Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
FIRST DIVISION
G.R. No. L-54904 January 29, 1988
HEIRS OF TITO RILLORTA, petitioner,
vs.
HON. ROMEO N. FIRME, Presiding Judge, Court of First Instance
of La Union, Branch IV, Bauang, La Union; and ANDREW
COSTALES, respondents.
CRUZ, J.:
May the civil award in a criminal case be appealed by the heirs of the
offended party? Of course. May the criminal aspect of the decision be
modified as a basis for the increase in the civil award? Certainly not. Is
the case at bar covered by the rule on double jeopardy or by the
exception? We shall come to that.
Accused of killing Tito Rillorta, Andrew Costales, was held guilty only of
less serious physical injuries and sentenced to twenty days of arresto
menor and to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the sum of P500.00.
The trial court said the defendant could not be held liable for homicide
because the wound inflicted on the victim was only superficial. The
certified cause of death was pneumonia, and this was obviously induced
by the exploratory surgery which was needlessly performed upon him. In
short, the victim had succumbed not to the skin-deep wound that did not
affect any vital organ but as a result of the attending physician's gross
incompetence. 1
The heirs of the deceased, herein petitioners, did not agree. Through
their counsel acting "under the direct control and supervision of the
provincial fiscal," they filed a motion for reconsideration of the decision
notified to them on January 23, 1980. 2 This motion was sent by
registered mail on February 2, 1980. 3 Heard on February 26, it was
denied on February 28, 1980, in an order that was communicated to the
private prosecutor on March 18, 1980. 4 On March 20, 1980, a notice of
appeal was filed with the trial court under the signatures of the

prosecuting fiscal and the private prosecutor. 5 After considering the

opposition to the notice and the reply thereto, the respondent judge
dismissed the appeal on April 14, 1980, for tardiness. 6 Both the fiscal
and the private prosecutor filed separate motions for reconsideration, but
these were denied on May 12, 1980. 7 The dismissal of the appeal is now
the subject of this petition for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of
Court.
It is clear that the notice of appeal was filed within the 15-day
reglementary period. The motion for reconsideration of the decision
rendered in open court on January 23, 1980, was filed on February 2,
1980, date of its posting by registered mail. Only ten days had elapsed
from the earlier date. The running of the period was suspended while the
motion was under study and until a copy of the order denying the same
was furnished the private prosecutor on March 18, 1980. When two days
later, on March 20, the fiscal and the private prosecutor jointly filed a
notice of appeal, only 12 days of the period of appeal had been
consumed. The appeal was thus perfected on time, conformably to Rule
122, Section 6, of the Rules of Court, reading as follows:
SEC. 6. When appeal to be taken. - An appeal must be taken
within fifteen (15) days from promulgation or notice of the
judgment or order appealed from. This period for perfecting
an appeal shall be interrupted from the time a motion for
new trial is filed until notice of the order overruling the
motion shall have been served upon the defendant or his
attorney.
The trial court thus lost jurisdiction over the appealed case on March 20,
1980, and was obligated to elevate the records thereof to the appellate
court. Having become functus officio, it could no longer issue the
challenged orders of April 14, 1980, and May 12, 1980, dismissing the
appeal.
The question of whether or not the civil award in a criminal case may be
appealed is not new and has been resolved earlier by this Court. It is
settled that this can be done by the private prosecutor on behalf of the
offended party or his successors. The adequacy of the award may be
challenged on the ground that it is not commensurate with the gravity of
the injuries sustained as a result of the offense committed by the
accused, Thus, we have held that

... The offended party, be he the owner of the stolen or

misappropriated property, or the owner of the pawnshop,
may appeal from the judgment of the trial court with
reference to the payment of the indemnity resulting from the
commission of the offense. The pawnbrokers in this case are
deemed to have been prejudiced by the commission of the
crime, because by reason of the fact that the jewels pledged
to them had been stolen they will now be deprived of their
possession without first having a declaration of indemnity
for the amount of the pledges. 8

justify the increase in the civil indemnity. This rule is applicable in the
present case.

xxx xxx xxx

Section 2 of Rule 122 of the Rules of Court provides that "the People of
the Philippines cannot appeal if the defendant would be placed thereby in
double jeopardy." This provision is based on the old case of Kepner v.
United States, 12 where the U.S. Supreme Court, reviewing a decision of
the Philippine Supreme Court in 1904, declared by a 5-4 vote that appeal
of the prosecution from a judgment of acquittal (or for the purpose of
increasing the penalty imposed upon the convict) would place him in
double jeopardy. It has been consistently applied since then in this
jurisdiction.

In this instance, this court, in its resolution dated November

28, 1933, declared the appeal of the accused abandoned.
Therefore, the only question left to be decided is the appeal
of the private prosecution with regard to the civil liability of
the accused.
The trial courts resolution that, because the cause had been
appealed by the accused, it had lost its jurisdiction to pass
upon the motion for reconsideration filed by the private
prosecution rune days after the date of the judgment, is
unfounded.
The right of the injured persons in an offense to take part in
its prosecution and to appeal for purpose of the civil liability
of the accused (section 107, General Orders, No. 58),
necessarily implies that such right is protected in the same
manner as the right of the accused to his defense. If the
accused has the right within fifteen days to appeal from the
judgment of conviction, the offended party should have the
right within the same period to appeal from so much of the
judgment as is prejudicial to him, and his appeal should not
be made dependent on that of the accused. 9
However, the civil indemnity may be increased only if it will not require
an aggravation of the decision in the criminal case on which it is based.
In other words, the accused may not, on appeal by the adverse party, be
convicted of a more serious offense or sentenced to a higher penalty to

The petitioners are urging that the civil award in the sum of only P500.00
be increased because the accused should not have been found guilty of
only less serious physical injuries but of homicide. They are not confining
themselves to the civil aspect of the challenged decision. In their own
words, their appeal involves "both the criminal aspect and the civil
liabilities in the criminal cases." 10 This is not permitted under the rule on
double jeopardy. 11

It need only be stressed that if the government itself cannot appeal, much
less then can the offended party or his heirs, who are mainly concerned
only with the civil indemnity.
The prohibition operates as a "bar to another prosecution for the offense
charged, or for any attempt to commit the same or frustration thereof, or
for any offense which necessarily includes or is necessarily included in
the offense charged in the former complaint or information." 13 There is
no question that the crime of less serious physical injuries, of which the
accused in this case was convicted, is necessarily included in the offense
of homicide.
But the petitioners argue that double jeopardy will not attach because
the judgment convicting the accused of less serious physical injuries is
tainted with grave abuse of discretion and therefore null and void. This
argument is flawed because whatever error may have been committed by
the lower court was merely an error of judgment and not of jurisdiction.
It did not affect the intrinsic validity of the decision. This is the kind of
error that can no longer be rectified on appeal by the prosecution no
matter how obvious the error may be.

In People v. City Court of Silay, 14 the trial court granted the defendant's
motion to dimiss a charge for falsification after the prosecution had
rested, holding that the guilt of the accused had not been proved beyond
reasonable doubt. The Court disagreed. Nevertheless, it held through
Justice Munoz-Palma that "however erroneous the order of the
respondent court is, and although a miscarriage of justice resulted from
said order, such error cannot now be lighted because of the timely plea of
double jeopardy."
We have made similar rulings in several other cases, among them People
v. Hernando, 108 SCRA 121, People v. Francisco, 128 SCRA 110, and
People v. Villarin, 11 SCRA 550.
The cases cited by the petitioners are not in point because they all
involve not errors of judgment but denial of due process resulting in loss
or lack of jurisdiction. 15 The prosecution in each of these cases was
allowed to appeal because it had not been given its day in court. In the
present case, a full trial was held and both the prosecution and the
defense were accorded the right to be heard before the judgment was
reached. There is no doubt at all that the trial court had the requisite
jurisdiction to pronounce the challenged sentence. Even assuming it was
incorrect, it was certainly not invalid.
It follows that the appeal should be limited to the civil award
corresponding only to the offense found against the accused, to wit, less
serious physical injuries. The award cannot be related to the victim's
death, of which the defendant has been absolved by the trial court. The
problem then is whether or not the sum of P500.00 was sufficient
indemnification for the wound which, the trial court has held, was not the
proximate cause of the victim's death.
The determination of this question should normally be made by the
appellate court after examining the factual issues as originally resolved
by the trial court. This would require elevation of the records of the case
to the Court of Appeals in accordance with the usual procedure and an
exchange again of pleadings and arguments between the parties that will
further prolong this case. But we do not believe that such delay is
necessary. We can decide the appeal ourselves to expedite decision of
this case. We have carefully studied the pros and cons of this problem
and can rule on it directly on the basis of the record before us and in the
interest of speedy justice.

Accordingly, we hold that the sum awarded by the trial court to the
petitioners, for the less serious physical injuries inflicted upon the victim
and not for his death is sufficient recompense. Therefore, the
increase sought is denied.
While the Court sympathizes with the petitioners for their tragic loss, it is
unable to accord them a more satisfactory material settlement because it
is limited by the findings of the trial court and inhibitions of double
jeopardy. If an error has been committed somewhere and on this it is
not necessary for us to rule that error will nonetheless not relax the
application of the salutary rule on double jeopardy. It must be, as it is
here, upheld.
WHEREFORE, the orders of the respondent court dated April 14, 1980,
and May 20, 1980, are SET ASIDE. However, the appeal sought shall no
longer be necessary because the questioned civil award in the amount of
P500.00 is hereby directly AFFIRMED. No costs.
SO ORDERED.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
FIRST DIVISION

G.R. Nos. 101557-58. April 28, 1993.

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES and SPS. AMADO and TERESA RUBITE,
petitioners,
vs.
HON. FILOMENO A. VERGARA, PRESIDING JUDGE, RTC, BR. 51,
PALAWAN, and LEONARDO SALDE, SR., LEONARDO SALDE, JR.,
FLORESITA SALDE, GLORIA SALDE-PANAGUITON, and JOJETA
PANAGUITON, respondent.
V. Dennis for petitioners.
Perfecto delos Reyes and Roberto delos Reyes for private respondents.
DECISION
BELLOSILLO, J p:
Jeopardy is the peril in which an accused is placed when put on trial
before a court of competent jurisdiction upon an indictment or
information which is sufficient in form and substance to sustain a
conviction. No person can be twice put in this peril for the same offense.

The Constitution prohibits it. Nemo debet bis puniri pro uno delicto. This
is the defense raised by accused-private respondents after respondent
Judge, upon motion of the Provincial Fiscal, ordered without notice and
hearing the dismissal of Crim. Cases Nos. 7396 and 7397 both for
frustrated murder, which thereafter were reinstated upon initiative of the
Secretary of Justice and docketed anew as Crim: Cases Nos. 8572 and
8573.
It appears that on 7 April 1988, 3rd Asst. Provincial Fiscal Luis E. Estiller
of Puerto Princesa City filed Crim. Cases Nos. 7396 and 7397 for
frustrated murder against accused Leonardo Salde, Sr., Leonardo Salde,
Jr., Floresita Salde, Gloria Salde-Panaguiton and Jojeta Panaguiton for
allegedly conspiring together in attacking and taking turns in assaulting
complainants, the spouses Teresa and Amado Rubite, by throwing stones
at Amado Rubite and hacking him with a bladed weapon, hitting him on
the left fronto-parietal area which would have caused his death in Crim.
Case No. 8572 (G.R. No. 101557), and by striking Teresa with wood and
stones and hacking her with a bolo which would have caused her death in
Crim. Case No. 8573 (G.R. No. 101558).
On 3 June 1988, accused Leonardo Salde, Sr., Leonardo Salde, Jr.,
Floresita Salde and Gloria Salde-Panaguiton were arraigned. They all
pleaded "not guilty." On 2 August 1988, accused Jojeta Panaguiton was
also arraigned and likewise entered a plea of "not guilty."
On 19 September 1988, when the cases were initially called for trial, the
Prosecuting Fiscal together with counsel for accused jointly moved for
the suspension of the hearing pending the outcome of the motion filed by
the accused for reinvestigation of the cases against them, which
Provincial Fiscal Eustaquio Z. Gacott, Jr., later resolved in their favor.
On 12 December 1988, counsel for the offended parties gave, notice to
the Provincial Fiscal of their intention to appeal the latter's resolution to
the Department of Justice. On 2 February 1989, pending appeal to the
Department of Justice, Provincial Fiscal Gacott, Jr., moved for the
dismissal of the cases on the ground that the reinvestigation disclosed
that petitioner-spouses Amado and Teresa Rubite were the real
aggressors and that the accused only acted in self-defense.

On 9 February 1989, acting on the motion of the Provincial Fiscal, the

Regional Trial Court of Palawan, Br. 52, ordered the dismissal of Crim.
Cases Nos. 7396 and 7397.
Meanwhile, on 1 March 1990, the Secretary of Justice ordered the
Provincial Prosecutor to refile the Informations. Hence, on 6 April 1990,
two (2) new Informations for frustrated murder against the same accused
were filed by Acting Provincial Prosecutor Clarito A. Demaala, docketed
as Crim. Cases Nos. 8572 and 8573.
On 13 May 1991, after pleading "not guilty" to the new Informations, the
accused moved to quash on the ground of double jeopardy, which was
opposed by the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor. On 10 July 1991, the
trial court granted the motion and dismissed Crim. Cases Nos. 8572 and
8573. The motion to reconsider the order of 10 July 1991 filed by Acting
Provincial Prosecutor Demaala was denied on 16 August 1991. Hence,
this petition for certiorari filed by private petitioners Amado and Teresa
Rubite, complainants in the court below.
Petitioners contend that the filing of the two (2) new Informations did not
place accused-private respondents in double jeopardy since the dismissal
of the previous cases was made with the latter's express consent, which
can be equated with their motion for reinvestigation of the cases,
dismissal of the cases being their ultimate intention in moving for
reinvestigation. It is the position of petitioners that when the dismissal is
with the express consent of the accused, such dismissal cannot be the
basis of a claim of double jeopardy.
Petitioners further submit that the dismissal of the previous cases is null
and void as the motion to dismiss filed by the Provincial Prosecutor which
led to the dismissal of the cases did not contain a notice of hearing;
hence, it was then a "mere scrap of paper" which the lower court should
not even have entertained.
Finally, petitioners maintain that where the prosecution has been
deprived of a fair opportunity to prosecute and prove its case, its right to
due process is violated.
In this regard, the Solicitor General, interestingly, concurs with
petitioners. Instead of filing a Comment as We required him to do, he
filed a Manifestation, citing Gumabon v. Dir. of the Bureau of Prisons, and

submitting that "[c]onsidering that the Order of respondent judge dated

February 9, 1989 favorably granting the Motion to Dismiss without notice
and hearing constituted a violation of basic constitutional rights, the
respondent court was consequently ousted of its jurisdiction when its
Order violated the right of the prosecution to due process." In effect, the
first jeopardy never terminated as the respondent trial court was not
competent to issue the 9 February 1989 Order.
While the Solicitor General concedes that "[w]hat should have been done
by the new Provincial Prosecutor was to refile the Informations in Crim.
Cases Nos. 7396 and 7397 and not to file new Informations which were
docketed as Crim. Cases Nos. 8572 and 8573," he nevertheless avers that
the filing of the new Informations amounted merely to a continuation of
the first jeopardy and did not expose the private respondents to a second
jeopardy. People v. Bocar laid down the requisites of a valid defense of
double jeopardy: (a) a first jeopardy must have attached prior to the
second; (b) the first jeopardy must have been validly terminated; and, (c)
the second jeopardy must be for the same offense as that in the first.
Consequently, there being no valid termination of the first jeopardy, the
defense of double jeopardy must fail.
Private respondents on the other hand, invoking the now repealed Sec. 9,
Rule 117, of the Rules of Court, asseverate that the "rules provide and
speak of EXPRESS CONSENT" which cannot be equated with intention.
Hence, while they may have intended to have their cases dismissed upon
moving for reinvestigation, they never gave their express consent to the
dismissal of the cases. In fact, they never sought the dismissal of the
charges against them.
Furthermore, private respondents, in response to the allegation that the
orders of respondent judge dismissing the first two cases were null and
void, argue that if indeed the dismissal orders were null and void,
petitioners should not have waited for the filing of the new Informations
and their subsequent quashal. They should have immediately challenged
the dismissal order. After sleeping on their rights, they cannot belatedly
say that they were denied due process.
The cases at bar raise two (2) fundamental issues: (a) whether private
respondents gave their express consent to the dismissal of the original
Informations; and, (b) whether the first jeopardy was invalidly
terminated.

