINO y GARCIA, accused-appellants.
DECISION
YNARES-SANTIAGO, J.:
Accused-appellants Bryan Dy and Giovan Bernardino were charged with Rape and Acts of Lasciviousness in a
complaint initiated by Gina Marie Mobley under the following informations:
Criminal Case No. 12600-R:
That on or about the 12th day of January, 1994, in the City of Baguio, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this
Honorable Court, the above-named accused, conspiring, confederating and mutually aiding one another, did then and
there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously and taking advantage of the unconscious state of the complainant who was
then under the influence of drugs, have carnal knowledge of the complainant GINA MARIE MOBLEY, against her will
and consent.
CONTRARY TO LAW.
Criminal Case No. 12601-R:
That on or about the 12th day of January, 1994, in the City of Baguio, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this
Honorable Court, the above-named accused, actuated by lust with lewd design and with deliberate intent to satisfy their
lascivious desire, conspiring, confederating and mutually aiding one another, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and
feloniously kiss her, fondle her breast, undress her and insert their fingers into her vagina, who was then unconscious
by reason of the drugs employed on her by the accused, all against her will and without her consent, thereby inflicting
upon the latter moral shock, fright, humiliation, dishonor and besmirched reputation on the part of the complainant and
her family.
The two cases were tried jointly. Accused-appellants refused to be arraigned and enter a plea; hence, a plea of "not
guilty" was entered on their behalf.
During the trial, the following undisputed facts were established: Complainant Gina Marie Mobley, together with her
companion Helen Kathleen Tennican, both American nationals, were exchange students at the Chengdu University of
Science and Technology in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. Gina was taking up Biology. Helen was also a Biology major and
took Chinese Studies as an additional course. Both were enrolled at the Pacific Lutheran University at Tacoma,
Washington, where Gina was a university scholar.
Having heard of the renowned Filipino hospitality from their Filipino-American friends, Gina and Helen decided to
spend their semestral break in the Philippines. They arrived in the country on January 10, 1994. They stayed overnight
in Manila then went to Angeles City the next day. In Angeles City, they visited a bar and had cocktails, played billiards
and went disco dancing.
The following morning, January 12, 1994, they flew over Mt. Pinatubo and viewed the lahar-covered areas on board an
ultralight plane. That afternoon, they were driven from their hotel to the Philippine Rabbit Bus terminal in Dau,
Pampanga, where they were supposed to take a ride to Baguio City. While waiting for their bus, they went to a
Shakey’s Pizza Parlor near the terminal.
Gina and Helen took the table near the comfort room. Accused-appellants Bryan and Giovan, who are brothers-in-law,
were seated at the next table. With them was their driver, Rizal. Bryan recognized the two girls from the Angeles Flying
Club, where Gina and Helen rented the ultralight plane. Gina went to the comfort room. Bryan and Giovan approached
Helen and introduced themselves. They invited Helen to join them at their table, but she declined.
While Brian and Giovan were still talking to Helen, Gina returned. She presumed that Helen knew them, so she started
to talk with the boys. Gina told them they came to the country to see the sights and that they wanted to experience
Filipino hospitality. Since they could hardly hear each other above the din of the TV, the girls agreed to join them at
their table. The girls talked about their plan to go to Baguio City and Banaue. Bryan and Giovan offered the girls a ride
to Baguio City. Gina and Helen talked the matter between themselves. Eventually they accepted the offer thinking that
they could save some money. Besides, they thought the boys looked nice and trustworthy.
They left Shakey’s at 7:30 in the evening and boarded a white 1991 four-door Mitsubishi sedan. Rizal took the wheel,
while Bryan sat at the front passenger seat. Helen, Gina and Giovan stayed on the back seat, in that order. Before
proceeding to Baguio, they stopped at a residential area where Bryan delivered some papers and picked up some
jackets.
On their way to Baguio, they talked about school. The girls told them about their boyfriends, while Bryan talked about
his Italian ex-girlfriend. Rizal and Giovan did not join in the conversation at all. Bryan asked Gina whether she has
taken drugs, but Gina replied that she only drinks alcohol occasionally.
The group arrived in Baguio City at 10:45 in the evening. They proceeded to the house of Bryan’s uncle, but shortly
afterwards, they left to look for another place to stay. They went to the Terraces Hotel but found the rates too
expensive. Then, they checked the Baden Powell. The girls found the dormitory style accommodations to their liking
and were about to unload their things, when Bryan suggested the Benguet Pines Tourist Inn, which he said he had
already tried and had found to be a very fine hotel.
They checked in at the Benguet Pines Tourist Inn at 11:00 in the evening. They got two rooms on opposite sides of the
corridor on the second floor. After a while, Bryan and Giovan asked the girls out for some drinks and dancing at the
Songs Jazz Bar along Session Road.
The parties’ versions of the events that followed differed.
According to Gina and Helen, while at the Songs Jazz Bar, Helen drank a margarita, tequila and blowjob with plenty of
water. Gina drank Singaporean sling, blowjob and half a glass of Giovan’s mai tai. Bryan drank just one shot of tequila
while Giovan drank half a glass of mai tai. They also had appetizers. Gina and Helen did not feel intoxicated. They just
felt warm.
On the other hand, Bryan and Giovan narrate that Helen drank margarita, daiquiri, tequila and blow job while Gina had
Singaporean sling, tequila, blow job and mai tai. Bryan had a bottle of beer and two shots of tequila while Giovan only
drank one bottle of beer. They ordered chicken wings and kropeck chips.
After the group left Songs Jazz Bar, Gina’s and Helen’s account went as follows:
As they were pulling away, Giovan, who was driving, said that he was thirsty and wanted to buy cola drinks. Gina
agreed to have one (See Exhibit "B-2"). But Helen declined since she had drank plenty of water already at the Songs
Jazz Bar (Ibid.). Giovan then drove to what the girls called a convenience store because it was open at odd hours, but
which is actually the Kowloon Restaurant, according to the boys. Giovan and Bryan alighted and returned after some
ten minutes with Giovan carrying three plastic cups of Sprite or Seven-Up and Bryan, two cups and a plastic bag
containing Chinese food with small lemons to be squeezed on it. Bryan gave Helen and Gina a cup each. Since she
thought it impolite not to drink what was given her, Helen removed the cover of her cup and sipped from it as there was
no straw, although the cup cover had a hole into which a straw is to be inserted. On the other hand, Gina did not at first
remove the lid of her cup (See Exhibit "4"); she just sucked from the hole intended for the straw (Exhibit "4-B"). But
later on she took off the cover (Exhibit "4-A") and drunk from the cup.
Meanwhile, as they were drinking their cola drinks, Giovan drove the group to Camp John Hay (should be Club John
Hay) where he told the guards at the gate that they were just going to check on the Club’s billeting rates. They parked
in front of the billeting office. Gina was then about to finish her cola drink when she felt something gritty in it which stuck
into her teeth; they were like small particles. She spat them back into the cup and dumped out the remaining contents
of the cup outside the car and thereafter gave the cup to Giovan who threw it into a trash can. Gina commented out
loud about the gritty substance in her drink and related that in China they often found strange things in their food. There
was no word from the boys. Helen finished her drink and then handed the empty cup to Giovan who likewise threw it
into a trash can.1
After leaving Club John Hay, the group returned to their hotel. The girls went on to narrate:
Giovan, Gina, Bryan and Helen, in that order entered. Helen no longer noticed where Rizal was. Giovan directly
proceeded upstairs and stopped on the stair just above the first landing while Gina followed him and stopped on the
first landing. Helen got the keys to their room while Bryan was behind her talking to the desk clerk. Helen tossed the
key to the boys’ room to Gina who was about seven to ten feet away and the latter, in turn, gave it to Giovan. Helen
also flipped their key to Gina who caught it with one hand. Helen waited for Bryan and they went upstairs together.
Gina was trying to open her and Helen’s room with difficulty and so the latter got the key from her and opened the door.
Both entered the room briefly and when Helen was still by the doorway, Gina went out and walked towards the boys’
room. Gina had no recollection why she did so; all she could recall was that she was standing inside the boys’ room.
On the other hand, Helen remembered that one of the boys asked if she had playing cards but he seemed preoccupied
with something else, so she did not make any move to get the playing cards from her bag. Since she was very tired
she entered their (girls’) room, took off her contact lenses in the comfort room, put them in her contacts case and went
to bed. Thereupon, she lost her memory. Sometime later, she felt the sensation of wanting to vomit and ran to the
comfort room in panic that she might not get there on time. However, she did not know if she vomitted. She lost her
sense of time and did not know if she ever went back to bed. She had never felt that way before.
She again regained partial consciousness when she felt being wet on her face and upper chest as though somebody
was touching her with the mouth. She could not tell if her eyes were open but, in any event, she could not see anyone
or anything; she only felt that her personal space was being violated. She curled up like a baby in the womb and kept
on saying, "no", until whoever was with her in the room went away. Then, she lapsed into unconsciousness.
At this time in the boys’ room, Gina noticed that one of the boys pushed the two beds in the room together. She walked
up to one of the beds and lay down on her belly. Giovan lay alongside her and forcefully kissed her. She could not call
to mind what else happened as she believed she was drugged. She could only remember that Giovan was trying to
take off her pants while she was trying to prevent him by holding on to its elastic waist line. Giovan was all along
kissing her with his tongue in her mouth, lying on top of her and touching her breasts. He inserted his fingers into her
vagina but at this precise moment someone knocked on the door. So, Giovan got up and it was then that Gina realized
that he was completely naked and so was she. He handed the blanket on the bed to her and she covered her body
with it. She saw lights coming from the hallway and heard Giovan say, "I think she is asleep." She could not recall
removing them again. When that someone laid on top of her, she found out that it was Bryan. He placed himself
between her legs. She could not recollect if they kissed but she felt his erect penis against her vaginal opening. She
told him that she did not want to have sex; that she was still a virgin. He asked why she was still a virgin and she
replied that she wanted to wait for a husband. More words were in her mind but she could not speak them out. Bryan
told her that he won’t put it in. But Gina felt pain in her vagina because his penis was going into it.
The thought occurred to Gina that if she did not do anything, she knew what was going to happen. It dawned on her
that if she stimulated him in some other way, he might not penetrate her further. So, she slid down and did a fellatio or
oral sex on him. She could not explain her feelings then; to her it was like a nightmare; it was as if she was observing
what was going on and it wasn’t really her; she felt like her head was detached from her body. She did the oral sex for
only several seconds because it was as if someone went into the room. Then, she became unconscious. 2
Again, Bryan and Giovan had a different story:
[F]rom the Songs Jazz Bar they went to Kowloon Restaurant because Bryan was hungry and wanted to eat siomai and
chicken pao with Sprite. Gina and Helen also wanted Sprite while Giovan and Rizal, grape juice and root beer,
respectively. Giovan and Rizal went down to buy all these. They made their orders through a small window because
the main entrance to the restaurant was already closed. They returned with Rizal holding three plastic cups of Sprite
with ice in them and Giovan, root beer and grape juice and two plastic bags containing siomai and chicken pao. Then,
Giovan drove them to John Hay because one of the girls wanted to see the place. That was already past 2:00 o’clock
in the morning of January 13. They pulled over the premises of the billeting area because Giovan told the guards at the
gate that they would just check on the billeting rates. Giovan went to the billeting office where he stayed for about ten
minutes. In the meantime, those left in the car finished their drinks and Bryan collected the cups and threw them into a
trash can at the farther left side of where they parked. They were at John Hay for less than 15 minutes. Then, they left
for the Benguet Pines Tourist Inn at about 2:00 o’clock in the morning of January 13. 3
As to the events that occurred at the hotel, accused-appellants had this to say:
Bryan, Helen, Gina and Rizal got off the car ahead as Giovan went to park it. Giovan got the key to their room from the
car’s glove compartment and picked up the key to the girls’ room from the backseat of the car because he saw it lying
there. He averred that they did not leave their hotel keys at the front desk when they left for the Songs Jazz Bar since
there was no one there at the time. After giving the girls’ key to them at the hallway where they were talking with Bryan,
he went to their room followed by Rizal and then Gina. On the other hand, Bryan went with Helen to the girls’ room
where he borrowed Helen’s playing cards.
After Bryan had entered the boy’s room, they joined together the two beds inside and sat on them (Exhibit ‘8"). They
taught Gina how to play Russian poker or what is commonly called pusoy for more than thirty minutes. But Gina never
learned the game and so they switched to blackjack. Then, Gina said that she was hungry. Giovan offered to go out
and buy what Gina wanted, to which the latter replied that any food will do. Giovan left with Rizal. That was already
past 4:00 o’clock in the morning of January 13. After Giovan had closed the door, she and Bryan continued playing
blackjack. After some ten minutes, Gina put down the playing cards and said that she just wanted to talk with Bryan.
She lay down on her left side facing Bryan with her left hand supporting her head. Bryan moved up on the bed until his
face was on the same level as Gina’s. Their heads were more than a foot but less than two feet away from each other.
While they were talking Gina was stroking Bryan’s head, maybe six times. Bryan just kept silent as he did not know
what to do. On the other hand, Gina was smiling at him. He then smacked her on the lips. She kissed him back and
they started kissing each other. Gina inquired if he had had sex before and he replied, "yes", although it was not true
because he was afraid that Gina might laugh at him if he told the truth that he has no experience in lovemaking. Bryan
shot back a similar question to her and she answered that she has not had sex yet and is still a virgin as she wanted to
preserve her virginity for her future husband. At this point they again kissed each other. Then, Gina asked if Bryan had
a condom and the latter said, "none". She remarked that she was worried about AIDS and he told her that he is not
afflicted with the disease. Thereupon, Gina said that if they are to do it, he should not tell it to anyone to which he
commented that he is not the kiss-and-tell type. She then undressed and he did the same. They went back to bed and
resumed kissing each other. Gina went on top of Bryan and then she slid down and kissed the area around his organ
and later did a fellatio on him. After he had climaxed, Gina moved up and wanted to kiss him but he did not react. She
then asked him to enter her and he replied, "yes", and touched her breasts. However, he was turned off when, upon
feeling her genitals, his hand was smeared with transparent liquid with something like brown or dark brown or red
substance in it which smelled awful. He concluded that it was menstrual fluid because earlier when they were playing
cards something fell from Gina’s jogging pants which he picked up. When he handed it to her, she commented that it
was tampon used for menstruation. He told her that he could not do the act anymore to which she replied, "never
mind". They then put back their clothes on. Bryan went to the comfort room where he washed his smeared hand. When
he came out, he saw Gina lying in bed with her eyes closed. 1awp++i1 He switched off the lights and laid beside her but
he could not sleep. He later on got up and went down to see if Giovan and Rizal had already arrived. However, the
security guard told him that the two had not yet gone back. He returned to their room and, again, lay down beside Gina.
This time he fell asleep. The sun was already somewhat up. He went to the porch to see if their car was already there
and he saw it there. He went down to the car and found both Giovan and Rizal sleeping inside the car; Rizal on the
driver’s seat with Giovan beside him.4
Giovan claimed that he and Rizal bought food for Gina at the Kowloon Restaurant. When Giovan returned to the room,
however, he found Bryan and Gina sleeping. So he just ate the food that they bought. He slept in the car with Rizal until
Bryan woke them up.
Bryan related to Giovan what had transpired between him and Gina. Giovan teased Bryan that he might get AIDS.
Giovan told Bryan that he would like to go home to his wife. Bryan ordered breakfast, then the he and Giovan went
upstairs to their room. Gina was still there. They asked her if she would like some breakfast, but she said no.
Bryan and Giovan then got their things and went downstairs. Bryan finished his breakfast. Bryan told Giovan that they
should wait for the girls to wake up before leaving Baguio. They went first to the driving range at Camp John Hay, but it
was full, so they just went back to the hotel. It was 8:00 in the morning. Bryan wrote his phone number on a piece of
paper to give to the girls, since he had promised to show them around Manila. They went upstairs to the girls’ room and
found Gina there. Both girls were still sleeping. Bryan roused Gina and asked her if it was alright for them to leave.
Gina said, "Yes." Before leaving, Brian left the paper with his phone number.
Gina testified that she passed out after doing oral sex on Bryan. She woke up at 3:00 in the afternoon feeling groggy
and confused. She was shocked to realize what time it was, since she normally sleeps only seven and a half to eight
hours a day. She also felt tired. She could not remember how she was able to get back to their room. She also felt that
her hair, pillow and underwear, which was on the floor, were wet. She remembered that check-out time at the hotel was
at 12:00 noon. She opened her purse to get money to pay for the room, but found that her US$290.00, P2,000.00, 300
yuan and US$200.00 traveller’s check were all missing. Only her US $100.00 traveller’s check was left. She tried to
wake Helen up but the latter only rolled over.
She got up and went out of the room, but she had difficulty balancing herself. She walked to the boys’ room but found
that the door was already open and the beddings had been changed. She ran downstairs and met Hilda, a hotel desk
girl, who asked her if she was alright. Gina cried and told her that she had been robbed. Hilda said she will call the
police. Gina returned to their room to wake up Helen but the latter still did not wake up.
After sometime, Gina again went downstairs and was introduced to five or six members of the Criminal Investigation
Service (CIS). She told them that she was robbed and sexually molested and narrated to them what had happened.