We answer both in the negative. Then, double jeopardy lies.

The right against double jeopardy prohibits any subsequent prosecution
of any person for a crime of which he has previously been acquitted or
convicted. The objective is to set the effects of the first prosecution
forever at rest, assuring the accused that he shall not thereafter be
subjected to the peril and anxiety of a second charge against him for the
same offense. This Court, as early as ninety (90) years back, in Julia v.
Sotto, said
"Without the safeguard this article establishes in favor of the accused, his
fortune, safety, and peace of mind would be entirely at the mercy of the
complaining witness, who might repeat his accusation as often as
dismissed by the court and whenever he might see fit, subject to no other
limitation or restriction than his own will and pleasure. The accused
would never be free from the cruel and constant menace of a neverending charge, which the malice of the complaining witness might hold
indefinitely suspended over his head . . ."
Que v. Cosico enumerates the requisites which must concur for double
jeopardy to attach: (a) a valid complaint or information; (b) a court of
competent jurisdiction; (c) the accused has pleaded to the charge; and,
(d) the accused has been convicted or acquitted or the case dismissed or
terminated without the express consent of the accused.
The concurrence of all these circumstances constitutes a bar to a second
prosecution for the same offense, an attempt to commit the said offense,
a frustration of the said offense, or any offense which necessarily
includes or is necessarily included in the first offense charged.
In the cases before Us, it is undisputed that valid Informations for
frustrated murder, i.e., Crim. Cases Nos. 7396 and 7397 were filed
against private respondents before the Regional Trial Court of Palawan, a
court of competent jurisdiction. It is likewise admitted that private
respondents, after being properly arraigned, entered a plea of not guilty.
The only question then remaining is whether the cases against them were
dismissed with their express consent.
Express consent has been defined as that which is directly given either
viva voce or in writing. It is a positive, direct, unequivocal consent
requiring no inference or implication to supply its meaning. This is hardly

what private respondents gave. What they did was merely to move for
reinvestigation of the case before the prosecutor. To equate this with
express consent of the accused to the dismissal of the case in the lower
court is to strain the meaning of "express consent" too far. Simply, there
was no express consent of the accused when the prosecutor moved for
the dismissal of the original Informations.
The Solicitor General then claims that there can be no valid defense of
double jeopardy since one of the requisites for its valid defense, i.e., that
there be a valid termination of the first jeopardy, is unavailing. He further
argues that the motion to dismiss filed by the public prosecutor should
not have been entertained, much less granted, since there was no notice
of hearing, nor was it actually set for hearing.
We do not agree.
While it may be true that, as a general rule, all motions should contain a
notice of hearing under Rule 15 of the Rules of Court, these cases
present an unusual situation where the motion to dismiss filed negates
the necessity of a hearing. Here, it was the public prosecutor himself who
after instituting Crim. Cases Nos. 7396 and 7397 filed a motion to
dismiss on the ground that after a reinvestigation it was found that
". . . the evidence in these cases clearly tilts in favor of both accused. The
spouses Amado and Teresa Rubite were the aggressors and the accused
Salde, Sr. and his co-accused merely defended themselves from the
attack of the Rubites. Consequently, it would be unfair, arbitrary and
unjustified to prosecute the accused in the above-entitled case."
Besides, who should invoke "lack of notice" but the party deprived of due
notice or due process. And when the Provincial Prosecutor moved to
dismiss on the ground that the complaining witnesses were instead the
aggressors and the accused simply acted in self-defense, would the
accused have opposed the motion as to require that he be first notified
before the cases against him be dismissed?
Section 5 of Rule 110 of the New Rules of Criminal Procedure expressly
provides that "[a]ll criminal actions either commenced by complaint or by
information shall be under the direction and control of the fiscal." It must
be remembered that as public prosecutor he is the

"representative not of the ordinary party to a controversy, but of a

sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its
obligation to govern all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal
prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.
As such , he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law,
the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence
suffer."
Hence, the fiscal or public prosecutor always assumes and retains full
direction and control of the prosecution. The institution of a criminal
action depends upon his sound discretion. He has the quasi-judicial
discretion to determine whether or not a criminal case should be filed in
court; whether a prima facie case exists to sustain the filing of an
Information; whether to include in the charge those who appear to be
responsible for the crime; whether to present such evidence which he
may consider necessary; whether to call such witnesses he may consider
material; whether to move for dismissal of the case for insufficiency of
evidence. As in the case at bar, he may move for the dismissal of the case
if he believes that there is no cause of action to sustain its prosecution,
which was what in fact he did after being convinced that it would be
"unfair, arbitrary and unjustified to prosecute the accused" who were
really the victims, as the reinvestigation showed.
Since it was the prosecuting officer who instituted the cases, and who
thereafter moved for their dismissal, a hearing on his motion to dismiss
was not necessary at all. It is axiomatic that a hearing is necessary only
in cases of contentious motions. The motion filed in this case has ceased
to be contentious. Definitely, it would be to his best interest if the
accused did not oppose the motion. The private complainants, on the
other hand, are precluded from questioning the discretion of the fiscal in
moving for the dismissal of the criminal action. Hence, a hearing on the
motion to dismiss would be useless and futile.
On the other hand, the order of the court granting the motion to dismiss,
notwithstanding the absence of a notice and hearing on the motion,
cannot be challenged in this petition for certiorari which assails the
dismissal of the two (2) cases on the ground of double jeopardy.
Petitioners can no longer question the dismissal of the previous cases as
the order has already become final there being no appeal therefrom.

It has been repeatedly held that once an Information is filed with the
court, it acquires jurisdiction over the case, and the consequent
discretion to dismiss it. While the prosecutor retains full control over the
prosecution, he loses jurisdiction over the entire proceedings. Hence,
what petitioners should have done was to appeal the dismissal of the
cases on the ground that the said motion failed to include a notice of
hearing, and should not have waited for the dismissal of the subsequent
cases on the ground of double jeopardy, and thereafter question the first
dismissal, which by then had already become final, erroneous though it
may be.
The order of the court granting the motion to dismiss despite absence of
a notice of hearing, or proof of service thereof, is merely an irregularity
in the proceedings. It cannot deprive a competent court of jurisdiction
over the case. The court still retains its authority to pass on the merits of
the motion. The remedy of the aggrieved party in such cases is either to
have the order set aside or the irregularity otherwise cured by the court
which dismissed the complaint, or to appeal from the dismissal order, and
not certiorari.
It must be stressed that after a court has obtained jurisdiction over the
case, the failure to give notice of a subsequent step in the proceedings
does not deprive the court of jurisdiction. If substantial injury results
from failure of notice and complaint is duly made thereof, the act of the
court may be held to be erroneous and will be corrected in the proper
proceeding, but it is not an act without or in excess of jurisdiction and is
not void. There is a great difference in the results which follow the failure
to give the notice, which is necessary to confer on the court jurisdiction
over the person and the subject matter of the action, and that which
follows a failure to give notice of a step taken after the court has
obtained such jurisdiction and is proceeding with the action.
Hence, the conditions for a valid defense of double jeopardy, i.e., (a) a first
jeopardy must have attached prior to the second; (b) the first jeopardy must have
been validly terminated; and, (c) the second jeopardy must be for the same
offense as that of the first, all being present in these cases, the defense of double
jeopardy must prevail.
WHEREFORE, finding no abuse of discretion, much less grave, committed by
public respondent, and, for lack of merit, the instant petition is DISMISSED.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
FIRST DIVISION
G.R. No. L-80778 June 20, 1989
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, petitioner,
vs.
HONORABLE PEDRO T. SANTIAGO, in his capacity as Presiding
Judge of Branch 101 of the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City
and SEGUNDINA ROSARIO y SEMBRANO, respondents.
U.P. Office of Legal Services for petitioner University of the Philippines.
Candido G. Del Rosario & Associates for private respondent.

GANCAYCO, J.:
In this special civil action for certiorari seeking to declare null and void
the decision of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Quezon City dated
October 27, 1987 in Criminal Case No. 051672 entitled "People of the
Philippines vs. Segundina Rosario y Sembrano," the issues raised are (1)
whether or not double jeopardy attaches in the event of a judgment of
acquittal of the accused without a trial on the merits; and (2) whether or
not the complainant or private offended party in a criminal case can file a
special civil action for certiorari questioning the validity of said judgment
of acquittal without the intervention of the Solicitor General.
On June 2, 1987 an information for violation of P.D. No. 772 was filed by
the Assistant City Fiscal of Quezon City, with the approval of the city
fiscal, in the RTC of the same city against Segundina Rosario y
Sembrano, which reads, among others, as follows:
That on or about 16th day of December, 1986, and for
sometime prior thereto and persisting up to the present, in
Quezon City, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this
Honorable Court, the said accused taking advantage of the

absence or tolerance of the University of the Philippines, the

registered owner of a parcel of land covered by Transfer
Certificate of Title No. 9462 of the Register of Deeds of
Quezon City, did then and there, wilfully, unlawfully and
feloniously succeed in occupying and/or possessing a portion
of the said property, by then and there construct his/her
house therein for residential purposes, without the consent
and against the will of the said offended party. 1
Upon arraignment the accused pleaded not guilty and a pre-trial
conference was held on August 14, 1987 wherein the accused informed
the court that she has a title, a building permit and survey plan covering
the subject land. The trial court then issued an order on the same day
that reads as follows:
Considering that the accused has a title, building permit and
a survey plan on the subject land, the Court instructs both
parties to submit their respective proffer of documentary
exhibits together with their positions as to whether this case
will be heard or dismissed. 2
The private prosecutor presented a position paper showing that the said
property belongs to the University of the Philippines (U.P.) as shown by
TCT No. 9462 covering about 493 hectares at Diliman, Quezon City
which includes the area in question; that a plan was submitted of the
entire area; 3 that the ownership of the so-called U.P. campus under TCT
No. 9462 has been sustained by several decisions of the Supreme Court;
that the supposed title of the accused, TCT No. 5762 has been cancelled
by TCT No. 126671 in the name of Bughay Construction and
Development Corporation; that granting the accused had a title thereto,
the issue is whether or not the property described in the title is at Pook
Amorsolo, U.P. Campus which is adjacent to Bo. Kruz-na-Ligas, Diliman,
Quezon City; that the alleged title of the accused shows that the property
is situated in Bo. Gulod, Municipality of Marikina, Province of Rizal; that
this is also shown in the tax declaration presented by her; 4 that in fact
the accused paid the corresponding real estate tax at Marikina; 5 and that
the criminal case should proceed as it has been shown that the area on
which the accused made the construction belongs to the U.P. without the
knowledge and consent of the latter and in violation of P.D. No. 772.

On the other hand, the accused submitted a proffer of exhibits with a

manifestation tending to show that the accused applied for a building
permit to construct on the lot; that the lot is covered by a title in the
name of the accused; that a copy of the building permit was also
submitted for which the accused paid for the fee; that the relocation plan
of the land and the field notes were also submitted; and that she
informed U.P. of her claim and asked them not to intrude into her
property.
An opposition thereto was filed by U.P. stating that the proffer of exhibits
is irregular and without basis as in fact the evidence was not marked in
the pre-trial; that the proffer of exhibits is not covered by Rule 118,
Sections 1 and 2 of the 1985 Rules on Criminal Procedure; that what is
allowed only in Section 2 thereof is the marking of the exhibits for
Identification purposes of documentary evidence; that the manifestation
submitting the case for resolution has no legal basis; and thus it is prayed
that the proffer of exhibits and manifestation be denied for being
irregular or not pursuant to the rules.
On October 27, 1978, the questioned decision was rendered by the
respondent judge acquitting the accused of the offense charged with
costs de oficio. Hence, the herein petition for certiorari filed by the
counsel for the private offended party, U.P., in behalf of the People of the
Philippines. The petition seeks to render null and void the aforesaid
decision for want of due process as the acquittal of the accused was
rendered without a trial on the merits.
The petition is impressed with merit. Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Rule 118 of
the 1985 Rules on Criminal Procedure provide as follows:
SECTION 1. Pre-trial: when proper.-To expedite the trial,
where the accused and counsel agree, the court shall
conduct a pretrial conference on the matters enumerated in
Section 2 hereof, without impairing the rights of the
accused.
SEC. 2. Pre-trial conference; subjects.-The pre-trial
conference shall consider the following:
(a) Plea bargaining;

(b) Stipulation of facts;

(c) Marking for Identification of evidence of the
parties;
(d) Waiver of objections to admissibility of
evidence; and
(e) Such other matters as will promote a fair
and expeditious trial. (n)
SEC. 3. Pre-trial order.-After the pre-trial conference, the
court shall issue an order reciting the actions taken, the
facts stipulated, and evidence marked. Such order shall bind
the parties, limit the trial to matters not disposed of and
control the course of the action during the trial, unless
modified by the court to prevent manifest injustice.
From the foregoing provisions, it is clear that in criminal cases a pre-trial
may be held by the trial court only where the accused and his counsel
agree. Such pre-trial shall cover plea bargaining, stipulation of facts,
marking for Identification of evidence of the parties, waiver of objections
to admissibility of evidence and such other matters as may promote a fair
and expeditious trial. After the pre-trial, the trial court shall issue an
order reciting the actions taken, the facts stipulated, and evidence
marked, and thereafter the trial on the merits shall proceed which shall
be limited to matters not disposed of during the pre-trial.
In this case, a pre-trial was held wherein the accused alleged that she
has a title covering the property in question. The respondent judge thus
required the parties to submit their proffer of documentary exhibits and
their position paper as to whether or not the case would be heard or
dismissed. Under the aforestated provisions of the Rules on Criminal
Procedure, particulary Section 2 thereof, what is specified is the marking
for identification of evidence for the parties and the waiver of objections
to admissibility of evidence. A proffer of exhibits or evidence is not
among those enumerated. Such proffer of evidence or more specifically in
offer of evidence is generally made at the time a party closes the
presentation of his evidence in which case the adverse party is given the
opportunity to object thereto and the court rules on the same. When
evidence proposed to be presented is rejected by the court a proffer of

evidence is usually made stating its nature and purpose had it been
admitted.
Assuming that such proffer of evidence, as directed by the respondent
judge, may be made at the pre-trial in a criminal case, the prosecution
should be given the opportunity to object to the admissibility. In this case,
the prosecution filed its opposition to the proffer of its exhibits stating
that it is not authorized under section 1 and 2 of Rule 118 of the 1985
Rules on Criminal Procedure; that the documentary evidence were not
presented for marking at the pre-trial; and that the manifestation
submitting the case for the resolution with the proffer of exhibits has no
legal basis. In it position paper, U.P. also pointed out that the alleged title
of the accused covers property in Marikina and not in U.P. Campus,
Quezon City wherein the accused built her structure. The trial court did
not even rule on the admissibility of the exhibits of the accused.
The respondent judge despite the conflicting positions of the parties and
the objection of the U.P. to the resolution of the case without a trial on the
merits, nevertheless rendered a decision acquitting the accused by
making the following disquisition:
With all the documents of the prosecution and the defense
on record, it may now be asked: MAY THE ACCUSED BE
CONVICTED OF THE CRIME OF VIOLATION OF
PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NUMBER 772?
Prosecution of the accused is anchored on the postulate that
accused built a structure over land belonging to the
University of the Philippines and titled in the name of the
latter. Documents presented by the defense established that
accused has a title over the land on which she built the
structure; that she has a building permit for the structure;
that she paid the corresponding fees for the building permit;
that she has a relocation plan with supporting data of field
notes and lot data computation (Exhs. "1", "2", "2-A", "3",
"4", "5", "5-A," "6-B", "5-B-1", "5-B-2", and "5-B-3").
Actually, there is now a collision between the claim of the
prosecution and the defense on rights of ownership to the
land in question. It may be noted that both land titles are
torrens titles.