Two CIS agents drove Gina to look for the house of Bryan’s uncle but Gina could not find it.
The hotel owner, Mrs. Delos Santos, asked two hotel guests, Mariano Robles, Jr. and Rizza Lao, for assistance in
helping Gina. Together, they went upstairs and found Helen still asleep. She was wearing black tights and a green
sweatsuit. A bra lay on the table. Mrs. Delos Santos tried to wake her up. It took a while before Helen opened her eyes
and gazed around her. Mrs. Delos Santos introduced Mariano and Rizza. Helen said nothing. Rizza propped her up
with a pillow on her back. Helen appeared sleepy, helpless and unable to move. When Rizza asked her what
happened, she just cried. They thought she was drunk but her breath did not smell of alcohol. Someone brought in a
bowl of soup and Rizza let her sip from it a little at a time. Helen tried to eat it with a spoon but her hands trembled and
she could not put the spoon properly into her mouth. It took her about 30 minutes to finish the soup.
Mariano and Rizza decided to take Helen for a walk to let her blood circulate. Rizza helped her into her sandals and
pulled her to the side of the bed. Helen tried to stand up but she fell back. Mariano held her on both arms and pulled
her up. He stood on Helen’s right side, held her right arm with his right hand and placed his left arm around her waist.
Rizza held Helen’s left arm. Mariano and Rizza tried to move forward but Helen could not take a single step. Mariano
dragged her forward and she made shaky steps.
On the stairway, Mariano had to remind Helen that they were going downstairs. He guided her every step until they
reached the hotel lobby. From the hotel, they walked around Burnham Park for about fifty (50) minutes to an hour.
Everytime they came upon a stairway, Mariano had to instruct Helen how to go down step by step. Whenever Helen
got tired, they sat on a bench. They did this four (4) or five (5) times. Mariano had to support Helen’s back every time
they sat down on the park benches to prevent her from falling over.
When they returned to the hotel, they saw Gina. Mariano and Rizza invited the two girls to have dinner with them. Gina
declined. They took Helen to the Barrio Fiesta Restaurant along Session Road. Again, they had to assist Helen in
getting out of Mariano’s car. At the restaurant, Helen hardly ate.
On the witness stand, Helen recounted that at that time she felt as if the effects of anesthesia was wearing out. She
was disoriented and groggy. She was dizzy and did not feel like waking up. She had difficulty focusing on a single
object. The act of walking was itself an ordeal.
The following morning, Helen still felt groggy and had difficulty concentrating and walking. She and Gina decided to go
to Baguio General Hospital for a urinalysis and pelvic examination. Dr. Mildred Torres, who conducted the tests, made
the following findings:
Perineal Exam.: Positive erythema at the lateral aspect of vaginal wall. No lacerations; no bleeding
noted.
Internal Exam.: Nulliparous introitus. Vagina admits two fingers with difficulty.
Uterus: small. Adnexae: negative. Bleeding: negative. Discharge: minimal; whitish.
Specimen taken for sperm analysis and gram straining.
Urinalysis and pregnancy test requested.
Result: Pregnancy Test: Negative.
Urinalysis: Epithelial cells: occasional. Amorphous Urates: moderate. Pus cells: 0-3. RBC:0-2
Gram Stain: Smear shows gram (-) reds.
Pus cells:
Epithelial cells: many.
Smear Identification: Negative for sperm cell.
Dr. Torres also found erythema on both the lateral aspects of the inner part of the labia minora which could have been
caused by infection, scratching or insertion of any foreign object into the introitus. Ruling out infection due to the
absence of purulent or yellowish discharge, she supposed that it could have been caused by scratching or coitus. On
cross-examination, she opined that it could also have been caused by the use of tampon during menstruation. She
concluded that no force could have been applied on Gina’s hymen as it did not have any laceration or bleeding.
Gina likewise underwent urinalysis and her urine sample yielded negative of sperm cell. She did not, however, undergo
drug testing as there were no facilities for such anywhere in Baguio City.
The prosecution presented Dr. Francisco Hernandez, a neuro-surgeon, as expert witness to corroborate Gina’s
testimony that she was drugged. Dr. Hernandez testified that in the practice of his profession, he uses sedative-
hypnotic drugs belonging to the benzodiazepine family of drugs. According to him, he uses these drugs as tools, such
that whenever he sees a patient, he can form an opinion on whether he or she has been drugged.
Based on the set of facts provided by the private prosecutor, the entries in Gina’s journal and the transcript of
stenographic notes taken during the preliminary examination conducted by the trial court in the afternoon of January 26
and 27, 1994, Dr. Hernandez opined that Gina and Helen were drugged, possibly with lorazepam or ativan, which is a
benzodiazepine.
The defense presented two expert witnesses to counter Dr. Hernandez’s opinion. Dr. Rey San Pedro, a psychiatrist,
opined that Gina and Helen could not have been drugged because they have not been medically examined for the
presence of drugs in their system. Neither were the cups used by Gina and Helen examined if they were indeed laced
with drugs. Instead, the condition described by the girls based on the documents given by the defense could have been
caused by the alcoholic drinks. He added, though, that while Gina’s behavior as described in her journal might have
been caused by ativan, he did not have any basis to conclude the same in much the same way that he concluded that
said behavior was caused by alcohol. He conceded that if ativan were to be taken with alcohol, there would be a
potentiating effect, meaning, that because of the alcohol, the effect of the ativan would last longer or there would be
sedation.
The second expert witness, Dr. Pedro Solis, testified that a person who imbibes alcohol goes through three stages,
namely: (a) stage of excitement; (b) stage of intoxication or the proprioception stage; and (c) stage of being dead drunk
or the toxic stage. On the basis of the statement of facts and documents provided him by the defense, Gina was only at
the first stage, the stage of excitement due to her alcohol intake for the following reasons: she had the power to
coordinate when she caught the room key thrown to her by Helen with one hand; she could properly walk; and she
could properly reason out when she decided to do oral sex on Bryan in order to avoid sexual intercourse. Dr. Solis
explained that the rather long sleep experienced by Gina and Helen was due to fatigue brought about by their activities
the previous day, their alcohol intake, their youth and the cool ambience of Baguio City.
He said it could not be definitely concluded that the girls were drugged because no drug test was conducted. He added
that mere observance of the clinical symptoms can not be a basis for concluding that they were drugged. He conceded,
though, that ativan and some other benzodiazepines are relatively new drugs and, as yet, he has had no experience
observing its effects except from what he has read. Like Dr. San Pedro, he stated that if alcohol is ingested with any of
the psychotropic drugs like ativan, a potentiating effect would be produced in the sense that the pharmacologic effect of
the drug is increased.
The trial court gave credence to the version of the prosecution. On March 16, 1994, it rendered a decision the
dispositive portion of which is as follows:
WHEREFORE, the Court hereby finds and declares both the accused BRYAN FERDINAND DY y LA MADRID and
GIOVAN BERNARDINO y GARCIA guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crimes of rape and acts of lasciviousness as
charged and -
(a) In Crim. Case No. 12600-R, for rape, DY is sentenced, after appreciating in his favor the privileged
mitigating circumstance of minority and the generic mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender, to
suffer an indeterminate penalty of EIGHT (8) YEARS of prision mayor, as minimum, to FOURTEEN
(14) YEARS and EIGHT (8) MONTHS of reclusion temporal, as maximum; while BERNARDINO is
sentenced, likewise after appreciating in his favor the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender,
to suffer an indeterminate penalty of TWELVE (12) YEARS and ONE (1) DAY of reclusion temporal , as
minimum, to TWENTY (20) YEARS and ONE (1) DAY of reclusion perpetua , as maximum. Both
accused are ordered to pay the offended party GINA MARIE MOBLEY in the amounts of: P50,000.00
for her being raped, P12,195.00 (the equivalent of US$450.00 dollars at the exchange rate of P27.10
to US$1.00) as actual damages, and P500,000.00 as moral damages, plus costs.
(b) In Crim. Case No. 12601-R, for acts of lasciviousness, DY is sentenced, after applying in his favor
the same mitigating circumstances mentioned above, to suffer a straight penalty of TWO (2) MONTHS
of arresto mayor; and BERNARDINO is sentenced, likewise after applying to him the same mitigating
circumstance stated above, to suffer an indeterminate penalty of TWO (2) MONTHS OF arresto
mayor, as minimum, to TWO (2) YEARS and FOUR (4) MONTHS of prision correccional, as
maximum. Both accused shall also indemnify, jointly and severally, the offended party, GINA MARIE
MOBLEY, in the amount of P100,000.00 for and as moral damages, plus costs.