Under these well established facts, it cannot be stated with

certainty that the accused built her structure illegally. If
somehow it is discernible that it is more the inadequacy of
details in the states evidence that makes it difficult for us to
arrive at definite conclusions rather than, perhaps, the
actual facts themselves, still we cannot pin responsibility on
appellant (sic). That moral conviction that may serve as
basis of a finding of guilt in criminal cases is only that and
which is the logical and inevitable result of the evidence on
record, exclusive of any other consideration. Short of this, it
is not only the right of the accused to be freed, it is, even
more, our constitutional duty to acquit him." So, said the
Supreme Court in People vs. Maisug, 27 SCRA 753. The
same holds true to the instant case. The scanty and/or
inadequate evidence of the prosecution is insufficient to
sustain conviction.
It may be added that the torrens title of accused over the
property on which she built her structure cannot be
collaterally attacked. The issue on the validity of her title
can only be raised in an action expressly instituted for that
purpose (Magay vs. Estiandan, 69 SCRA 456). The same
doctrine has been reiterated in Director of Lands vs. CFI of
Misamis Oriental, Br. 1, No. L-58823, March 18, 1985, 135
SCRA 392). 6
This Court finds that the respondent judge committed a grave abuse of
discretion in rendering the aforestated decision without affording the
prosecution the opportunity to have its day in court. The issue before the
Court is whether or not the accused built the structure on the land
belonging to U.P. At the pre-trial, U.P. presented its title and plan showing
that the accused built a structure within its property. The accused by her
proffer of exhibits and manifestation pretended to have a title to the
questioned land. However, as stressed by U.P., the titled property of
accused is located in Marikina and not in Quezon City and said title could
not cover the very lot in question which is at Pook Amorsolo, U.P. Campus
where the structure of accused was built. This issue cannot be
determined by a mere examination of the titles and documents submitted
by the parties. A trial on the merits should be undertaken to determine
once and for all whether the place where the structure was built by the
accused belongs to U.P. or to the accused. The conclusion of the trial

court that the accused did not build her structure illegally as she has a
title to the property in question is without any factual or legal basis.
Indeed, the observation of respondent judge in the questioned decision as
to "the inadequacy in details of the state's evidence" simply demonstrates
that a trial on the merits should have been held to enable the prosecution
to establish its case. No doubt, the acquittal of the accused is a nullity for
want of due process. The prosecution was not given the opportunity to
present its evidence or even to rebut the representations of the accused.
The prosecution is as much entitled to due process as the accused in a
criminal case.
Double jeopardy cannot be invoked as a bar to another prosecution in
this case. 7 There is double jeopardy only when: 1) there is a valid
complaint or information; 2) filed before a competent court; 3) to which
defendant had pleaded; and 4) of which he has previously been convicted
or acquitted or which was dismissed or terminated without his express
consent. 8
In this case, the prosecution was deprived of an opportunity to prosecute
and prove its case. The decision that was rendered in disregard of such
imperative is void for lack of jurisdiction. 9 It was not a court of
competent jurisdiction when it precipitately rendered a decision of
acquittal after a pre-trial. A trial should follow a pre-trial. That is the
mandate of the rules. 10 Obviously, double jeopardy has not set in this
case.
The question as to whether or not U.P., as the private offended party, can
file this special civil action for certiorari questioning the validity of said
decision of the trial court should be answered in the affirmative.
It is well-settled that in criminal cases where the offended party is the
State, the interest of the private complainant or the private offended
party is limited to the civil liability. Thus, in the prosecution of the
offense, the complainant's role is limited to that of a witness for the
prosecution. If a criminal case is dismissed by the trial court or if there is
an acquittal, an appeal therefrom on the criminal aspect may be
undertaken only by the State through the Solicitor General. Only the
Solicitor General may represent the People of the Philippines on appeal.
11
The private offended party or complainant may not take such appeal.
However, the said offended party or complainant may appeal the civil
aspect despite the acquittal of the accused. 12

In a special civil action for certiorari filed under Section 1, Rule 65 of the
Rules of Court wherein it is alleged that the trial court committed a grave
abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction or on other
jurisdictional grounds, the rules state that the petition may be filed by
the person aggrieved. In such case, the aggrieved parties are the State
and the private offended party or complainant. The complainant has an
interest in the civil aspect of the case so he may file such special civil
action questioning the decision or action respondent court on
jurisdictional grounds. In so doing, complainant should not bring the
action in the name of the People of the Philippines. The action may be
prosecuted in name of said complainant. 13
In this case, the Solicitor General upheld the right of U.P. to file the
petition as an aggrieved party. Inasmuch as the prosecution was deprived
of due process, the questioned decision of the respondent judge
acquitting the accused is null and void as it was rendered in grave abuse
of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction.
WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED and the questioned decision of
the respondent judge dated October 27, 1987 is set aside and declared
null and void. The respondent judge is hereby directed to proceed with
the trial on the merits of the case, and thereafter, to decide the same on
the basis of the evidence adduced, without pronouncement as to costs.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
FIRST DIVISION
G.R. No. L-45129 March 6, 1987
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, petitioner,
vs.
THE HONORABLE BENJAMIN RELOVA, in his capacity as
Presiding Judge of the Court of First Instance of Batangas, Second
Branch, and MANUEL OPULENCIA, respondents.

FELICIANO, J.:
In this petition for certiorari and mandamus, the People of the Philippines
seek to set aside the orders of the respondent Judge of the Court of First
Instance of Batangas in Criminal Case No. 266, dated 12 August 1976
and 8 November 1976, respectively, quashing an information for theft
filed against private respondent Manuel Opulencia on the ground of
double jeopardy and denying the petitioner's motion for reconsideration.
On 1 February 1975, members of the Batangas City Police together with
personnel of the Batangas Electric Light System, equipped with a search
warrant issued by a city judge of Batangas City, searched and examined
the premises of the Opulencia Carpena Ice Plant and Cold Storage owned
and operated by the private respondent Manuel Opulencia. The police
discovered that electric wiring, devices and contraptions had been
installed, without the necessary authority from the city government, and
"architecturally concealed inside the walls of the building" 1 owned by
the private respondent. These electric devices and contraptions were, in
the allegation of the petitioner "designed purposely to lower or decrease
the readings of electric current consumption in the electric meter of the
said electric [ice and cold storage] plant." 2 During the subsequent
investigation, Manuel Opulencia admitted in a written statement that he
had caused the installation of the electrical devices "in order to lower or
decrease the readings of his electric meter. 3
On 24 November 1975, an Assistant City Fiscal of Batangas City filed
before the City Court of Batangas City an information against Manuel
Opulencia for violation of Ordinance No. 1, Series of 1974, Batangas City.
A violation of this ordinance was, under its terms, punishable by a fine
"ranging from Five Pesos (P5.00) to Fifty Pesos (P50.00) or
imprisonment, which shall not exceed thirty (30) days, or both, at the
discretion of the court." 4 This information reads as follows:
The undersigned, Assistant City Fiscal, accuses Manuel
Opulencia y Lat of violation of Sec. 3 (b) in relation to Sec. 6
(d) and Sec. 10 Article II, Title IV of ordinance No. 1, S.
1974, with damage to the City Government of Batangas, and
penalized by the said ordinance, committed as follows:
That from November, 1974 to February, 1975 at Batangas
City, Philippines and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable

Court, the above-named accused, with intent to defraud the

City Government of Batangas, without proper authorization
from any lawful and/or permit from the proper authorities,
did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously make
unauthorized installations of electric wirings and devices to
lower or decrease the consumption of electric fluid at the
Opulencia Ice Plant situated at Kumintang, Ibaba, this city
and as a result of such unathorized installations of electric
wirings and devices made by the accused, the City
Government of Batangas was damaged and prejudiced in the
total amount of FORTY ONE THOUSAND, SIXTY TWO
PESOS AND SIXTEEN CENTAVOS (P41,062.16) Philippine
currency, covering the period from November 1974 to
February, 1975, to the damage and prejudice of the City
Government of Batangas in the aforestated amount of
P41,062.16, Philippine currency.
The accused Manuel Opulencia pleaded not guilty to the above
information. On 2 February 1976, he filed a motion to dismiss the
information upon the grounds that the crime there charged had already
prescribed and that the civil indemnity there sought to be recovered was
beyond the jurisdiction of the Batangas City Court to award. In an order
dated 6 April 1976, the Batangas City Court granted the motion to
dismiss on the ground of prescription, it appearing that the offense
charged was a light felony which prescribes two months from the time of
discovery thereof, and it appearing further that the information was filed
by the fiscal more than nine months after discovery of the offense
charged in February 1975.
Fourteen (14) days later, on 20 April 1976, the Acting City Fiscal of
Batangas City filed before the Court of First Instance of Batangas,
Branch 11, another information against Manuel Opulencia, this time for
theft of electric power under Article 308 in relation to Article 309,
paragraph (1), of the Revised Penal Code. This information read as
follows:
The undersigned Acting City Fiscal accuses Manuel
Opulencia y Lat of the crime of theft, defined and penalized
by Article 308, in relation to Article 309, paragraph (1) of
the Revised Penal Code, committed as follows:

That on, during, and between the month of November, 1974,

and the 21st day of February, 1975, at Kumintang, lbaba,
Batangas City, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this
Honorable Court, the above-named accused, with intent of
gain and without the knowledge and consent of the
Batangas Electric Light System, did then and there, wilfully,
unlawfully and feloniously take, steal and appropriate
electric current valued in the total amount of FORTY ONE
THOUSAND, SIXTY TWO PESOS AND SIXTEEN CENTAVOS
(P41,062.16) Philippine Currency, to the damage and
prejudice of the said Batangas Electric Light System, owned
and operated by the City Government of Batangas, in the
aforementioned sum of P41,062.16.
The above information was docketed as Criminal Case No. 266 before the
Court of First Instance of Batangas, Branch II. Before he could be
arraigned thereon, Manuel Opulencia filed a Motion to Quash, dated 5
May 1976, alleging that he had been previously acquitted of the offense
charged in the second information and that the filing thereof was
violative of his constitutional right against double jeopardy. By Order
dated 16 August 1976, the respondent Judge granted the accused's
Motion to Quash and ordered the case dismissed. The gist of this Order is
set forth in the following paragraphs:
The only question here is whether the dismissal of the first
case can be properly pleaded by the accused in the motion
to quash.
In the first paragraph of the earlier information, it alleges
that the prosecution "accuses Manuel Opulencia y Lat of
violation of Sec. 3(b) in relation to Sec. 6(d) and Sec. 10
Article II, Title IV of Ordinance No. 1, s. 1974, with damage
to the City Government of Batangas, etc. " (Emphasis
supplied). The first case, as it appears, was not simply one of
illegal electrical connections. It also covered an amount of
P41,062.16 which the accused, in effect, allegedly with
intent to defraud, deprived the city government of Batangas.
If the charge had meant illegal electric installations only, it
could have alleged illegal connections which were done at
one instance on a particular date between November, 1974,
to February 21, 1975. But as the information states "that

from November, 1974 to February 1975 at Batangas City,

Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable
Court, the above-named accused with intent to defraud the
City Government of Batangas, without proper authorization
from any lawful and/or permit from the proper authorities,
did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously make
unauthorized installations of electric wirings and devices,
etc." (Emphasis supplied), it was meant to include the P
41,062.16 which the accused had, in effect, defrauded the
city government. The information could not have meant that
from November 1974 to 21 February 1975, he had daily
committed unlawful installations.
When, therefore, he was arraigned and he faced the
indictment before the City Court, he had already been
exposed, or he felt he was exposed to consequences of what
allegedly happened between November 1974 to February
21, 1975 which had allegedly resulted in defrauding the City
of Batangas in the amount of P 41,062.16. (Emphases and
parentheses in the original)
A Motion for Reconsideration of the above-quoted Order filed by the
petitioner was denied by the respondent Judge in an Order dated 18
November 1976.
On 1 December 1976, the present Petition for certiorari and mandamus
was filed in this Court by the Acting City Fiscal of Batangas City on
behalf of the People.
The basic premise of the petitioner's position is that the constitutional
protection against double jeopardy is protection against a second or later
jeopardy of conviction for the same offense. The petitioner stresses that
the first information filed before the City Court of Batangas City was one
for unlawful or unauthorized installation of electrical wiring and devices,
acts which were in violation of an ordinance of the City Government of
Batangas. Only two elements are needed to constitute an offense under
this City Ordinance: (1) that there was such an installation; and (2) no
authority therefor had been obtained from the Superintendent of the
Batangas City Electrical System or the District Engineer. The petitioner
urges that the relevant terms of the City Ordinance which read as
follows:

Section 3.-Connection and Installation

(a) x x x
(b) The work and installation in the houses and building and
their connection with the Electrical System shall be done
either by the employee of the system duly authorized by its
Superintendent or by persons adept in the matter duly
authorized by the District Engineer. Applicants for electrical
service permitting the works of installation or connection
with the system to be undertaken by the persons not duly
authorized therefor shall be considered guilty of violation of
the ordinance.
would show that:
The principal purpose for (sic) such a provision is to ensure
that electrical installations on residences or buildings be
done by persons duly authorized or adept in the matter, to
avoid fires and accidents due to faulty electrical wirings. It
is primarily a regulatory measure and not intended to punish
or curb theft of electric fluid which is already covered by the
Revised Penal Code. 5
The gist of the offense under the City Ordinance, the petitioner's
argument continues, is the installing of electric wiring and devices
without authority from the proper officials of the city government. To
constitute an offense under the city ordinance, it is not essential to
establish any mens rea on the part of the offender generally speaking,
nor, more specifically, an intent to appropriate and steal electric fluid.
In contrast, the petitioner goes on, the offense of theft under Article 308
of the Revised Penal Code filed before the Court of First Instance of
Batangas in Criminal Case No. 266 has quite different essential elements.
These elements are:
1. That personal property be taken;
2. That the personal property (taken) belongs to another;
3. That the taking be done with intent of gain;

4. That the taking be done without the consent of the owner;

and
5. That the taking be accomplished without violence against
or intimidation of persons or force upon things. 6
The petitioner also alleges, correctly, in our view, that theft of electricity
can be effected even without illegal or unauthorized installations of any
kind by, for instance, any of the following means:
1. Turning back the dials of the electric meter;
2. Fixing the electric meter in such a manner that it will not
register the actual electrical consumption;
3. Under-reading of electrical consumption; and
4. By tightening the screw of the rotary blade to slow down
the rotation of the same. 7
The petitioner concludes that:
The unauthorized installation punished by the ordinance [of
Batangas City] is not the same as theft of electricity [under
the Revised Penal Code]; that the second offense is not an
attempt to commit the first or a frustration thereof and that
the second offense is not necessarily included in the offense
charged in the first inforrnation 8
The above arguments made by the petitioner are of course correct. This
is clear both from the express terms of the constitutional provision
involved which reads as follows:
No person shall be twice put in jeopardy of punishment for
the same offense. If an act is punished by a law and an
ordinance, conviction or acquittal under either shall
constitute a bar to another prosecution for the same act.
(Emphasis supplied; Article IV (22), 1973 Constitution) 9
and from our case law on this point. 10 The basic difficulty with the
petitioner's position is that it must be examined, not under the terms of

the first sentence of Article IV (22) of the 1973 Constitution, but rather
under the second sentence of the same section. The first sentence of
Article IV (22) sets forth the general rule: the constitutional protection
against double jeopardy is not available where the second prosecution is
for an offense that is different from the offense charged in the first or
prior prosecution, although both the first and second offenses may be
based upon the same act or set of acts. The second sentence of Article IV
(22) embodies an exception to the general proposition: the constitutional
protection, against double jeopardy is available although the prior
offense charged under an ordinance be different from the offense
charged subsequently under a national statute such as the Revised Penal
Code, provided that both offenses spring from the same act or set of acts.
This was made clear sometime ago in Yap vs. Lutero. 11
In Yap, petitioner Manuel Yap was charged in Criminal Case No. 16054 of
the Municipal Court of Iloilo City, with violation of Article 14 of
Ordinance No. 22, Series of 1951, in relation to Ordinance No. 15, Series
of 1954, of the City of Iloilo. The information charged him with having
"wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously drive[n] and operate[d]" an
automobile "recklessly and without reasonable caution thereby
endangering other vehicles and pedestrians passing in said street." Three
months later, Yap was again charged in Criminal Case No. 16443 of the
same Municipal Court, this time with serious physical injuries through
reckless imprudence. The information charged him with violation of the
Revised Motor Vehicle Law (Act No. 3992 as amended by Republic Act
No. 587) committed by driving and operating an automobile in a reckless
and negligent manner and as a result thereof inflicting injuries upon an
unfortunate pedestrian. Yap moved to quash the second information upon
the ground that it placed him twice in jeopardy of punishment for the
same act. This motion was denied by the respondent municipal judge.
Meantime, another municipal judge had acquitted Yap in Criminal Case
No. 16054. Yap then instituted a petition for certiorari in the Court of
First Instance of Iloilo to set aside the order of the respondent municipal
judge. The Court of First Instance of Iloilo having reversed the
respondent municipal judge and having directed him to desist from
continuing with Criminal Case No. 16443, the respondent Judge brought
the case to the Supreme Court for review on appeal. In affirming the
decision appealed from and holding that the constitutional protection
against double jeopardy was available to petitioner Yap, then Associate
Justice and later Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion wrote:

To begin with, the crime of damage to property through

reckless driving with which Diaz stood charged in the
court of first instance is a violation of the Revised Penal
Code (third paragraph of Article 365), not the Automobile
Law (Act No. 3992, as amended by Republic Act No. 587).
Hence, Diaz was not twice accused of a violation of the same
law. Secondly, reckless driving and certain crimes
committed through reckless driving are punishable under
different provisions of said Automobile Law. Hence from
the view point of Criminal Law, as distinguished from
political or Constitutional Law they constitute, strictly,
different offenses, although under certain conditions, one
offense may include the other, and, accordingly, once placed
in jeopardy for one, the plea of double jeopardy may be in
order as regards the other, as in the Diaz case. (Emphases in
the original)
Thirdly, our Bill of Rights deals with two (2) kinds of double
jeopardy. The first sentence of clause 20, section 1, Article
III of the Constitution, ordains that "no person shall be twice
put in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense."
(Emphasis in the original) The second sentence of said
clause provides that "if an act is punishable by a law and an
ordinance, conviction or acquittal under either shall
constitute a bar to another prosecution for the same act."
Thus, the first sentence prohibits double jeopardy of
punishment for the same offense, whereas the second
contemplates double jeopardy of punishment for the same
act. Under the first sentence, one may be twice put in
jeopardy of punishment of the same act provided that he is
charged with different offenses, or the offense charged in
one case is not included in or does not include, the crime
charged in the other case. The second sentence applies,
even if the offenses charged are not the same, owing to the
fact that one constitutes a violation of an ordinance and the
other a violation of a statute. If the two charges are based
on one and the same act conviction or acquittal under either
the law or the ordinance shall bar a prosecution under the
other. 12 Incidentally, such conviction or acquittal is not
indispensable to sustain the plea of double jeopardy of
punishment for the same offense. So long as jeopardy has
attached under one of the informations charging said

offense, the defense may be availed of in the other case

involving the same offense, even if there has been neither
conviction nor acquittal in either case.
The issue in the case at bar hinges, therefore, on whether or
not, under the information in case No. 16443, petitioner
could if he failed to plead double jeopardy be convicted
of the same act charged in case No. 16054, in which he has
already been acquitted. The information in case No. 16054
alleges, substantially, that on the date and in the place
therein stated, petitioner herein had wilfully, unlawfully and
feloniously driven and operated "recklessly and without
reasonable caution" an automobile described in said
information. Upon the other hand, the information in case
No. 16443, similarly states that, on the same date and in the
same place, petitioner drove and operated the
aforementioned automobile in a "reckless and negligent
manner at an excessive rate of speed and in violation of the
Revised Motor Vehicle Law (Act No. 3992), as amended by
Republic Act No. 587, and existing city ordinances." Thus, if
the theories mentioned in the second information were not
established by the evidence, petitioner could be convicted in
case No. 16443 of the very same violation of municipal
ordinance charged in case No. 16054, unless he pleaded
double jeopardy.
It is clear, therefore, that the lower court has not erred
eventually sustaining the theory of petitioner herein.
Put a little differently, where the offenses charged are penalized either by
different sections of the same statute or by different statutes, the
important inquiry relates to the identity of offenses charge: the
constitutional protection against double jeopardy is available only where
an Identity is shown to exist between the earlier and the subsequent
offenses charged. In contrast, where one offense is charged under a
municipal ordinance while the other is penalized by a statute, the critical
inquiry is to the identity of the acts which the accused is said to have
committed and which are alleged to have given rise to the two offenses:
the constitutional protection against double jeopardy is available so long
as the acts which constitute or have given rise to the first offense under a

municipal ordinance are the same acts which constitute or have given
rise to the offense charged under a statute.
The question may be raised why one rule should exist where two offenses
under two different sections of the same statute or under different
statutes are charged, and another rule for the situation where one
offense is charged under a municipal ordinance and another offense
under a national statute. If the second sentence of the double jeopardy
provision had not been written into the Constitution, conviction or
acquittal under a municipal ordinance would never constitute a bar to
another prosecution for the same act under a national statute. An offense
penalized by municipal ordinance is, by definition, different from an
offense under a statute. The two offenses would never constitute the
same offense having been promulgated by different rule-making
authorities though one be subordinate to the other and the plea of
double jeopardy would never lie. The discussions during the 1934-1935
Constitutional Convention show that the second sentence was inserted
precisely for the purpose of extending the constitutional protection
against double jeopardy to a situation which would not otherwise be
covered by the first sentence. 13
The question of Identity or lack of Identity of offenses is addressed by
examining the essential elements of each of the two offenses charged, as
such elements are set out in the respective legislative definitions of the
offenses involved. The question of Identity of the acts which are claimed
to have generated liability both under a municipal ordinance and a
national statute must be addressed, in the first instance, by examining
the location of such acts in time and space. When the acts of the accused
as set out in the two informations are so related to each other in time and
space as to be reasonably regarded as having taken place on the same
occasion and where those acts have been moved by one and the same, or
a continuing, intent or voluntary design or negligence, such acts may be
appropriately characterized as an integral whole capable of giving rise to
penal liability simultaneously under different legal enactments (a
municipal ordinance and a national statute).
In Yap, the Court regarded the offense of reckless driving under the Iloilo
City Ordinance and serious physical injuries through reckless
imprudence under the Revised Motor Vehicle Law as derived from the
same act or sets of acts that is, the operation of an automobile in a
reckless manner. The additional technical element of serious physical

injuries related to the physical consequences of the operation of the

automobile by the accused, i.e., the impact of the automobile upon the
body of the offended party. Clearly, such consequence occurred in the
same occasion that the accused operated the automobile (recklessly). The
moral element of negligence permeated the acts of the accused
throughout that occasion.
In the instant case, the relevant acts took place within the same time
frame: from November 1974 to February 1975. During this period, the
accused Manuel Opulencia installed or permitted the installation of
electrical wiring and devices in his ice plant without obtaining the
necessary permit or authorization from the municipal authorities. The
accused conceded that he effected or permitted such unauthorized
installation for the very purpose of reducing electric power bill. This
corrupt intent was thus present from the very moment that such
unauthorized installation began. The immediate physical effect of the
unauthorized installation was the inward flow of electric current into
Opulencia's ice plant without the corresponding recording thereof in his
electric meter. In other words, the "taking" of electric current was
integral with the unauthorized installation of electric wiring and devices.
It is perhaps important to note that the rule limiting the constitutional
protection against double jeopardy to a subsequent prosecution for the
same offense is not to be understood with absolute literalness. The
Identity of offenses that must be shown need not be absolute Identity: the
first and second offenses may be regarded as the "same offense" where
the second offense necessarily includes the first offense or is necessarily
included in such first offense or where the second offense is an attempt
to commit the first or a frustration thereof. 14 Thus, for the constitutional
plea of double jeopardy to be available, not all the technical elements
constituting the first offense need be present in the technical definition of
the second offense. The law here seeks to prevent harrassment of an
accused person by multiple prosecutions for offenses which though
different from one another are nonetheless each constituted by a
common set or overlapping sets of technical elements. As Associate
Justice and later Chief Justice Ricardo Paras cautioned in People vs. del
Carmen et al., 88 Phil. 51 (1951):
While the rule against double jeopardy prohibits prosecution
for the same offense, it seems elementary that an accused
should be shielded against being prosecuted for several

offenses made out from a single act. Otherwise, an unlawful

act or omission may give use to several prosecutions
depending upon the ability of the prosecuting officer to
imagine or concoct as many offenses as can be justified by
said act or omission, by simply adding or subtracting
essential elements. Under the theory of appellant, the crime
of rape may be converted into a crime of coercion, by
merely alleging that by force and intimidation the accused
prevented the offended girl from remaining a virgin. (88
Phil. at 53; emphases supplied)
By the same token, acts of a person which physically occur on the same
occasion and are infused by a common intent or design or negligence and
therefore form a moral unity, should not be segmented and sliced, as it
were, to produce as many different acts as there are offenses under
municipal ordinances or statutes that an enterprising prosecutor can find
It remains to point out that the dismissal by the Batangas City Court of
the information for violation of the Batangas City Ordinance upon the
ground that such offense had already prescribed, amounts to an acquittal
of the accused of that offense. Under Article 89 of the Revised Penal
Code, "prescription of the crime" is one of the grounds for "total
extinction of criminal liability." Under the Rules of Court, an order
sustaining a motion to quash based on prescription is a bar to another
prosecution for the same offense. 15
It is not without reluctance that we deny the people's petition for
certiorari and mandamus in this case. It is difficult to summon any
empathy for a businessman who would make or enlarge his profit by
stealing from the community. Manuel Opulencia is able to escape
criminal punishment because an Assistant City Fiscal by inadvertence or
otherwise chose to file an information for an offense which he should
have known had already prescribed. We are, however, compelled by the
fundamental law to hold the protection of the right against double
jeopardy available even to the private respondent in this case.
The civil liability aspects of this case are another matter. Because no reservation
of the right to file a separate civil action was made by the Batangas City electric
light system, the civil action for recovery of civil liability arising from the offense
charged was impliedly instituted with the criminal action both before the City
Court of Batangas City and the Court of First Instance of Batangas. The
extinction of criminal liability whether by prescription or by the bar of double

jeopardy does not carry with it the extinction of civil liability arising from the
offense charged. In the present case, as we noted earlier, 16 accused Manuel
Opulencia freely admitted during the police investigation having stolen electric
current through the installation and use of unauthorized elibctrical connections
or devices. While the accused pleaded not guilty before the City Court of
Batangas City, he did not deny having appropriated electric power. However,
there is no evidence in the record as to the amount or value of the electric power
appropriated by Manuel Opulencia, the criminal informations having been
dismissed both by the City Court and by the Court of First Instance (from which
dismissals the Batangas City electric light system could not have appealed 17)
before trial could begin. Accordingly, the related civil action which has not been
waived expressly or impliedly, should be remanded to the Court of First Instance
of Batangas City for reception of evidence on the amount or value of the electric
power appropriated and converted by Manuel Opulencia and rendition of
judgment conformably with such evidence.
WHEREFORE, the petition for certiorari and mandamus is DENIED. Let the civil
action for related civil liability be remanded to the Court of First Instance of
Batangas City for further proceedings as indicated above. No pronouncement as
to costs.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC

G.R. Nos. 59568-76 January 11, 1990

PETER NIERRAS, petitioner,
vs.
HON. AUXENCIO C. DACUYCUY and HON. ANTONIO S. LOPEZ, in
their capacity as Presiding Judge, Branch IV, Court of First
Instance of Leyte, Palo, Leyte, and City Fiscal of Tacloban City,
Leyte, respectively, respondents.
Victor C. Veloso for petitioner.