Both accused shall furthermore pay, jointly and severally, the offended party attorney’s fees in the amount of
P100,000.00 in the two cases.
The accused BERNARDINO shall be credited with his preventive imprisonment under the terms and conditions
prescribed in Article 29 in relation to Article 70 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended.
SO ORDERED.5
Accused-appellants filed separate appeals. Accused-appellant Bryan Dy assigned the following errors:
A. Errors of Law
I. THE DECISION RENDERED BY THE TRIAL COURT SHOULD BE REVERSED AND SET ASIDE ON THE
GROUND THAT NO VALID ARRAIGNMENT TOOK PLACE DURING THE TRIAL BELOW.
II. EVEN ASSUMING THAT THE PROCEEDINGS BELOW WERE VALIDLY CONDUCTED, THE TRIAL COURT
ERRED IN FINDING ACCUSED-APPELLANT GUILTY OF RAPE AND OF ACTS OF LASCIVIOUSNESS BECAUSE:
a. THE CHARGE OF ACTS OF LASCIVIOUSNESS SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEEMED INCLUDED IN
THE CHARGE OF RAPE.
b. THE LOWER COURT ERRED IN USING THE TESTIMONY OF DR. PEDRO SOLIS, THE EXPERT
WITNESS FOR THE DEFENSE, GIVEN BY HIM MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS AGO IN THE CASE
OF PEOPLE V. CESAR GUY, 12 C.A. REP. 2nd 258, TO DISCREDIT THE TESTIMONY GIVEN BY
HIM DURING THE TRIAL BELOW.
B. Errors of Fact
III. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN FINDING APPELLANT GUILTY OF RAPE BECAUSE:
a. THERE WAS IN FACT NO CARNAL KNOWLEDGE;
b. THE PRIVATE COMPLAINANT WAS NOT DEPRIVED OF REASON OR OTHERWISE
UNCONSCIOUS;
c. THERE WAS NO FORCE OR INTIMIDATION.
IV. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN FINDING APPELLANT GUILTY OF ACTS OF LASCIVIOUSNESS BECAUSE:
a. THERE WAS NO ACT OF LEWDNESS COMMITTED;
b. THE PRIVATE COMPLAINANT WAS NOT DEPRIVED OF REASON OR OTHERWISE
UNCONSCIOUS; and
 c. THERE WAS NO FORCE OR INTIMIDATION.
V. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN NOT FINDING THAT THE SUBSEQUENT ACTS OF APPELLANT ARE NOT
CONSISTENT WITH THE ACTS OF A PERSON WHO HAD JUST COMMITTED AN OFFENSE.
VI. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN NOT FINDING THAT THE PRIVATE COMPLAINANT’S SUBSEQUENT ACTS AND
STATEMENTS MADE AS PART OF THE RES GESTAE SHOW THAT SHE HAD NOT BEEN MOLESTED.
VII. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN NOT FINDING THAT THE PRIVATE COMPLAINANT’S CREDIBILITY HAS BEEN
IMPEACHED.
VIII. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN NOT FINDING THAT THE CREDIBILITY OF THE OTHER PROSECUTION
WITNESSES HAS BEEN IMPEACHED.6
Accused-appellant Giovan Bernardino, on the other hand, assigns the following errors:
I. THE TRIAL COURT FAILED TO ACCORD THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED
TO DUE PROCESS OF LAW THUS DEPRIVING THEM OF A FAIR TRIAL.
II. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN FINDING GIOVAN BERNARDINO GUILTY AS A CO-
CONSPIRATOR IN THE CRIME OF RAPE BECAUSE THERE WAS NO CARNAL KNOWLEDGE
BETWEEN BRYAN DY AND PRIVATE COMPLAINANT.
III. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN FINDING GIOVAN BERNARDINO GUILTY AS A CO-
CONSPIRATOR IN THE CRIME OF RAPE BECAUSE NEITHER FORCE NOR INTIMIDATION WAS
EMPLOYED NOR WAS THE PRIVATE COMPLAINANT DEPRIVED OF REASON OR OTHERWISE
UNCONSCIOUS.
IV. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN FINDING GIOVAN BERNARDINO GUILTY AS A CO-
CONSPIRATOR IN THE CRIME OF RAPE BECAUSE BRYAN DY LACKED THE REQUISITE DOLO
OR CRIMINAL INTENT TO COMMIT THE SAID INTENTIONAL FELONY.
V. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN CONCLUDING THAT GIOVAN BERNARDINO WAS A CO-
CONSPIRATOR IN THE CRIME OF RAPE BY REASON OF CONSPIRACY OR THAT HE
PARTICIPATED IN ANY WAY IN THE ALLEGED CRIME.
VI. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN FINDING GIOVAN BERNARDINO GUILTY OF THE CRIME OF
ACTS OF LASCIVIOUSNESS BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT.
VII. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN DECLARING THAT THE CRIME ALLEGEDLY COMMITTED WAS
QUALIFIED RAPE, AND IN FAILING TO CREDIT ACCUSED-APPELLANT GIOVAN BERNARDINO
WITH THE MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCE OF MINORITY.
VIII. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN ORDERING BOTH ACCUSED-APPELLANTS IN CRIMINAL
CASE No. 12600-R TO PAY THE PRIVATE COMPLAINANT FIFTY THOUSAND PESOS FOR THE
ALLEGED RAPE, ACTUAL AND MORAL DAMAGES PLUS COSTS; AND IN CRIMINAL CASE No.
12601 TO MORAL DAMAGES PLUS COSTS.7
The defense contends that there was no valid arraignment since they were not furnished a copy of the complaint or
information. Moreover, the complaint or information was not read in a dialect or language known to them. While they
waived their right to enter a plea, they claim that they never waived their right to be informed of the nature and cause of
the accusation against them.
Concededly, the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation may not be waived. Indeed, the defense
may waive their right to enter a plea and let the court enter a plea of "not guilty" in their behalf. However, it becomes
altogether a different matter if the accused themselves refuse to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation
against them. The defense can not hold hostage the court by their refusal to the reading of the complaint or
information.
The reason proffered by accused-appellants’ for their refusal to be arraigned, i.e., that to do so would supposedly
constitute a waiver of their right to appeal the resolutions of the prosecutor to the Secretary of Justice, 8 appears to be
specious. Evidently, accused-appellants only wanted the trial court to suspend the arraignment to enable them to
exhaust their remedy of appeal to the Secretary of Justice. However, accused-appellants had no valid ground to move
that their arraignment be held in abeyance, considering that at that time they had not filed a petition for review of the
prosecutor’s resolution before the Department of Justice. In Solar Team Entertainment, Inc. v. How,9 this Court has held
that:
Procedurally speaking, after the filing of an information, the court is in complete control of the case and any disposition
therein is subject to its sound discretion. The decision to suspend arraignment to await the resolution of an appeal with
the Secretary of Justice is an exercise of such discretion.
xxx xxx xxx
It bears stressing that the court is however, not bound to adopt the resolution of the Secretary of Justice since the court
is mandated to independently evaluate or assess the merits of the case, and may either agree or disagree with the
recommendation of the Secretary of Justice. Reliance alone on the resolution of the Secretary of Justice would be an
abdication of the trial court’s duty and jurisdiction to determine prima facie case.
As the Solicitor General correctly observed, thus:
x x x [A]ssuming, arguendo, that appellants were not validly arraigned, such defect, if any, was waived when
appellants, without objection, proceeded to trial as if they have been duly arraigned (22 C.J.S. 626). Any irregularity in
an arraignment, such as failure to deliver a copy of the indictment, or to read the same to accused, or delivering the
same to the attorney of the accused, instead of to the accused himself, is waived by failure to object thereto in the trial
court (Ibid., p. 628).
xxx xxx xxx
It is also important to stress that to nullify the proceedings had before the court a quo would set a dangerous
precedent. For, all that an accused would do is to refuse to be arraigned and then proceed to trial, and if found guilty
would just invoke the absence of arraignment to set aside the proceedings had in the trial court. Such practice would
run counter to the purpose and spirit of our rules of procedure which is: to help achieve an orderly and speedy
disposition of cases.10
Nonetheless, accused-appellants were substantially informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against them
when their counsel received a copy of the Prosecutor’s resolution maintaining the charge for rape and acts of
lasciviousness.11 The failure to read the complaint or information in a language or dialect known to them was
essentially a procedural infirmity that was eventually non-prejudicial to accused-appellants. Not only did they receive a
copy of the information, they likewise participated in the trial, cross-examined the complainant and her witnesses and
presented their own witnesses to debunk and deny the charges against them. The conduct of the defense, particularly
their participation in the trial, clearly indicates that they were fully aware of the nature and cause of the accusations
against them.