PARAS, J.:
Before Us is a petition for certiorari with preliminary injunction for the
annulment of the resolution dated September 17, 1981 of the respondent
Judge Auxencio C. Dacuycuy in nine (9) criminal cases, entitled "People of
the Philippines v. Peter Nierras" docketed as Criminal Cases Nos. 4379,
4380, 4381, 4382, 4383, 4384, 4385, 4386 and 4387, for estafa under
Article 315 (2-d) of the Revised Penal Code which denied petitioner's
motion to quash. Said motion to quash was filed by petitioner on the
ground of double jeopardy as these offenses were already included in
Criminal Cases Nos. 3790, 3791, 3792, 3793, 4085, 4122, 4123, 4124,
and 4125, entitled "People of the Philippines v. Peter Nierras," for
violation of the Bouncing Checks Law or Batas Pambansa Blg. 22,
pending before the lower court. In both sets of criminal cases, petitioner
entered a plea of not guilty upon arraignment before the lower court.
However, immediately after his plea of not guilty in these estafa cases,
petitioner moved in open court to be allowed to withdraw his plea of not
guilty upon his filing of a motion to quash, which was denied by
respondent Judge ruling as follows:
The motion to quash should be and is hereby denied.
Accused Peter Nierras allegedly issued the checks in favor
of complainant Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation in
payment of oil products which the latter delivered to him
simultaneously with the issuance of the checks.
xxx xxx xxx
. . . The crime of estafa committed by means of bouncing
checks is not committed by mere issuance of a check. Under
Art. 315, par. 2 (d) of the Revised Penal Code, as amended
by Republic Act 4885, the following are the elements of
estafa: (1) the postdating or issuance of a check in payment
of an obligation contracted at the time the check was issued;
(2) lack of or insufficiency of funds to cover the check; and
(3) damage to the payee thereof (People v. Sabio, 86 SCRA
568). Under Batas Pambansa Bilang 22 (1979) the mere
issuance of a check without sufficient funds issued in
payment of a simultaneous obligation and the check was
dishonored upon presentation for that estafa is committed
under the Revised Penal Code. At the same time, the drawer

will also be liable under Batas Pambansa Bilang 22 for

offense of issuing a check without sufficient funds (pp. 1-2,
Resolution On Motion To Quash dated September 17, 1981;
Annex "MM", Petition). (p. 100, Rollo)
The issue now submitted for Our consideration is whether the filing of
the nine (9) other informations for estafa against petitioner under the
Revised Penal Code after he had earlier been charged with violation of
Batas Pambansa Blg. 22 for issuing the same bouncing checks will put
him in jeopardy of being convicted twice for the same offenses. In other
words, can petitioner be held liable for the nine criminal cases for
violation of Batas Pambansa Blg. 22, and separately also be held liable
for the crime of estafa under Article 315 (2-d) of the Revised Penal Code
for the issuance of the same bouncing checks?
It appears that petitioner, a customer of Pilipinas Shell Petroleum
Corporation, purchased oil products from it. Simultaneous with the
delivery of the products, he issued nine (9) checks in payment thereof.
Upon presentation to the Philippine National Bank at Naval, Leyte, said
checks were dishonored for the reason that his account was already
closed. Thereafter, Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation repeatedly
demanded of petitioner either to deposit funds for his checks or pay for
the oil products he had purchased but he failed and refused to do either.
Petitioner argues that he would be placed in double jeopardy as all the
elements of estafa under Article 315 (2-d) of the Revised Penal Code are
also present in that crime punishable under Batas Pambansa Bilang 22
namely (1) "the postdating or issuance of a check in payment of an
obligation contracted at the time the check was issued; (2) lack or
insufficiency of funds to cover the check and (3) damage to the payee
thereof."
Petitioner's contentions are devoid of merit.
Petitioner is charged with two (2) distinct and separate offenses, first
under Section 1 of Batas Pambansa Bilang 22 approved on April 3, 1979
which provides that:
Any person who makes or draws and issues any check to
apply on account or for value, knowing at the time of issue
that he does not have sufficient funds in or credit with the

drawee bank for the payment of such check in full upon its
presentment, which check is subsequently dishonored by the
drawee bank for insufficiency of funds or credit or would
have been dishonored for the same reason had not the
drawer, without any valid reason ordered the bank to stop
payment, shall be punished by imprisonment of not less than
thirty days but not more than one (1) year or by a fine of not
less than but not more than double the amount of the check
which fine shall in no case exceed TWO HUNDRED
THOUSAND PESOS or both such fine and imprisonment at
the discretion of the court.
and, second, under Article 315, (2-d) of the Revised Penal Code
which states as follows:
Art. 315. Swindling (estafa). Any person who shall defraud
another by any of the means mentioned herein below . . .
xxx xxx xxx
2. By means of any of the following false pretenses or
fraudulent acts, executed prior to or simultaneously with the
commission of the fraud;
xxx xxx xxx
(d) By postdating a check or issuing a check in payment of
an obligation when the offender had no funds in the bank, or
his funds deposited therein were not sufficient to cover the
amount of the check.
What petitioner failed to mention in his argument is the fact that deceit
and damage are essential elements in Article 315 (2-d) Revised Penal
Code, but are not required in Batas Pambansa Bilang 22. Under the latter
law, mere issuance of a check that is dishonored gives rise to the
presumption of knowledge on the part of the drawer that he issued the
same without sufficient funds and hence punishable (People v. Veridiano,
132 SCRA 523) which is not so under the Penal Code. Other differences
between the two also include the following: (1) a drawer of a dishonored
check may be convicted under Batas Pambansa Bilang 22 even if he had
issued the same for a pre-existing obligation, while under Article 315 (2-

d) of the Revised Penal Code such circumstance negates criminal

liability; (2) specific and different penalties are imposed in each of the
two offenses; (3) estafa is essentially a crime against property, while
violation of Batas Pambansa Bilang 22 is principally a crime against
public interest as it does injury to the entire banking system; (4)
violations of Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code are mala in se, while
those of Batas Pambansa Bilang 22 are mala prohibita.
These differences are better understood by presenting the pertinent
discussions on the passage of Batas Pambansa Bilang 22 between the
author of the bill, former Solicitor General and Member of the Batasang
Pambansa, the Honorable Estelito P. Mendoza, presented in the
memorandum for the government as follows:
MR. MENDOZA. If there is evidence
demonstrating that the act committed does not
only violate this proposed Act but also the
Revised Penal Code, there will be further
prosecution under the Revised Penal Code. That
is why it is proposed in this Act that there be a
single uniform penalty for all violations in this
Act. However the court is given the discretion
whether to impose imprisonment or fine or both
or also in whatever severity the court may
consider appropriate under the circumstances.
xxx xxx xxx
MR. VELOSO, F. The other way around, it is not
so. So precisely, if I file a case for estafa against
a particular person for issuance of a bouncing
check, then necessarily I can also be
prosecuted under this proposed bill. On the
other hand, if a person is prosecuted under the
proposed bill, it does not necessarily follow that
he can be prosecuted for estafa.
MR. MENDOZA. This is simply because that in
a certain set of circumstances, the offense
under this Act is the only offense committed
while under a different set of circumstances,

not only the offense described in this Act is

committed but also estafa. So that, for example,
if a check with sufficient funds is issued in
payment of a pre-existing obligation and the
position of the Government should turn out to
be correct that there is no estafa, then the
drawer of the check would only be liable under
this Act but not under the Revised Penal Code.
But if he issues a check in payment, or
contemporaneously with incurring, of an
obligation, then he will be liable not only for
estafa but also for violation for this Act. There
is a difference between the two cases. In that
situation where the check was issued in
payment of a pre-existing obligation, the
issuance of the check does not cause damage to
the payee and so it is but appropriate that he
should not be held for estafa but only for
violating this Act. But if he issued a check to
induce another, to part with a valuable
consideration and the check bounces, then he
does inflict an injury to the payee of the check
apart from violating this law. In that case, it
should be but fair that he be subject to
prosecution not only for estafa but also for
violating this law.
MR. VELOSO, F. Yes, I agree with the Solicitor
General on that point but my worry is with
respect to situations where there is prosecution
first to estafa.
MR. MENDOZA. Well, if there is estafa . . .
MR. VELOSO, F. Estafa committed by the
issuance of a bouncing check, in which case it
will be mandatory on the part of the
prosecuting official to also file a case for
violation of this offense under the proposed bill.

MR. MENDOZA. Yes, that is correct. In such a

situation because if the offender did not only
cause injury on account of the issuance of the
check but did issue a bouncing check penalized
under this Act, then he will be liable for
prosecution under both laws. I would admit that
perhaps in such situation, the penalty may be
somewhat severe. As a matter of fact, in other
jurisdictions, the issuance of bouncing checks is
penalized with substantially lower penalty.
However, because of the situation in the
Philippines, the situation being now relatively
grave that practically everybody is complaining
about bouncing checks, may be it is necessary
at least initially, at this point in time for us to
impose a rather severe penalty and even allow
liability not only under this Act but also for
estafa. Then perhaps, after the necessary
discipline has been inculcated in our people and
that the incidence of the offense has been
reduced, we may then decide to amend the law
and reduce the penalty. But at this time, shall
we say the evil is of such magnitude that only a
dramatic and expeditious effort to prosecute
persons who issue bouncing checks may be
necessary to curb quickly this evil.
(explanations given by Solicitor General
ESTELITO P. MENDOZA at the Batasan
Pambansa during his sponsorship speech of BP
22 which he authored, pages 1037-1038,
Record of the Batasan, Plenary Session No. 70,
Dec. 4, 1978). (Emphasis supplied). (pp. 115117, Rollo or pp. 9-11, Memorandum for
respondents).
Furthermore, Section 5 of Batas Pambansa Bilang 22 provides that:
Prosecution under this Act shall be without prejudice to any
liability for violation of any provision of the Revised Penal
Code.

While the filing of the two sets of Information under the provisions of
Batas Pambansa Bilang 22 and under the provisions of the Revised Penal
Code, as amended, on estafa, may refer to identical acts committed by
petitioner, the prosecution thereof cannot be limited to one offense,
because a single criminal act may give rise to a multiplicity of offenses
and where there is variance or differences between the elements of an
offense in one law and another law as in the case at bar there will be no
double jeopardy because what the rule on double jeopardy prohibits
refers to identity of elements in the two (2) offenses. Otherwise stated
prosecution for the same act is not prohibited. What is forbidden is
prosecution for the same offense. Hence, the mere filing of the two (2)
sets of information does not itself give rise to double jeopardy (People v.
Miraflores, 115 SCRA 570).
In the instant petition, certiorari is not the proper remedy. We have held
in Acharon v. Purisima, et al. (13 SCRA 309) that "when a motion to
quash a criminal case is denied, remedy is not certiorari but to go to
court without prejudice to reiterating special defenses invoked in the
motion, and if after trial on the merits, an adverse decision is rendered,
to appeal therefrom in the manner authorized by law," invoking the rule
laid down in People v. Magdaluyo (1 SCRA 990). If the petitioner cannot
appeal at this state of the proceeding, it is because there is still a
necessity for the trial on the merits wherein the parties may present
proofs in support of their contentions and not because the remedy of
appeal is unavailing.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the petition for certiorari is hereby
DISMISSED for lack of merit.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
FIRST DIVISION

G.R. No. 99287 June 23, 1992

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, petitioner,
vs.
HON. MARTIN S. VILLARAMA, JR., AND JAIME MANUEL,
respondents.

MEDIALDEA, J.:
This petition for certiorari seeks to reverse the decision and the order of
the Regional Trial Court, National Capital Region at Pasig, Metro Manila
dated February 25 and March 13, 1991, respectively in Criminal Case
No. 1345-D entitled "People of the Philippines v. Jaime Manuel y Ohide"
for violation of Section 16, Article 111, RA 6425, as amended.
Briefly, the antecedent facts of the case are as follows:
On August 24, 1990, Jaime Manuel y Ohide was charged with violation of
Section 16, Republic Act No. 6425, as amended. The penalty prescribed
in the said section is imprisonment ranging from six years and one day to
twelve years and a fine ranging from six thousand to twelve thousand
pesos. The information against him reads:

That on or about the 21st day of August, 1990, in the

Municipality of San Juan, Metro Manila, Philippines, and
within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the abovenamed accused, without the corresponding license or
prescription did then and there willfully, unlawfully and
feloniously have in his possession, custody and control 0.08
grams of Methamphetamin Hydrocloride (Shabu) wrapped
with an aluminum foil, which is a regulated drug.
CONTRARY TO LAW. (p. 15, Rollo)
During the arraignment, the accused entered a plea of not guilty.
Thereafter, trial ensued. On November 21, 1990, the prosecution rested
its case. On January 9, 1991, counsel for private respondent verbally
manifested in open court that private respondent was willing to change
his former plea of "not guilty" to that of "guilty" to the lesser offense of
violation of Section 17, R.A. No. 6425, as amended. The said section
provides a penalty of imprisonment ranging from six months and one day
to four years and a fine ranging from six hundred to four thousand pesos
shall be imposed upon any pharmacist, physician, dentist, veterinarian,
manufacturer, wholesaler who violates or fails to keep the records
required under Section 25 of the Act; if the violation or failure involves a
regulated drug. That same day, the respondent Judge issued an order
(Annex "B," p. 17, Rollo) directing private respondent to secure the
consent of the prosecutor to the change of plea, and set the promulgation
of decision on January 30, 1991. On January 30, 1991, respondent Judge
postponed the promulgation of the decision to February 18, 1991 to give
private respondent another opportunity to secure the consent of the
prosecutor. Also, on the said date, the private respondent filed his
Request to Plead Guilty to a Lesser Offense. On February 18, 1991,
respondent Judge issued another order (Annex "D," p. 19, Rollo)
postponing the promulgation of decision to February 25, 1991 to give
private respondent further opportunity to secure the consent of the
prosecutor. On February 20, 1991, the prosecutor filed his Opposition to
the Request to Plead Guilty to a Lesser Offense (annex "E," p. 20, Rollo)
on the grounds that: (1) the prosecution already rested its case on
November 21, 1990; (2) the possibility of conviction of private
respondent of the crime originally charged was high because of the
strong evidence of the prosecution; and (3) the valuable time which the
court and the prosecutor had expended would be put to waste. On
February 21, 1991, private respondent filed his Reply to Opposition with
Leave of Court to Plead Guilty to a Lesser Offense (annex F, p. 21, Rollo),

alleging therein, among other matters, that the Rules on Criminal

Procedure does not fix a specific period within which an accused is
allowed to plead guilty to a lesser offense. Subsequently, on February 25,
1991, respondent Judge rendered a decision granting the accused's
motion, to wit:
It may well be appropriate at this time to state that the
accused is not availing of the "voluntary plea of guilt" as a
mitigating circumstance envisioned under Article 13,
paragraph 7 of the Revised Penal Code. The accused simply
wants to avail of Section 2, Rule 116 of the Rules. As pointed
out by Atty. Fernando Fernandez of the PAO, there is nothing
in the said provision which requires that the same be availed
of prior to the presentation of the evidence for the
prosecution. It is conceded though, as pointed out by the
prosecution, that such is a waste of time on the part of the
Office of the Provincial Prosecutor and of the Court,
nonetheless, this Court, having in mind Section 2 of Rule 1
which provides that the rules shall be liberally construed in
order to promote their object and to assist the parties in
obtaining just, speedy and inexpensive determination of
every action and proceeding and also for humanitarian
considerations, hereby APPROVES and GRANTS the Motion
at bar.
Moreover, such an admission of guilt by the accused
indicates his submission to the law and a moral disposition
on his part to reform. (Vide: People vs. Coronel, G.R. No. L19091, June 30, 1966)
Let it be made of record however that the Court is not
putting a premium on the change of heart of the accused in
mid-stream.
WHEREFORE, finding the accused JAIME MANUEL Y
CHIDE @ Manny guilty beyond reasonable-doubt of the
crime of violation of Section 17, Article III, Republic Act No.
6425, as amended, he is hereby sentenced to a straight
prison term of two (2) years and one (1) day of prision
correccional, to pay a fine of Two Thousand Pesos

(P2,000.00) with subsidiary imprisonment in case of

insolvency and to pay the costs.
In the service of his sentence, the accused shall be credited
in full with the period of his preventive imprisonment.
Pursuant to Section 20, Article IV of Republic Act No. 6425,
as amended, let the 0.08 grams of methamphetamine
hydrochloride (shabu) subject matter of this case be
confiscated and forfeited in favor of the Government and be
turned over to the Dangerous Drugs Board Custodian, NBI,
to be disposed of according to law.
SO ORDERED. (Rollo, pp. 24-25)
Forthwith, the prosecutor filed a Motion for Reconsideration of the
aforestated decision but the same was denied in the order of March 13,
1991, which states:
It is the considered view of this Court that Section 2, Rule
116 of the Rules should not be interpreted to the letter in
"victimless crimes" such as this case, possession of
regulated drugs, which is more of a "social disease" case so
to speak and in the light of (the) provision itself that "with
the consent of the offended party and the fiscal." Is the fiscal
the offended party?
Moreover as the records show, the Office of the Provincial
Fiscal has not been very consistent on this "lesser offense
plea" thing. It would perhaps be in consonance with justice
that a guideline be laid down by the said Office, if only to
apprise the public, the Court and the accused on when said
consent is to be given by the fiscal as a matter of course and
when it will be withheld. For to leave the same undefined is
in the mind of this Court, not conducive to a "just, speedy
and inexpensive determination of every action and
proceeding.
SO ORDERED. (Rollo, pp. 41-42)
Hence, this petition raising the following issues:

I. WHETHER OR NOT RESPONDENT JUDGE ERRED IN

GRANTING PRIVATE RESPONDENT'S REQUEST TO PLEAD
GUILTY TO A LESSER OFFENSE BECAUSE THE REQUEST
WAS FILED OUT OF TIME AND THE CONSENT THERETO
OF THE PROSECUTOR AND THE OFFENDED PARTY WAS
NOT OBTAINED.
II. WHETHER OR NOT RESPONDENT JUDGE ERRED IN
CONVICTING PRIVATE RESPONDENT OF THE LESSER
OFFENSE OF VIOLATION OF SECTION 17, REPUBLIC ACT
NO. 6425, AS AMENDED, INSTEAD OF THE OFFENSE
ORIGINALLY CHARGED OF VIOLATION OF SECTION 16
OF THE SAME LAW, IN VIEW OF THE ABSENCE OF A
VALID CHANGE OF PLEA. (Rollo, pp. 74-75)
In the resolution of January 20, 1992, We issued a temporary restraining
order to enjoin the respondent Judge from enforcing the questioned
judgment in the aforesaid criminal case (Rollo, p. 86).
The petition is meritorious.
Plea bargaining in criminal cases, is a process whereby the accused and
the prosecution work out a mutually satisfactory disposition of the case
subject to court approval (see Black Law Dictionary, 5th Ed., 1979, p.
1037). It usually involves the defendant's pleading guilty to a lesser
offense or to only one or some of the counts of a multi-count indictment
in return for a lighter sentence than that for the graver charge (ibid).
Ordinarily, plea-bargaining is made during the pre-trial stage of the
criminal proceedings. However, the law still permits the accused
sufficient opportunity to change his plea thereafter. Thus, Rule 116 of the
Rules of Court, Section 2 thereof, provides:
Sec. 2. Plea of guilty to a lesser offense. The accused,
with the consent of the offended party and the fiscal, may be
allowed by the trial court to plead guilty to a lesser offense,
regardless of whether or not it is necessarily included in the
crime charged, or is cognizable by a court of lesser
jurisdiction than the trial court. No amendment of the
complaint or information is necessary.

A conviction under this plea, shall be equivalent to a

conviction of the offense charged for purposes of double
jeopardy.
However, the acceptance of an offer to plead guilty to a lesser offense
under the aforequoted rule is not demandable by the accused as a matter
of right but is a matter that is addressed entirely to the sound discretion
of the trial court (Manuel v. Velasco, et al., G.R. No. 94732, February 26,
1991, En Banc Resolution).
In the case at bar, the private respondent (accused) moved to plead guilty
to a lesser offense after the prosecution had already rested its case. In
such situation, jurisprudence has provided the trial court and the Office
of the Prosecutor with yardstick within which their discretion may be
properly exercised. Thus, in People v. Kayanan (L-39355, May 31, 1978,
83 SCRA 437, 450), We held that the rules allow such a plea only when
the prosecution does not have sufficient evidence to establish guilt of the
crime charged. In his concurring opinion in People v. Parohinog (G.R. No.
L-47462, February 28, 1980, 96 SCRA 373, 377), then Justice Antonio
Barredo explained clearly and tersely the rationale of the law:
. . . (A)fter the prosecution had already rested, the only basis
on which the fiscal and the court could rightfully act in
allowing the appellant to charge his former plea of not guilty
to murder to guilty to the lesser crime of homicide could be
nothing more nothing less than the evidence already in the
record. The reason for this being that Section 4 of Rule 118
(now Section 2, Rule 116) under which a plea for a lesser
offense is allowed was not and could not have been intended
as a procedure for compromise, much less bargaining.
As evident from the foregoing, the trial court need not wait for a
guideline from the Office of the Prosecutor before it could act on the
accused's motion to change plea. As soon as the fiscal has submitted his
comment whether for or against the said motion, it behooves the trial
court to assiduously study the prosecution's evidence as well as all the
circumstances upon which the accused made his change of plea to the
end that the interests of justice and of the public will be served. A
reading of the disputed rulings in this case failed to disclose the strength
or weakness of the prosecution's evidence. Apparently, the judgment
under review dwelt solely on only one of the three objections (i.e. waste

of valuable time already spent by the court and prosecution) interposed

by the Fiscal which was the least persuasive. It must be recalled that the
other two grounds of objection were that the prosecution had already
rested its case and that the possibility of conviction of the private
respondent of the crime originally charged was high because of the
strong evidence of the prosecution. Absent any finding on the weight of
the evidence in hand, the respondent judge's acceptance of the private
respondent's change of plea is improper and irregular.
The counsel for the private respondent argues that only the consent of
the fiscal is needed in crimes involving, violation of RA 6425 as amended
because there is no offended party to speak Of and that even the latter's
consent is not an absolute requirement before the trial court could allow
the accused to change his plea.
We do not agree. The provision of Section 2, Rule 116 is clear. The
consent of both the Fiscal and the offended party is a condition precedent
to a valid plea of guilty to a lesser offense (see Manuel v. Velasco, et al.,
supra, p. 6). The reason for this is obvious. The Fiscal has full control of
the prosecution of criminal actions (Cinco, et al. v. Sandiganbayan, et al.,
G.R. Nos. 92362-67, October 15, 1991). Consequently, it is his duty to
always prosecute the proper offense, not any lesser or graver one, when
the evidence in his hands can only sustain the former (see People v.
Parohinog, supra, concurring opinion of then Justice Barredo, p. 377; also
Vda. de Bagatua, et al. v. Revilla, et al., 104 Phil. 393, 395-396).
It would not also be correct to state that there is no offended party in
crimes under RA 6425 as amended. While the acts constituting the
crimes are not wrong in themselves, they are made so by law because
they infringe upon the rights of others. The threat posed by drugs against
human dignity and the integrity of society is malevolent and incessant
(People v. Ale, G.R. No. 70998, October 14, 1986, 145 SCRA 50, 58). Such
pernicious effect is felt not only by the addicts themselves but also by
their families. As a result, society's survival is endangered because its
basic unit, the family, is the ultimate victim of the drug menace. The state
is, therefore, the offended party in this case. As guardian of the rights of
the people, the government files the criminal action in the name of the
People of the Philippines. The Fiscal who represents the government is
duty bound to defend the public interests, threatened by crime, to the
point that it is as though he were the person directly injured by the
offense (see United States v. Samio, 3 Phil. 691, 696). Viewed in this

light, the consent of the offended party, i.e. the state, will have to be
secured from the Fiscal who acts in behalf of the government.
Lastly, the counsel for the private respondent maintains that the private
respondent's change of plea and his conviction to the lesser offense of
violation of Section 17, RA No. 6425 as amended is no longer open to
review otherwise his constitutional right against double jeopardy will be
violated.
Such supposition has no basis. The right against double jeopardy given to
the accused in Section 2, Rule 116 of the Rules of Court applies in cases
where both the fiscal and the offended party consent to the private
respondent's change of plea. Since this is not the situation here, the
private respondent cannot claim this privilege. Instead, the more
pertinent and applicable provision is that found in Section 7, Rule 117
which states:
Sec. 7. Former conviction or acquittal; double jeopardy.
xxx xxx xxx
However, the conviction of the accused shall not be a bar to
another prosecution for an offense which necessarily
includes the offense charged in the former complaint or
information under any of the following instances:
(a) . . . ;
(b) . . . ;
(c) the plea of guilty to the lesser offense was made without
the consent of the Fiscal and of the offended party;
xxx xxx xxx
Under this rule, the private respondent could still be prosecuted under
the original charge of violation of Section 16 of RA 6425 as amended
because of the lack of consent of the Fiscal who also represents the
offended party, i.e., the state. More importantly, the trial court's approval
of his change of plea was irregular and improper.

ACCORDINGLY, the petition is hereby GRANTED. The judgment and

order of the Regional Trial Court, National Capital Region at Pasig,
Branch 156 dated February 25 and March 13, 1991, respectively in
Criminal Case No. 1345-D (People v. Manuel y Ohide) are REVERSED and
SET ASIDE. The said criminal case is hereby remanded to the trial court
for continuation of trial on the original charge of violation of Section 16
of Republic Act No. 6425 as amended. The temporary restraining order
issued in this case is made permanent. No costs.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-14639

March 25, 1919

ZACARIAS VILLAVICENCIO, ET AL., petitioners,

vs.
JUSTO LUKBAN, ET AL., respondents.
Alfonso Mendoza for petitioners.
City Fiscal Diaz for respondents.
MALCOLM, J.:
The annals of juridical history fail to reveal a case quite as remarkable as
the one which this application for habeas corpus submits for decision.
While hardly to be expected to be met with in this modern epoch of
triumphant democracy, yet, after all, the cause presents no great
difficulty if there is kept in the forefront of our minds the basic principles
of popular government, and if we give expression to the paramount
purpose for which the courts, as an independent power of such a
government, were constituted. The primary question is Shall the
judiciary permit a government of the men instead of a government of
laws to be set up in the Philippine Islands?
Omitting much extraneous matter, of no moment to these proceedings,
but which might prove profitable reading for other departments of the
government, the facts are these: The Mayor of the city of Manila, Justo
Lukban, for the best of all reasons, to exterminate vice, ordered the
segregated district for women of ill repute, which had been permitted for
a number of years in the city of Manila, closed. Between October 16 and
October 25, 1918, the women were kept confined to their houses in the
district by the police. Presumably, during this period, the city authorities
quietly perfected arrangements with the Bureau of Labor for sending the
women to Davao, Mindanao, as laborers; with some government office for
the use of the coastguard cutters Corregidor and Negros, and with the
Constabulary for a guard of soldiers. At any rate, about midnight of
October 25, the police, acting pursuant to orders from the chief of police,

Anton Hohmann and the Mayor of the city of Manila, Justo Lukban,
descended upon the houses, hustled some 170 inmates into patrol
wagons, and placed them aboard the steamers that awaited their arrival.
The women were given no opportunity to collect their belongings, and
apparently were under the impression that they were being taken to a
police station for an investigation. They had no knowledge that they were
destined for a life in Mindanao. They had not been asked if they wished
to depart from that region and had neither directly nor indirectly given
their consent to the deportation. The involuntary guests were received on
board the steamers by a representative of the Bureau of Labor and a
detachment of Constabulary soldiers. The two steamers with their
unwilling passengers sailed for Davao during the night of October 25.
The vessels reached their destination at Davao on October 29. The
women were landed and receipted for as laborers by Francisco Sales,
provincial governor of Davao, and by Feliciano Yigo and Rafael Castillo.
The governor and the hacendero Yigo, who appear as parties in the
case, had no previous notification that the women were prostitutes who
had been expelled from the city of Manila. The further happenings to
these women and the serious charges growing out of alleged ill-treatment
are of public interest, but are not essential to the disposition of this case.
Suffice it to say, generally, that some of the women married, others
assumed more or less clandestine relations with men, others went to
work in different capacities, others assumed a life unknown and
disappeared, and a goodly portion found means to return to Manila.
To turn back in our narrative, just about the time the Corregidor and the
Negros were putting in to Davao, the attorney for the relatives and
friends of a considerable number of the deportees presented an
application for habeas corpus to a member of the Supreme Court.
Subsequently, the application, through stipulation of the parties, was
made to include all of the women who were sent away from Manila to
Davao and, as the same questions concerned them all, the application
will be considered as including them. The application set forth the salient
facts, which need not be repeated, and alleged that the women were
illegally restrained of their liberty by Justo Lukban, Mayor of the city of
Manila, Anton Hohmann, chief of police of the city of Manila, and by
certain unknown parties. The writ was made returnable before the full
court. The city fiscal appeared for the respondents, Lukban and
Hohmann, admitted certain facts relative to sequestration and
deportation, and prayed that the writ should not be granted because the
petitioners were not proper parties, because the action should have been

begun in the Court of First Instance for Davao, Department of Mindanao

and Sulu, because the respondents did not have any of the women under
their custody or control, and because their jurisdiction did not extend
beyond the boundaries of the city of Manila. According to an exhibit
attached to the answer of the fiscal, the 170 women were destined to be
laborers, at good salaries, on the haciendas of Yigo and Governor Sales.
In open court, the fiscal admitted, in answer to question of a member of
the court, that these women had been sent out of Manila without their
consent. The court awarded the writ, in an order of November 4, that
directed Justo Lukban, Mayor of the city of Manila, Anton Hohmann,
chief of police of the city of Manila, Francisco Sales, governor of the
province of Davao, and Feliciano Yigo, an hacendero of Davao, to bring
before the court the persons therein named, alleged to be deprived of
their liberty, on December 2, 1918.
Before the date mentioned, seven of the women had returned to Manila
at their own expense. On motion of counsel for petitioners, their
testimony was taken before the clerk of the Supreme Court sitting as
commissioners. On the day named in the order, December 2nd, 1918,
none of the persons in whose behalf the writ was issued were produced
in court by the respondents. It has been shown that three of those who
had been able to come back to Manila through their own efforts, were
notified by the police and the secret service to appear before the court.
The fiscal appeared, repeated the facts more comprehensively, reiterated
the stand taken by him when pleading to the original petition copied a
telegram from the Mayor of the city of Manila to the provincial governor
of Davao and the answer thereto, and telegrams that had passed between
the Director of Labor and the attorney for that Bureau then in Davao, and
offered certain affidavits showing that the women were contained with
their life in Mindanao and did not wish to return to Manila. Respondents
Sales answered alleging that it was not possible to fulfill the order of the
Supreme Court because the women had never been under his control,
because they were at liberty in the Province of Davao, and because they
had married or signed contracts as laborers. Respondent Yigo answered
alleging that he did not have any of the women under his control and that
therefore it was impossible for him to obey the mandate. The court, after
due deliberation, on December 10, 1918, promulgated a second order,
which related that the respondents had not complied with the original
order to the satisfaction of the court nor explained their failure to do so,
and therefore directed that those of the women not in Manila be brought
before the court by respondents Lukban, Hohmann, Sales, and Yigo on
January 13, 1919, unless the women should, in written statements