Interestingly, after the arraignment, the defense never brought up the supposed invalidity or defect thereof. Rather,
accused-appellants and their counsel vigorously and fully participated in the trial of the case.
Accused-appellants are clearly estopped to question the alleged invalidity of or infirmity in their arraignment. By actively
participating in the trial of the case, they have effectively waived whatever procedural error there was in their
arraignment. In short, whatever was the defect in their arraignment was substantially cured by their own omission and
subsequent actions.
Accused-appellants next submit that the crime of acts of lasciviousness should have been absorbed by the crime of
rape.
The Office of the Solicitor General disagreed arguing, thus:
While it may be true that in certain cases, the crime of acts of lasciviousness may be considered absorbed by the crime
of rape, in the instant case, it cannot be so because the two crimes were committed by two different persons acting in
conspiracy. Such being the case, there is no occasion for the application of the procedural rule that one crime whose
elements are identical with another crime is absorbed by the more serious crime. There being conspiracy, what is
applicable is the rule that the crime committed by one conspirator is added to the crime committed by his co-
conspirator and vice-versa. This is so because in conspiracy, the act of one is considered as the act of the other co-
conspirator. In the case under consideration, while appellant Bernardino has committed the crime of acts of
lasciviousness, his co-conspirator appellant Bryan Dy, committed the crime of rape. They are, therefore, liable for both
offenses in view of the presence of conspiracy.
Appellants, in insisting that the crime of acts of lasciviousness should have been absorbed by the crime of rape,
misappreciated the application of Section 5, Rule 120 (when an offense includes or is included in another) of the Rules
on Criminal Procedure and the principle of conspiracy.12
The position of the Solicitor General is well-taken. As will be shown hereunder, both accused-appellants acted in
conspiracy, especially in their act of offering the girls alcoholic drinks at the Songs Jazz Bar and in administering drugs
in their cola drinks. Under the principle of conspiracy, the act of one is the act of all. Consequently, Bryan should also
be held criminally liable for the acts of lasciviousness committed by Giovan on Gina, made possible by his convenient
absence in the room. Corollarily, Giovan should be held equally guilty for the rape committed by Bryan.
Accused-appellants dispute the factual findings of rape made by the trial court, arguing that: (1) that there was no
carnal knowledge; (2) complainant was not deprived of reason or otherwise unconscious; and (3) there was no force or
intimidation.
In rape cases, courts are guided by the following principles: (1) to accuse a man of rape is easy, but to disprove it is
difficult though the accused may be innocent; (2) considering that in the nature of things, only two persons are usually
involved in the crime of rape, the testimony of the complainant should be scrutinized with great caution; and (3) the
evidence for the prosecution must stand or fall on its own merit and not be allowed to draw strength from the weakness
of the evidence for the defense. 13
Accused-appellant Dy insists there was no carnal knowledge between him and complainant. He avers that "the only
intimate contact between them consisted merely of Mobley’s kissing him, holding his penis and eventually sucking it,
and of him in turn kissing her and placing his fingers in her vagina." 14 He claims that Dr. Torres’ and Dr. Solis’ findings
as well as complainant’s journal confirmed his testimony. Dr. Torres, in particular, testified that complainant’s cervix
merely showed reddening and irritation indicating positive erythema at the lateral aspect of the vaginal wall. Said
erythema could have been caused by coitus, infection, scratching, or the use of a tampon. She added that erythema
could not be caused solely by sex. The presence of erythema, however, cannot give a definitive conclusion as to its
cause. She also found complainant’s hymen to be intact and that there was no laceration, bleeding or spermatozoa.
Dr. Solis, on the other hand, submits that erythema or reddening could not have been caused by intercourse as said
act would have produced not only irritation on the vaginal wall but also irritation, swelling and reddening of
complainant’s outer genital area. He added that coitus is a blind act and would have caused irritation to the labia
majora, labia minora and hymen in addition to the vaginal wall, suggesting that erythema on the vaginal wall was more
consistent with scratching or the insertion of a foreign object such as a tampon.
Accused-appellant Dy’s contention fails to persuade. The medical opinions he cites do not totally rule out penetration or
contact of penis with the vagina. In fact, Dr. Torres could not give a definitive conclusion that the reddening of the
vaginal walls was not caused by sexual intercourse. Even if we were to follow Dr. Solis’ line of reasoning, he was not
likewise categorical in stating that the reddening of the vaginal walls was not caused by penetration by a penis. Rather,
he stated that such reddening was "more consistent" with scratching or the use of a tampon. 15
Further, lack of lacerated wounds does not negate sexual intercourse. A freshly broken hymen is not an essential
element of rape. Even the fact that the hymen of the victim was still intact does not negate rape. As explained by Dr.
Maximo Reyes, medico-legal officer of the NBI, there are hymens that may admit without necessarily producing
laceration and there are hymens that may admit injuries that will produce such laceration. 16
Even the presence or absence of spermatozoa is immaterial in the prosecution of a rape case. It is well settled that
penetration of the woman’s vagina, however slight, and not ejaculation, constitutes rape. The Court rejects the
argument that the absence of sperm in the vaginal area is a good defense in a rape case. 17
For rape to be consummated, full penetration is not necessary. Penile invasion necessarily entails contact with the
labia. It suffices that there is proof of the entrance of the male organ with the labia of the pudendum of the female
organ. Penetration of the penis by entry into the lips of the vagina, even without rupture or laceration of the hymen, is
enough to justify a conviction for rape. To repeat, the rupture of the hymen or laceration of any part of the woman’s
genitalia is not indispensable to a conviction for rape. 18
Accused-appellant Dy also insists that complainant could not have been drugged, relying on the opinion of his expert
witnesses, namely, Dr. San Pedro and Dr. Solis. The reasoning that complainant could not have been drugged as there
was no drug test taken is at least speculative and at most non sequitur. The trial court found that:
The proven reaction of Gina and Helen to the cola drinks given them by the accused unmistakably indicates that they
were indeed drugged. Dr. Francisco Hernandez, the prosecution expert witness, opined that the sedative-hypnotic drug
known as ativan or lorazepam could probably be the one used. As explained by him, ativan is a dose-related drug. A
dosage of from 0.5 milligram to 4 milligrams could produce in a person of average built or with a weight of 130 pounds
anxiolytic effect, visual hallucination, amnesia, confusion, disorientation, gait unsteadiness and sedation. At a 4-
milligram dosage, the imbiber would experience sedation and excessive sleepiness (See Exhibit "G"). The onset of the
action of the drug is within 15 to 45 minutes from the time it is ingested; it peaks after 2 hours; and the action will last
for 6 to 8 hours.
The effects of ativan manifested themselves in Gina and Helen but they were more profound in Helen because she
drank all the cola drink spiked with drug and she is slimmer than the 165-pound Gina who did not finish her cola drink
because when she felt something gritty that stuck into her teeth, she spat back into her cup the cola in her mouth and
dumped out the rest of her drink.
Accused-appellant Dy can not take comfort in the fact that Gina failed to undergo a drug test. In People v.
Villanos,19 the issue of whether the laced softdrink should have been presented in evidence to prove that complainant
felt dizzy and unconscious after drinking the same was resolved thus:
True, there was no test conducted to determine the presence of any sedative or drug in the drinks given to the victims
which caused them to lose momentary control of their faculties. But this is of little consequence as the same is not an
indispensable element in a prosecution for rape. Under the circumstances, it suffices that the victim was found to have
been unconscious at the time the offender had carnal knowledge of her.
Accused-appellant Dy’s submission that the ativan is an anxiety-reducing drug and not a sedative which would not
normally produce sleep unless taken in massive quantities is belied by the undisputed fact that Gina slept for
approximately thirteen hours while Helen slept for almost eighteen hours. Gina testified that she normally sleeps from
seven and a half hours to eight hours. The trial court correctly appreciated the clinical and academic assessment of the
potency and effect of ativan which, according to Dr. Hernandez, is a benzodiazepine or a sedative-hypnotic drug. More
specifically, the trial court found that:
Gina experienced patchy amnesia, i.e., she could remember some of the events happening to her and in front of her
but forget the others, like her inability to recall that she went back to their room and even bathed. She also had
disorientation and confusion because she did not know why she went to the boys’ room and why she was naked.
Disorientation and confusion, in turn, produce hypnotic effect, making the one drugged easily suggestible, easily
manipulated and easily taken advantaged of. Gina likewise had visual hallucination since she had the sensation that it
was as if her head was detached from her body. She could resist but she had no means of resisting because ativan is
a muscle relaxant and all her muscles were flaccid or lax.