voluntarily made before the judge of first instance of Davao or the clerk
of that court, renounce the right, or unless the respondents should
demonstrate some other legal motives that made compliance impossible.
It was further stated that the question of whether the respondents were
in contempt of court would later be decided and the reasons for the order
announced in the final decision.
Before January 13, 1919, further testimony including that of a number of
the women, of certain detectives and policemen, and of the provincial
governor of Davao, was taken before the clerk of the Supreme Court
sitting as commissioner and the clerk of the Court of First Instance of
Davao acting in the same capacity. On January 13, 1919, the respondents
technically presented before the Court the women who had returned to
the city through their own efforts and eight others who had been brought
to Manila by the respondents. Attorneys for the respondents, by their
returns, once again recounted the facts and further endeavored to
account for all of the persons involved in the habeas corpus. In
substance, it was stated that the respondents, through their
representatives and agents, had succeeded in bringing from Davao with
their consent eight women; that eighty-one women were found in Davao
who, on notice that if they desired they could return to Manila,
transportation fee, renounced the right through sworn statements; that
fifty-nine had already returned to Manila by other means, and that
despite all efforts to find them twenty-six could not be located. Both
counsel for petitioners and the city fiscal were permitted to submit
memoranda. The first formally asked the court to find Justo Lukban,
Mayor of the city of Manila, Anton Hohmann, chief of police of the city of
Manila, Jose Rodriguez and Fernando Ordax, members of the police force
of the city of Manila, Feliciano Yigo, an hacendero of Davao, Modesto
Joaquin, the attorney for the Bureau of Labor, and Anacleto Diaz, fiscal of
the city of Manila, in contempt of court. The city fiscal requested that the
replica al memorandum de los recurridos, (reply to respondents'
memorandum) dated January 25, 1919, be struck from the record.

defend their rights, were forcibly hustled on board steamers for

transportation to regions unknown. Despite the feeble attempt to prove
that the women left voluntarily and gladly, that such was not the case is
shown by the mere fact that the presence of the police and the
constabulary was deemed necessary and that these officers of the law
chose the shades of night to cloak their secret and stealthy acts. Indeed,
this is a fact impossible to refute and practically admitted by the
respondents.
With this situation, a court would next expect to resolve the question
By authority of what law did the Mayor and the Chief of Police presume
to act in deporting by duress these persons from Manila to another
distant locality within the Philippine Islands? We turn to the statutes and
we find

In the second order, the court promised to give the reasons for granting
the writ of habeas corpus in the final decision. We will now proceed to do
so.

Alien prostitutes can be expelled from the Philippine Islands in

conformity with an Act of congress. The Governor-General can order the
eviction of undesirable aliens after a hearing from the Islands. Act No.
519 of the Philippine Commission and section 733 of the Revised
Ordinances of the city of Manila provide for the conviction and
punishment by a court of justice of any person who is a common
prostitute. Act No. 899 authorizes the return of any citizen of the United
States, who may have been convicted of vagrancy, to the homeland. New
York and other States have statutes providing for the commitment to the
House of Refuge of women convicted of being common prostitutes.
Always a law! Even when the health authorities compel vaccination, or
establish a quarantine, or place a leprous person in the Culion leper
colony, it is done pursuant to some law or order. But one can search in
vain for any law, order, or regulation, which even hints at the right of the
Mayor of the city of Manila or the chief of police of that city to force
citizens of the Philippine Islands and these women despite their being
in a sense lepers of society are nevertheless not chattels but Philippine
citizens protected by the same constitutional guaranties as are other
citizens to change their domicile from Manila to another locality. On
the contrary, Philippine penal law specifically punishes any public officer
who, not being expressly authorized by law or regulation, compels any
person to change his residence.

One fact, and one fact only, need be recalled these one hundred and
seventy women were isolated from society, and then at night, without
their consent and without any opportunity to consult with friends or to

In other countries, as in Spain and Japan, the privilege of domicile is

deemed so important as to be found in the Bill of Rights of the
Constitution. Under the American constitutional system, liberty of abode

is a principle so deeply imbedded in jurisprudence and considered so

elementary in nature as not even to require a constitutional sanction.
Even the Governor-General of the Philippine Islands, even the President
of the United States, who has often been said to exercise more power
than any king or potentate, has no such arbitrary prerogative, either
inherent or express. Much less, therefore, has the executive of a
municipality, who acts within a sphere of delegated powers. If the mayor
and the chief of police could, at their mere behest or even for the most
praiseworthy of motives, render the liberty of the citizen so insecure,
then the presidents and chiefs of police of one thousand other
municipalities of the Philippines have the same privilege. If these officials
can take to themselves such power, then any other official can do the
same. And if any official can exercise the power, then all persons would
have just as much right to do so. And if a prostitute could be sent against
her wishes and under no law from one locality to another within the
country, then officialdom can hold the same club over the head of any
citizen.
Law defines power. Centuries ago Magna Charta decreed that "No
freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be disseized of his freehold, or
liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise
destroyed; nor will we pass upon him nor condemn him, but by lawful
judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we
will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right." (Magna Charta,
9 Hen., 111, 1225, Cap. 29; 1 eng. stat. at Large, 7.) No official, no
matter how high, is above the law. The courts are the forum which
functionate to safeguard individual liberty and to punish official
transgressors. "The law," said Justice Miller, delivering the opinion of the
Supreme Court of the United States, "is the only supreme power in our
system of government, and every man who by accepting office
participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to
that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the
exercise of the authority which it gives." (U.S. vs. Lee [1882], 106 U.S.,
196, 220.) "The very idea," said Justice Matthews of the same high
tribunal in another case, "that one man may be compelled to hold his life,
or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of
life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country
where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself." (Yick Wo
vs. Hopkins [1886], 118 U.S., 356, 370.) All this explains the motive in
issuing the writ of habeas corpus, and makes clear why we said in the
very beginning that the primary question was whether the courts should

permit a government of men or a government of laws to be established in

the Philippine Islands.
What are the remedies of the unhappy victims of official oppression? The
remedies of the citizen are three: (1) Civil action; (2) criminal action, and
(3) habeas corpus.
The first is an optional but rather slow process by which the aggrieved
party may recoup money damages. It may still rest with the parties in
interest to pursue such an action, but it was never intended effectively
and promptly to meet any such situation as that now before us.
As to criminal responsibility, it is true that the Penal Code in force in
these Islands provides:
Any public officer not thereunto authorized by law or by
regulations of a general character in force in the Philippines who
shall banish any person to a place more than two hundred
kilometers distant from his domicile, except it be by virtue of the
judgment of a court, shall be punished by a fine of not less than
three hundred and twenty-five and not more than three thousand
two hundred and fifty pesetas.
Any public officer not thereunto expressly authorized by law or by
regulation of a general character in force in the Philippines who
shall compel any person to change his domicile or residence shall
suffer the penalty of destierro and a fine of not less than six
hundred and twenty-five and not more than six thousand two
hundred and fifty pesetas. (Art. 211.)
We entertain no doubt but that, if, after due investigation, the proper
prosecuting officers find that any public officer has violated this provision
of law, these prosecutors will institute and press a criminal prosecution
just as vigorously as they have defended the same official in this action.
Nevertheless, that the act may be a crime and that the persons guilty
thereof can be proceeded against, is no bar to the instant proceedings. To
quote the words of Judge Cooley in a case which will later be referred to
"It would be a monstrous anomaly in the law if to an application by one
unlawfully confined, ta be restored to his liberty, it could be a sufficient
answer that the confinement was a crime, and therefore might be
continued indefinitely until the guilty party was tried and punished

therefor by the slow process of criminal procedure." (In the matter of

Jackson [1867], 15 Mich., 416, 434.) The writ of habeas corpus was
devised and exists as a speedy and effectual remedy to relieve persons
from unlawful restraint, and as the best and only sufficient defense of
personal freedom. Any further rights of the parties are left untouched by
decision on the writ, whose principal purpose is to set the individual at
liberty.
Granted that habeas corpus is the proper remedy, respondents have
raised three specific objections to its issuance in this instance. The fiscal
has argued (l) that there is a defect in parties petitioners, (2) that the
Supreme Court should not a assume jurisdiction, and (3) that the person
in question are not restrained of their liberty by respondents. It was
finally suggested that the jurisdiction of the Mayor and the chief of police
of the city of Manila only extends to the city limits and that perforce they
could not bring the women from Davao.
The first defense was not presented with any vigor by counsel. The
petitioners were relatives and friends of the deportees. The way the
expulsion was conducted by the city officials made it impossible for the
women to sign a petition for habeas corpus. It was consequently proper
for the writ to be submitted by persons in their behalf. (Code of Criminal
Procedure, sec. 78; Code of Civil Procedure, sec. 527.) The law, in its
zealous regard for personal liberty, even makes it the duty of a court or
judge to grant a writ of habeas corpus if there is evidence that within the
court's jurisdiction a person is unjustly imprisoned or restrained of his
liberty, though no application be made therefor. (Code of Criminal
Procedure, sec. 93.) Petitioners had standing in court.
The fiscal next contended that the writ should have been asked for in the
Court of First Instance of Davao or should have been made returnable
before that court. It is a general rule of good practice that, to avoid
unnecessary expense and inconvenience, petitions for habeas corpus
should be presented to the nearest judge of the court of first instance.
But this is not a hard and fast rule. The writ of habeas corpus may be
granted by the Supreme Court or any judge thereof enforcible anywhere
in the Philippine Islands. (Code of Criminal Procedure, sec. 79; Code of
Civil Procedure, sec. 526.) Whether the writ shall be made returnable
before the Supreme Court or before an inferior court rests in the
discretion of the Supreme Court and is dependent on the particular
circumstances. In this instance it was not shown that the Court of First

Instance of Davao was in session, or that the women had any means by
which to advance their plea before that court. On the other hand, it was
shown that the petitioners with their attorneys, and the two original
respondents with their attorney, were in Manila; it was shown that the
case involved parties situated in different parts of the Islands; it was
shown that the women might still be imprisoned or restrained of their
liberty; and it was shown that if the writ was to accomplish its purpose, it
must be taken cognizance of and decided immediately by the appellate
court. The failure of the superior court to consider the application and
then to grant the writ would have amounted to a denial of the benefits of
the writ.
The last argument of the fiscal is more plausible and more difficult to
meet. When the writ was prayed for, says counsel, the parties in whose
behalf it was asked were under no restraint; the women, it is claimed,
were free in Davao, and the jurisdiction of the mayor and the chief of
police did not extend beyond the city limits. At first blush, this is a
tenable position. On closer examination, acceptance of such dictum is
found to be perversive of the first principles of the writ of habeas corpus.
A prime specification of an application for a writ of habeas corpus is
restraint of liberty. The essential object and purpose of the writ of habeas
corpus is to inquire into all manner of involuntary restraint as
distinguished from voluntary, and to relieve a person therefrom if such
restraint is illegal. Any restraint which will preclude freedom of action is
sufficient. The forcible taking of these women from Manila by officials of
that city, who handed them over to other parties, who deposited them in
a distant region, deprived these women of freedom of locomotion just as
effectively as if they had been imprisoned. Placed in Davao without either
money or personal belongings, they were prevented from exercising the
liberty of going when and where they pleased. The restraint of liberty
which began in Manila continued until the aggrieved parties were
returned to Manila and released or until they freely and truly waived his
right.
Consider for a moment what an agreement with such a defense would
mean. The chief executive of any municipality in the Philippines could
forcibly and illegally take a private citizen and place him beyond the
boundaries of the municipality, and then, when called upon to defend his
official action, could calmly fold his hands and claim that the person was
under no restraint and that he, the official, had no jurisdiction over this

other municipality. We believe the true principle should be that, if the

respondent is within the jurisdiction of the court and has it in his power
to obey the order of the court and thus to undo the wrong that he has
inflicted, he should be compelled to do so. Even if the party to whom the
writ is addressed has illegally parted with the custody of a person before
the application for the writ is no reason why the writ should not issue. If
the mayor and the chief of police, acting under no authority of law, could
deport these women from the city of Manila to Davao, the same officials
must necessarily have the same means to return them from Davao to
Manila. The respondents, within the reach of process, may not be
permitted to restrain a fellow citizen of her liberty by forcing her to
change her domicile and to avow the act with impunity in the courts,
while the person who has lost her birthright of liberty has no effective
recourse. The great writ of liberty may not thus be easily evaded.
It must be that some such question has heretofore been presented to the
courts for decision. Nevertheless, strange as it may seem, a close
examination of the authorities fails to reveal any analogous case. Certain
decisions of respectable courts are however very persuasive in nature.
A question came before the Supreme Court of the State of Michigan at an
early date as to whether or not a writ of habeas corpus would issue from
the Supreme Court to a person within the jurisdiction of the State to
bring into the State a minor child under guardianship in the State, who
has been and continues to be detained in another State. The membership
of the Michigan Supreme Court at this time was notable. It was
composed of Martin, chief justice, and Cooley, Campbell, and Christiancy,
justices. On the question presented the court was equally divided.
Campbell, J., with whom concurred Martin, C. J., held that the writ should
be quashed. Cooley, J., one of the most distinguished American judges
and law-writers, with whom concurred Christiancy, J., held that the writ
should issue. Since the opinion of Justice Campbell was predicated to a
large extent on his conception of the English decisions, and since, as will
hereafter appear, the English courts have taken a contrary view, only the
following eloquent passages from the opinion of Justice Cooley are
quoted:
I have not yet seen sufficient reason to doubt the power of this
court to issue the present writ on the petition which was laid
before us. . . .