Quite significantly, Dr. San Pedro, one of the defense expert witnesses, stated that ativan could also cause Gina’s
feeling that she was falling in and out of consciousness during the incident in question. Significantly, too, Dr. San Pedro
further testified that Gina’s behavior could be consistent with her taking alcoholic drinks and ativan on the same
occasion. Dr. Solis, the other defense expert witness, also gave the view that imbibing alcohol together with ativan
would produce potentiation or increase the pharmacologic effect of the drug. 20
Accused-appellant Dy asserts that: (a) the combination of drugs and alcohol normally produces a potentiating effect in
that the subject can either fall into a coma or do the opposite which is to act aggressively and with extreme hostility,
and (b) the effects described by complainant and Helen Tennican are more consistent with alcohol use rather than the
effect of drugs. These assertions are not in accord with the trial court’s findings of fact, and when combined with the
adverbs "normally" and "more consistent," are not definitive.
Even so, the trial court did not err in its assessment of the credibility of Dr. Hernandez’s testimony. The fact that Dr.
Hernandez has not been accredited as an expert by the Dangerous Drugs Board does not necessarily mean that he is
not an expert on the effects of drugs, as accused-appellant Dy would like this Court to believe. Accreditation by the
Board is not an essential element of expertise. More properly, expertise pertains to knowledge and experience as well
as relevant exposure to a particular field of discipline. It appears that Dr. Hernandez has met these latter requisites.
Since complainant was drugged, she was effectively deprived of reason if not effectively rendered unconscious.
Under Article 335 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended by RA No. 7659, rape is committed by having carnal
knowledge of a woman who is unconscious. In such a case, the fact of sexual assault and the identity of the assailant
can be established from the events preceding or following the victim’s loss of consciousness. 21 Here, complainant was
not totally unconscious but was physically helpless to resist or effectively communicate her refusal to the lewd desires
of accused-appellants. She was aware of the fact of sexual assault and the identity of her assailants despite her patchy
amnesia, disorientation and confusion. In People v. Lintag,22 this Court held that:
[I]f the ability to resist is taken away by administering drugs, even though the woman may be conscious, sexual
intercourse with her is rape. (Citation omitted) If the woman’s will is affected by the anesthetic so that the connection is
had without her consent, though she may be more or less conscious, the act will be rape. (Citation omitted)
In this regard, the trial court observed:
Gina has positively and steadfastly and unrelentingly claimed that after the effects of the drug had taken on her and
she lay down on the beds put together in the boy’s room, Giovan lay alongside her and forcibly kissed her with his
tongue inside her mouth, kissed her breasts and inserted his index and middle fingers into her vagina followed by
Bryan having sexual intercourse with her and just to prevent Bryan from penetrating her further, she did oral sex on
him.23
Conspiracy exists when two or more persons come to an agreement concerning the commission of a felony and decide
to commit it. The agreement may be deduced from the manner in which the offense was committed. It must be shown
that all participants performed specific acts with such closeness and coordination as to indicate a common purpose or
design to commit the felony.24
Accused-appellants joint participation in the crime of rape is clear from the trial court’s findings as follows:
(a) Bryan and Giovan were both at the Angeles Flying Club when Bryan spotted Gina and Helen;
(b) The two boys and their driver sat at a table next to the girls’ and immediately Bryan and later on
Giovan struck up a conversation with the girls, initially with Helen whom they invited to their table
which she declined, and then with Gina after the latter came out of the washroom who accepted the
boys’ invitation to their table and Helen then followed suit;
(c) Upon learning that the girls were coming up to Baguio City, the boys intimated that they, too, were
coming up as they had planned two weeks earlier and offered the girls a ride with them. The boys’
pretension could not be true otherwise Bryan, who came from Manila, would have prepared at least a
jacket and some clothes for their well-planned Baguio trip; instead, they had to go first to a residential
area in Angeles City where Bryan borrowed a jacket (two according to Helen) before driving to Baguio
City;
xxx xxx xxx
(e) At the Songs Jazz Bar, Bryan and Giovan kept on offering and giving Gina and Helen alcoholic
drinks;
(f) As they left, Giovan suggested that he was thirsty and wanted cola drink;
(g) Notably, Helen declined any further cola drink since she had already drunk enough water at the
Songs;
(h) But Bryan and Giovan, who went to buy the drinks at Kowloon Restaurant, saw to it that the two
plastic cups of Sprite carried by Bryan be given to Gina and Helen. They were the drugged cola drinks;
(i) As heretofore stated, they detoured through Club John Hay to let Gina and Helen drink their drug-
laced Sprite and have the drug take its initial effect;
(j) When Giovan was satiating his lust on Gina, Bryan was not around to let Giovan freely do what he
wanted. When Bryan’s turn came, Giovan also left.
Accused-appellant Bernardino’s contention that he could not have been a co-conspirator in the crime of rape because
Bryan Dy lacked the requisite dolo or criminal intent to commit said intentional felony is unmeritorious. Complainant
was found to have been drugged. The obvious implication of drugging complainant was to render her unconscious or at
least unable to resist the malicious and sexual designs of accused-appellants on the former. By doing so, accused-
appellants ensured that complainant would be in no position to resist or to effectively say "no". The fact of drugging
complainant betrays both accused-appellants’ intent to sexually assault complainant or engage in sexual intercourse
with her.
In addition, accused-appellant Dy submits that he would not have acted the way he did had he committed the crime of
rape. His argument is non sequitur. While an accused-appellant’s post-incident behavior is never proof of guilt, neither
is it of innocence.
By the same token, accused-appellant submits that complainant’s acts and statements, which are allegedly part of
the res gestae, indicate that she had not been raped or molested. This contention is, likewise, unmeritorious. The
behavior and reaction of every person cannot be predicted with accuracy. It is an accepted maxim that "different people
react differently to a given situation or type of situation and there is no standard form of behavioral response when one
is confronted with a strange or startling experience. Not every rape victim can be expected to act conformably to the
usual expectations of every one. Some may shout; some may faint; and some may be shocked into insensibility, while
others may openly welcome the intrusion."25 Behavioral psychology teaches us that people react to similar situations
dissimilarly. There is no standard form of behavior when one is confronted by a shocking incident. The workings of the
human mind when placed under emotional stress are unpredictable. This Court indeed has not laid down any rule on
how a rape victim should behave immediately after she has been abused. This experience is relative and may be dealt
with in any way by the victim depending on the circumstances, but her credibility should not be tainted by any modicum
of doubt.26
Accused-appellant Dy also avers that the credibility of complainant and her other witnesses was impeached. In effect,
accused-appellants question the trial court’s assessment of complainant’s credibility.
Credible witness and credible testimony are the two essential elements for the determination of the weight of a
particular testimony. This principle could not ring any truer where the prosecution relies mainly on the testimony of the
complainant, corroborated by the medico-legal findings of a physician. Be that as it may, the accused may be convicted
on the basis of the lone, uncorroborated testimony of the rape victim, provided that her testimony is clear, convincing
and otherwise consistent with human nature. 27
Needless to say, this is a matter best assigned to the trial court which had the first-hand opportunity to hear the
testimonies of the witnesses and observe their demeanor, conduct, and attitude during cross-examination. Such
matters cannot be gathered from a mere reading of the transcripts of stenographic notes. Hence, the trial court’s
findings carry great weight and substance.28
In any case, well-settled is the rule that the findings of facts and assessment of credibility of witnesses is a matter best
left to the trial court because of its unique position of having observed that elusive and incommunicable evidence of the
witnesses’ deportment on the stand while testifying, which opportunity is denied to the appellate courts. Only the trial
judge can observe the furtive glance, blush of conscious shame, hesitation, flippant or sneering tone, calmness, sigh,
or the scant or full realization of an oath – all of which are useful aids for an accurate determination of a witness’
honesty and sincerity. The trial court’s findings are accorded finality, unless there appears in the record some fact or
circumstance of weight which the lower court may have overlooked, misunderstood or misappreciated and which, if
properly considered, would alter the results of the case. 29 Unless certain facts of substance and value were overlooked
which, if considered, might affect the result of the case, its assessment must be respected for it had the opportunity to
observe the conduct and demeanor of the witnesses while testifying and detect if they are lying. 30
This Court does not agree that the trial court overlooked or misappreciated any fact of substance or value. In assessing
the credibility of complainant, the trial court commented thus:
The Court had observed her demeanor when she was testifying and she was direct, spontaneous and straightforward,
even crying in narrating the sensitive details of her horrible experience; she had also demonstrated much care and
concern about her obligation to tell the truth and nothing but the truth under the oath which she had taken before sitting
on the witness chair.31
The victim’s act of crying during her testimony bolsters the credibility of the rape charge with the verity born out of
human nature and experience.32
Besides, no woman would concoct a story of defloration, allow examination of her private parts and subject herself to
public trial or ridicule if she has not, in truth, been a victim of rape and impelled to seek justice for the wrong done to
her. It is settled jurisprudence that when a woman says that she has been raped, she says in effect all that is necessary
to show that rape was indeed committed.33 A woman would think twice before she concocts a story of rape unless she
is motivated by a patent desire to seek justice for the wrong committed against her. 34
No decent woman in her right mind would tell a tale that could sully her reputation and bring undue embarrassment and
shame to herself and expose her family to all sorts of public aspersions if it is not the truth. 35If her story had only been
contrived, she would not have been so composed and consistent throughout her entire testimony in the face of intense
and lengthy interrogation. 36 Indeed, if an accused had really nothing to do with the crime, it is against the natural order
of events and human nature and against the presumption of good faith that the prosecution witness would falsely testify
against the former.37
In this case, accused-appellants could not even come up with a credible motive for complainant to charge them with
rape. At any rate, ill motive is never an essential element of a crime. It becomes inconsequential in a case where there
are affirmative, nay, categorical declarations towards the accused-appellant’s accountability for the felony.38
It is doctrinally settled that the lone testimony of a rape victim, by itself, is sufficient to convict if credible. Equally settled
is the principle that when a woman declares that she has been raped, she says in effect all that is necessary to mean
that she has been raped, and where her testimony passes the test of credibility, the accused can be convicted on the
basis thereof. This is because from the nature of the crime, the only evidence that can be offered to establish the guilt
of the accused is the complainant’s testimony.39
Accused-appellant Bernardino assails the trial court’s failure to credit him with the mitigating circumstance of minority.
There is no merit to this contention. Accused-appellant Bernardino was already nineteen when the crime was
committed. Moreover, in the case of People v. Abad, 40 which accused-appellant Bernardino cites, the circumstances
and immaturity of accused in said case "did not allow him the freedom of initiative and action which should be expected
of a person who is aware of the full consequences and responsibility for his acts." Accused-appellant Bernardino was
not under similar circumstances and neither was there any clinical basis to show he was immature.
Under the second paragraph of Article 335 of the Revised Penal Code, rape is punished by reclusion perpetua.
Although Section 17 of R.A. No. 7659 fixed the duration of reclusion perpetua from 20 years and 1 day to 40 years, the
penalty has remained indivisible.
At the time of the commission of the crime, accused-appellant Dy was 17 years old, hence a minor. Under Article 68 of
the Revised Penal Code, when the offender is a minor under 18 years, the penalty next lower to that prescribed by law
shall be imposed, but always in the proper period.
Minority being a privileged mitigating circumstance, the proper imposable penalty in this case for accused-appellant Dy
is reclusion temporal, which ranges from 12 years and 1 day to 20 years. Appreciating the ordinary generic mitigating
circumstance of voluntary surrender in favor of Dy, the imposable penalty should be within minimum period of reclusion
temporal , i.e., 12 years and 1 day to 14 years and 8 months. Applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law, the minimum
term of the penalty should be within the range of prision mayor in any of its periods, i.e., from 6 years and 1 day to 12
years.
Considering the foregoing, accused-appellant Dy is hereby sentenced to suffer the penalty of 8 years of prision
mayor, as minimum up to 14 years and 8 months of reclusion temporal, as maximum.
As regards accused-appellant Bernardino, he is not entitled to the privileged mitigating circumstance of minority
considering that at the time of the commission of the crime, he was already nineteen years old. 41 Hence, as to him, the
proper imposable penalty is reclusion perpetua , an indivisible penalty. Under Article 63, first paragraph, of the Revised
Penal Code, this penalty shall be imposed regardless of the attendance of the mitigating circumstance of voluntary
surrender.
The trial court erred in sentencing accused-appellant Bernardino to an indeterminate penalty. Since the penalty
of reclusion perpetua is imposed on him, accused-appellant Bernardino can not enjoy the benefit of the Indeterminate
Sentence Law.42
Accused-appellant Bernardino’s act of kissing Gina’s breasts and inserting his finger into her vagina constituted acts of
lasciviousness.43 The penalty for this felony, under Article 336 of the Revised Penal Code, is prision correccional. The
penalty to be imposed on accused-appellant Dy, after appreciating the privileged mitigating circumstance of minority
and the generic mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender, is arresto mayor in its minimum period. Inasmuch as
the Indeterminate Sentence Law is not applicable, 44 the trial court correctly imposed on him the straight penalty of two
months of arresto mayor.
On the other hand, the penalty to be imposed on accused-appellant Bernardino, considering the generic mitigating
circumstance of voluntary surrender, is prision correccional in its minimum period. The trial court, therefore, correctly
imposed on him the indeterminate penalty of two months of arresto mayor, as minimum, to two years and four months
of prision correccional, as maximum.
Finally, in the matter of the damages awarded by the trial court, this Court reduces the award of moral damages from
P500,000.00 to P50,000.00 in line with prevailing jurisprudence. Moral damages are not awarded to punish the
accused but to compensate for the mental anguish, serious anxiety, and moral shock suffered by the victim or his
family as the proximate result of the wrongful act. The award is not meant to enrich the victim at the expense of the
accused.45
Likewise, the award of P12,195.00 or the equivalent of US$450.00 as actual damages is deleted for lack of factual
basis. To seek recovery of actual damages, it is necessary to prove the actual amount of loss with a reasonable degree
of certainty, premised upon competent proof and on the best evidence obtainable by the injured party.46
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the Decision of the Regional Trial Court of Baguio City, Branch 5, in Criminal
Case No. 12600-R, finding accused-appellant BRYAN FERDINAND DY y LA MADRID and GIOVAN BERNARDINO y
GARCIA guilty of Rape, and sentencing accused-appellant Bryan Dy to suffer an indeterminate penalty of eight years
of prision mayor, as minimum, up to fourteen years and eight months of reclusion temporal , as maximum, is
AFFIRMED. The said decision, insofar as accused-appellant Giovan Bernardino’s penalty is concerned, is MODIFIED
in that he is sentenced to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua.
The decision of the trial court in Criminal Case No. 12601-R, finding accused-appellants guilty of Acts of
Lasciviousness and sentencing accused-appellant Dy to suffer the straight penalty of two months of arresto mayor, and
accused-appellant Bernardino to suffer the indeterminate penalty of two months of arresto mayor, as minimum, to two
years and four months of prision correccional, as maximum, is AFFIRMED.
Accused-appellants Dy and Bernardino are further ORDERED, jointly and severally, to pay complainant, Gina Marie
Mobley, the amounts of P50,000.00 as civil indemnity, P50,000.00 as moral damages and P100,000.00 as attorney’s
fees, and to pay the costs of the suit. The award of P12,195.00 or US$450.00 as actual damages is DELETED.
SO ORDERED.
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, appellee,
vs.
LARRY CACHAPERO y BASILIO, appellant.
DECISION
PANGANIBAN, J.:
Time is not an essential element of rape. An information that states the approximate rather than the precise time it was
committed is sufficient in form. Any perceived formal defect in the information must be raised before arraignment, either
through a bill of particulars or a motion to quash; otherwise, objection to such defect shall be considered waived.
The Case
Larry Cachapero y Basilio appeals the January 15, 2002 Decision 1 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Camiling, Tarlac
(Branch 68), in Criminal Case No. 98-68 Cam, finding him guilty of rape as follows:
"WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, accused LARRY CACHAPERO y [BASILIO] is hereby
found GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of RAPE, under Article 266-A of the Revised
Penal Code, in relation to R.A. No. 7610, and is hereby sentenced to suffer the penalty of reclusion
perpetua, with its accessory penalties, and [is hereby further] directed to pay the victim the sum
of P50,000.00 as civil indemnity, the sum of P50,000.00 as moral damages and another sum
of P25,000.00 as exemplary damages." 2
The Information 3 dated December 1, 1998, charged appellant in these words:
"That sometime in March 1998, in the Municipality of Camiling, Province of Tarlac, Philippines and
within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused did then and there wilfully,
unlawfully and feloniously by means of force and intimidation succeed in having sexual intercourse
with Anna Laurence Toledo, a 7-year old minor."4
Upon his arraignment on October 2, 2000, 5 appellant, assisted by his counsel de oficio,6 pleaded not guilty. After trial in
due course, the court a quo rendered the assailed Decision.
The Facts
Version of the Prosecution
In its Brief, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) presents the prosecution’s version of the facts in the following
manner:
"Sometime in March 1998, complainant Anna Toledo, who was seven (7) years old, went to play with
Lorena Cachapero and Dino Cachapero at a nearby house in Barrio Bancay 1st, Camiling, Tarlac.
 "During that occasion, appellant Larry Cachapero, brother of Lorena, made her lie down and removed
her shorts and panty. He inserted his penis into her sexual organ and she felt pain. Larry told her not to
tell her parents because he might be scolded.
"On September 2, 1998, witness Conchita Donato was conducting a remedial class in Reading to her
Grade I and II students. While they were reading the word ‘tagtuyot’ or ‘saluyot,’ one of her students
Jocelyn Meneses told her that Anna was sexually abused by ‘Manong Larry.’
"She then ordered the students to leave the room and asked Jocelyn and Anna to stay behind. She
confronted Anna and asked her the truth. Anna covered her face with her two hands, cried, and said
yes. The teachers had a conference, after which they decided to report the matter to the parents of
Anna.
"On September 3, 1998, Anna’s mother brought her to the Camiling District Hospital where she was
examined. Dr. Mercedes B. Gapultos, a Medico Legal Officer, examined Anna and came out with the
following report:
‘Findings:
Pelvic Exam: - Mons pubis undeveloped, no pubic hairs
- Old hymenal lacerations noted at 3:00 o’clock and 9:00 o’clock
positions.
- No abrasions, contusions noted in the perineum.’
"Dr. Gapultos testified that she found old hymenal lacerations and that it may be caused by many
factors like penetration of the hymen by a hard object, or by an object forcibly entered." 7 (Citations
omitted)
Version of the Defense
Interposing the defenses of denial and alibi, appellant tersely relates his version of the facts in these words:
"Accused Larry Cachapero testified that at the time of the alleged incident, he was in their house
together with his father and mother. He denied seeing the private complainant on that day. He alleged
the case was filed against [him] because of the long standing feud between his mother and the mother
of the private complainant."8 (Citations omitted)
Ruling of the Trial Court
According to the trial court, testimony coming from an innocent child like the victim was credible and sufficient to
convict appellant of rape, more so because the testimony was supported by medical findings.
The lower court thus brushed aside the claim of appellant that he was falsely accused. It held that, whatever feud may
have existed between the mother of the rape victim and the accused, no woman in her right mind would unnecessarily
expose her minor daughter to the humiliation and stigma of a public trial. Citing Section 3(b)(1) of RA No. 7610, 9 it
added that the sexual abuse of the victim prejudiced her development.
Hence, this appeal. 10
Issues
In his Brief, appellant raises the following issues for our consideration:
"I.
The court a quo erred in giving weight and credence to the testimony of private complainant which is
full of inconsistencies.
"II.
The court a quo erred in finding accused-appellant guilty of the crime charged despite failure of the
prosecution to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
"III.
The court a quo erred in not considering the Information as insufficient to support a judgment of
conviction for failure of the prosecution to state the precise date of commission of the alleged rape[,] it
being an essential element of the crime charged."11
Simply put, appellant questions the sufficiency of (1) the Information and (2) the prosecution’s evidence.
The Court’s Ruling
The appeal has no merit; appellant’s conviction for statutory rape is affirmed, but the award of exemplary damages is
deleted.
First Issue:
Sufficiency of Information
Contending that time is a material ingredient of rape, appellant argues that the Information was fatally defective for
failing to state the precise hour when the crime was committed. Such infirmity, he added, jeopardized his right to be
properly informed of the charge against him.
We disagree. The time of occurrence is not an essential element of rape. 12 This being so, its precise date and hour
need not be alleged in the complaint or information. 13 Section 11 of Rule 110 of the Rules of Court provides:
"SEC. 11. Date of commission of the offense. – It is not necessary to state in the complaint or
information the precise date the offense was committed except when it is a material ingredient of the
offense. The offense may be alleged to have been committed on a date as near as possible to the
actual date of its commission."(Italics supplied)
The Information in this case alleged that the crime was committed "sometime in March 1998" which, according to
private complainant, was more or less at the closing of the school year. 14 Being reasonably definite and certain, this
approximation sufficiently meets the requirement of the law. After all, Section 6 of Rule 110 15 of the Rules of Court
merely requires that the information must state, among others, the approximate time of the commission of the offense.
Moreover, objections as to the form of the complaint or information cannot be made for the first time on appeal. 16If the
present appellant found the Information insufficient, he should have moved before arraignment either for a bill of
particulars,17 for him to be properly informed of the exact date of the alleged rape; or for the quashal of the Information,
on the ground that it did not conform with the prescribed form. 18 Having failed to pursue either remedy, he is deemed to
have waived objection to any formal defect in the Information. 19
By cross-examining the prosecution witnesses and presenting evidence for the defense, appellant’s counsel actively
took part in the trial. Furthermore, the defense never objected to the presentation of the prosecution evidence 20 proving
that the offense had been committed in March 1998. Appellant has not shown that he was deprived of a proper
defense, for he was in fact able to foist an alibi. It cannot be said, therefore, that his constitutionally protected right to
be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him has been violated.
Second Issue:
Sufficiency of the Prosecution’s Evidence
Appellant contends that private complainant’s testimony, which was tainted with material inconsistencies, should not
have been received by the trial court with precipitate credulity. Calling the victim a coached witness, he points out that
her answers were inconsistent on (1) whether or not she bled after the alleged rape and (2) what time she informed her
mother about the incident.
Appellant’s contentions are unconvincing. It is well-established that the testimony of a rape victim is generally given full
weight and credit,21 more so if she is a minor. The revelation of an innocent child whose chastity has been abused
deserves full credit, as her willingness to undergo the trouble and the humiliation of a public trial is an eloquent
testament to the truth of her complaint.22 In so testifying, she could only have been impelled to tell the truth, especially
in the absence of proof of ill motive.
In this case, the victim was a young girl of seven years when she came forward to declare that appellant had raped her.
At age nine, she narrated to the court the violation of her person in this manner:
"PROS. GUARDIANO [to Anna]:
Q Do you remember an incident that happened [i]n March, 1998 in relation [to] the accused?
To be sure, the victim’s testimony was not flawless or perfect in all aspects. We must remember, however, that it was
the narration of a minor who barely understood sex and sexuality.24 Hence, in assessing her testimony, it would not be
fair to apply the standards used for adults.25 Indeed, she fully understood the defilement of her person, even if she was
at a loss for the right words with which to describe the horrid details. It was for this reason that the prosecutor had to
ask leading questions, which are allowed under Section 10 of Rule 132 of the Rules of Court. 26
Furthermore, the account given by the victim, stating the essential fact that appellant had carnal knowledge of her,
refers to details that are not in any way affected or obscured by the supposed contradictions -- whether or not she bled
after the rape or how soon she informed her mother of the incident. 27 What further buttressed the story of private
complainant were Dr. Gapultos’ medical findings 28 that there were old lacerations in her hymen. Although not
indispensable to a rape conviction, 29 such findings were credible physical evidence of forcible defloration, among
others.30
Similarly corroborative of the girl’s tale of woe was Conchita Donato’s unrebutted testimony. It disclosed that appellant’s
sister, Lorena, had admitted to having seen the incident in much the same detail as the victim had declared. The
pertinent portion of Lorena’s testimony during cross-examination is reproduced below:
Finally, it is a general rule that appellate courts will not interfere with the judgment of trial courts on the credibility of
witnesses, unless there appears on record some facts or circumstances of weight and influence that have been
overlooked, misapprehended or misinterpreted. 32 This deference to the trial court’s appreciation of the facts and of the
credibility of witnesses is consistent with the principle that when the testimony of a witness meets the test of credibility,
that alone is sufficient to convict the accused. 33 Thus, when a guileless girl of seven credibly declares that she has
been raped, she has said all that is necessary to prove the ravishment of her honor. 34
The gravamen of statutory rape is carnal knowledge of a woman below twelve years of age. 35 In this case, the
prosecution duly established that appellant had sexual intercourse with private complainant; and that the latter, as
shown by her birth certificate,36 was under twelve years old at the time.
On the other hand, of little probative value is the alibi of appellant that he was in the house of his parents at the time of
the rape. In rape cases, while denial and alibi are legitimate defenses, bare assertions thereof cannot overcome the
categorical testimony of the victim.37 In particular, the defense of alibi is weak if wanting in material corroboration, 38 as
in this case.
Also unpersuasive is the contention of appellant that the charge against him was precipitated by a long-standing feud
between his family and that of private complainant. He himself belied this allegation during his cross-examination, from
which we quote:

Award of Exemplary Damages Improper

The trial court’s award of P25,000 for exemplary damages should be deleted. Such damages may be given only when
one or more aggravating circumstances are alleged in the information and proved during the trial. 40 In the present case,
there are no such circumstances.

WHEREFORE, the appeal is DENIED and the assailed Decision of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Camiling,
Tarlac, AFFIRMED . The award of exemplary damages is DELETED . Costs against appellant.

SO ORDERED.