It would be strange indeed if, at this late day, after the eulogiums
of six centuries and a half have been expended upon the Magna
Charta, and rivers of blood shed for its establishment; after its
many confirmations, until Coke could declare in his speech on the
petition of right that "Magna Charta was such a fellow that he will
have no sovereign," and after the extension of its benefits and
securities by the petition of right, bill of rights and habeas corpus
acts, it should now be discovered that evasion of that great clause
for the protection of personal liberty, which is the life and soul of
the whole instrument, is so easy as is claimed here. If it is so, it is
important that it be determined without delay, that the legislature
may apply the proper remedy, as I can not doubt they would, on
the subject being brought to their notice. . . .
The second proposition that the statutory provisions are
confined to the case of imprisonment within the state seems to
me to be based upon a misconception as to the source of our
jurisdiction. It was never the case in England that the court of
king's bench derived its jurisdiction to issue and enforce this writ
from the statute. Statutes were not passed to give the right, but to
compel the observance of rights which existed. . . .
The important fact to be observed in regard to the mode of
procedure upon this writ is, that it is directed to and served upon,
not the person confined, but his jailor. It does not reach the former
except through the latter. The officer or person who serves it does
not unbar the prison doors, and set the prisoner free, but the court
relieves him by compelling the oppressor to release his constraint.
The whole force of the writ is spent upon the respondent, and if he
fails to obey it, the means to be resorted to for the purposes of
compulsion are fine and imprisonment. This is the ordinary mode
of affording relief, and if any other means are resorted to, they are
only auxiliary to those which are usual. The place of confinement
is, therefore, not important to the relief, if the guilty party is within
reach of process, so that by the power of the court he can be
compelled to release his grasp. The difficulty of affording redress
is not increased by the confinement being beyond the limits of the
state, except as greater distance may affect it. The important
question is, where the power of control exercised? And I am aware
of no other remedy. (In the matter of Jackson [1867], 15 Mich.,
416.)

The opinion of Judge Cooley has since been accepted as authoritative by

other courts. (Rivers vs. Mitchell [1881], 57 Iowa, 193; Breene vs. People
[1911], Colo., 117 Pac. Rep., 1000; Ex parte Young [1892], 50 Fed., 526.)
The English courts have given careful consideration to the subject. Thus,
a child had been taken out of English by the respondent. A writ of habeas
corpus was issued by the Queen's Bench Division upon the application of
the mother and her husband directing the defendant to produce the
child. The judge at chambers gave defendant until a certain date to
produce the child, but he did not do so. His return stated that the child
before the issuance of the writ had been handed over by him to another;
that it was no longer in his custody or control, and that it was impossible
for him to obey the writ. He was found in contempt of court. On appeal,
the court, through Lord Esher, M. R., said:
A writ of habeas corpus was ordered to issue, and was issued on
January 22. That writ commanded the defendant to have the body
of the child before a judge in chambers at the Royal Courts of
Justice immediately after the receipt of the writ, together with the
cause of her being taken and detained. That is a command to bring
the child before the judge and must be obeyed, unless some lawful
reason can be shown to excuse the nonproduction of the child. If it
could be shown that by reason of his having lawfully parted with
the possession of the child before the issuing of the writ, the
defendant had no longer power to produce the child, that might be
an answer; but in the absence of any lawful reason he is bound to
produce the child, and, if he does not, he is in contempt of the
Court for not obeying the writ without lawful excuse. Many efforts
have been made in argument to shift the question of contempt to
some anterior period for the purpose of showing that what was
done at some time prior to the writ cannot be a contempt. But the
question is not as to what was done before the issue of the writ.
The question is whether there has been a contempt in disobeying
the writ it was issued by not producing the child in obedience to its
commands. (The Queen vs. Bernardo [1889], 23 Q. B. D., 305. See
also to the same effect the Irish case of In re Matthews, 12 Ir. Com.
Law Rep. [N. S.], 233; The Queen vs. Barnardo, Gossage's Case
[1890], 24 Q. B. D., 283.)
A decision coming from the Federal Courts is also of interest. A habeas
corpus was directed to the defendant to have before the circuit court of

the District of Columbia three colored persons, with the cause of their
detention. Davis, in his return to the writ, stated on oath that he had
purchased the negroes as slaves in the city of Washington; that, as he
believed, they were removed beyond the District of Columbia before the
service of the writ of habeas corpus, and that they were then beyond his
control and out of his custody. The evidence tended to show that Davis
had removed the negroes because he suspected they would apply for a
writ of habeas corpus. The court held the return to be evasive and
insufficient, and that Davis was bound to produce the negroes, and Davis
being present in court, and refusing to produce them, ordered that he be
committed to the custody of the marshall until he should produce the
negroes, or be otherwise discharged in due course of law. The court
afterwards ordered that Davis be released upon the production of two of
the negroes, for one of the negroes had run away and been lodged in jail
in Maryland. Davis produced the two negroes on the last day of the term.
(United States vs. Davis [1839], 5 Cranch C.C., 622, Fed. Cas. No. 14926.
See also Robb vs. Connolly [1883], 111 U.S., 624; Church on Habeas, 2nd
ed., p. 170.)
We find, therefore, both on reason and authority, that no one of the
defense offered by the respondents constituted a legitimate bar to the
granting of the writ of habeas corpus.
There remains to be considered whether the respondent complied with
the two orders of the Supreme Court awarding the writ of habeas corpus,
and if it be found that they did not, whether the contempt should be
punished or be taken as purged.
The first order, it will be recalled, directed Justo Lukban, Anton
Hohmann, Francisco Sales, and Feliciano Yigo to present the persons
named in the writ before the court on December 2, 1918. The order was
dated November 4, 1918. The respondents were thus given ample time,
practically one month, to comply with the writ. As far as the record
discloses, the Mayor of the city of Manila waited until the 21st of
November before sending a telegram to the provincial governor of Davao.
According to the response of the attorney for the Bureau of Labor to the
telegram of his chief, there were then in Davao women who desired to
return to Manila, but who should not be permitted to do so because of
having contracted debts. The half-hearted effort naturally resulted in
none of the parties in question being brought before the court on the day
named.

For the respondents to have fulfilled the court's order, three optional
courses were open: (1) They could have produced the bodies of the
persons according to the command of the writ; or (2) they could have
shown by affidavit that on account of sickness or infirmity those persons
could not safely be brought before the court; or (3) they could have
presented affidavits to show that the parties in question or their attorney
waived the right to be present. (Code of Criminal Procedure, sec. 87.)
They did not produce the bodies of the persons in whose behalf the writ
was granted; they did not show impossibility of performance; and they
did not present writings that waived the right to be present by those
interested. Instead a few stereotyped affidavits purporting to show that
the women were contended with their life in Davao, some of which have
since been repudiated by the signers, were appended to the return. That
through ordinary diligence a considerable number of the women, at least
sixty, could have been brought back to Manila is demonstrated to be
found in the municipality of Davao, and that about this number either
returned at their own expense or were produced at the second hearing
by the respondents.
The court, at the time the return to its first order was made, would have
been warranted summarily in finding the respondents guilty of contempt
of court, and in sending them to jail until they obeyed the order. Their
excuses for the non-production of the persons were far from sufficient.
The, authorities cited herein pertaining to somewhat similar facts all tend
to indicate with what exactitude a habeas corpus writ must be fulfilled.
For example, in Gossage's case, supra, the Magistrate in referring to an
earlier decision of the Court, said: "We thought that, having brought
about that state of things by his own illegal act, he must take the
consequences; and we said that he was bound to use every effort to get
the child back; that he must do much more than write letters for the
purpose; that he must advertise in America, and even if necessary
himself go after the child, and do everything that mortal man could do in
the matter; and that the court would only accept clear proof of an
absolute impossibility by way of excuse." In other words, the return did
not show that every possible effort to produce the women was made by
the respondents. That the court forebore at this time to take drastic
action was because it did not wish to see presented to the public gaze the
spectacle of a clash between executive officials and the judiciary, and
because it desired to give the respondents another chance to
demonstrate their good faith and to mitigate their wrong.

In response to the second order of the court, the respondents appear to

have become more zealous and to have shown a better spirit. Agents
were dispatched to Mindanao, placards were posted, the constabulary
and the municipal police joined in rounding up the women, and a steamer
with free transportation to Manila was provided. While charges and
counter-charges in such a bitterly contested case are to be expected, and
while a critical reading of the record might reveal a failure of literal
fulfillment with our mandate, we come to conclude that there is a
substantial compliance with it. Our finding to this effect may be
influenced somewhat by our sincere desire to see this unhappy incident
finally closed. If any wrong is now being perpetrated in Davao, it should
receive an executive investigation. If any particular individual is still
restrained of her liberty, it can be made the object of separate habeas
corpus proceedings.
Since the writ has already been granted, and since we find a substantial
compliance with it, nothing further in this connection remains to be done.
The attorney for the petitioners asks that we find in contempt of court
Justo Lukban, Mayor of the city of Manila, Anton Hohmann, chief of
police of the city of Manila, Jose Rodriguez, and Fernando Ordax,
members of the police force of the city of Manila, Modesto Joaquin, the
attorney for the Bureau of Labor, Feliciano Yigo, an hacendero of Davao,
and Anacleto Diaz, Fiscal of the city of Manila.
The power to punish for contempt of court should be exercised on the
preservative and not on the vindictive principle. Only occasionally should
the court invoke its inherent power in order to retain that respect
without which the administration of justice must falter or fail.
Nevertheless when one is commanded to produce a certain person and
does not do so, and does not offer a valid excuse, a court must, to
vindicate its authority, adjudge the respondent to be guilty of contempt,
and must order him either imprisoned or fined. An officer's failure to
produce the body of a person in obedience to a writ of habeas corpus
when he has power to do so, is a contempt committed in the face of the
court. (Ex parte Sterns [1888], 77 Cal., 156; In re Patterson [1888], 99 N.
C., 407.)
With all the facts and circumstances in mind, and with judicial regard for
human imperfections, we cannot say that any of the respondents, with
the possible exception of the first named, has flatly disobeyed the court

by acting in opposition to its authority. Respondents Hohmann,

Rodriguez, Ordax, and Joaquin only followed the orders of their chiefs,
and while, under the law of public officers, this does not exonerate them
entirely, it is nevertheless a powerful mitigating circumstance. The
hacendero Yigo appears to have been drawn into the case through a
misconstruction by counsel of telegraphic communications. The city
fiscal, Anacleto Diaz, would seem to have done no more than to fulfill his
duty as the legal representative of the city government. Finding him
innocent of any disrespect to the court, his counter-motion to strike from
the record the memorandum of attorney for the petitioners, which brings
him into this undesirable position, must be granted. When all is said and
done, as far as this record discloses, the official who was primarily
responsible for the unlawful deportation, who ordered the police to
accomplish the same, who made arrangements for the steamers and the
constabulary, who conducted the negotiations with the Bureau of Labor,
and who later, as the head of the city government, had it within his power
to facilitate the return of the unfortunate women to Manila, was Justo
Lukban, the Mayor of the city of Manila. His intention to suppress the
social evil was commendable. His methods were unlawful. His regard for
the writ of habeas corpus issued by the court was only tardily and
reluctantly acknowledged.
It would be possible to turn to the provisions of section 546 of the Code
of Civil Procedure, which relates to the penalty for disobeying the writ,
and in pursuance thereof to require respondent Lukban to forfeit to the
parties aggrieved as much as P400 each, which would reach to many
thousands of pesos, and in addition to deal with him as for a contempt.
Some members of the court are inclined to this stern view. It would also
be possible to find that since respondent Lukban did comply substantially
with the second order of the court, he has purged his contempt of the
first order. Some members of the court are inclined to this merciful view.
Between the two extremes appears to lie the correct finding. The failure
of respondent Lukban to obey the first mandate of the court tended to
belittle and embarrass the administration of justice to such an extent that
his later activity may be considered only as extenuating his conduct. A
nominal fine will at once command such respect without being unduly
oppressive such an amount is P100.
In resume as before stated, no further action on the writ of habeas
corpus is necessary. The respondents Hohmann, Rodriguez, Ordax,
Joaquin, Yigo, and Diaz are found not to be in contempt of court.
Respondent Lukban is found in contempt of court and shall pay into the

office of the clerk of the Supreme Court within five days the sum of one
hundred pesos (P100). The motion of the fiscal of the city of Manila to
strike from the record the Replica al Memorandum de los Recurridos of
January 25, 1919, is granted. Costs shall be taxed against respondents.
So ordered.
In concluding this tedious and disagreeable task, may we not be
permitted to express the hope that this decision may serve to bulwark the
fortifications of an orderly government of laws and to protect individual
liberty from illegal encroachment.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-63345 January 30, 1986
EFREN C. MONCUPA, petitioner,
vs.
JUAN PONCE ENRILE, FABIAN C. VER, GALILEO KINTANAR,
FERNANDO GOROSPE, AND JOSE CASTRO, respondents.
Lorenzo M. Tanada, Jose W. Diokno and Joker Arroyo for petitioner,

GUTIERREZ, JR., J.:

As early as 1919, in the leading case of Villavicencio v. Lukban (39 Phil.
778, 790), this Court ruled:
A prime specification of al application for a writ of habeas
corpus is restraint of liberty. The essential object and
purpose of the writ of habeas corpus is to inquire into all
manner of involuntary restraint as distinguished from
voluntary, and to relieve a person therefrom if such restraint
is illegal. Any restraint which will preclude freedom of
action is sufficient. ...
This latitudinarian scope of the writ of habeas-corpus has, in law,
remained undiminished up to the present. The respondents' contention
that the petition has become moot and academic must necessarily be
denied. Efren C. Moncupa may have been released from his detention
cell. The restraints attached to his temporary release, however, preclude
freedom of action and under the Villavicencio v. Lukban rule warrant this

Court's inquiry into the nature of his involuntary restraint and our
relieving him of such restraints as may be illegal.

The issue to be resolved is whether or not the instant petition has

become moot and academic in view of the petitioner's temporary release.

Petitioner Efren C. Moncupa, together with others, was arrested on April

22, 1982 at about 10:50 P.M., at the corner of D. Street and Quezon
Avenue, Quezon City. Moncupa D. Tuazon was brought to MIG-15 Camp
Bago Bantay, Quezon City where he was detained. On April 23, 1982, on
the allegation that he was a National Democratic Front (NDF) staff
member, a Presidential Commitment Order (PCO) was issued against him
and eight (8) other persons.

It is to be noted that attached to the petitioner's temporary release are

restrictions imposed on him. These are:

After two separate investigations, conducted first, by Lieutenant Colonel

Gerardo Lantoria, Jr., Chief of Task Force Makabansa Investigation Group
and second, by Investigating Fiscal Amado Costales of Quezon City, it
was ascertained that the petitioner was not a member of any subversive
organization. Both investigators recommended the prosecution of the
petitioner only for illegal possession of firearms and illegal possession of
subversive documents under Presidential Decree No. 33.
Consequently, two separate informations were filed against the
petitioner, one, for illegal possession of firearms before the Court of First
Instance of Rizal and the other for violation of P.D. 33 before the City
Court of Quezon City. Against the other accused, however, the cases filed
were for violation of P.D. 885 as amended. Significantly, the petitioner
was excluded from the charge under the Revised Anti-Subversion Law.
During the pendency of this petition, it is significant that his arraignment
and further proceedings have not been pursued. And yet, the petitioner's
motions for bail were denied by the lower court.
Hence, the petitioner filed the instant petition.
The respondents, in their return of the writ justified the validity of
petitioner's detention on the ground that the privilege of the writ had
been suspended as to the petitioner. However, on August 30, 1983, the
respondents filed a motion to dismiss stating that on May 11, 1983, the
petitioner was temporarily released from detention on orders of the
Minister temporary of National Defense with the approval of the
President. The respondents stated. "Since the petitioner is free and no
longer under the custody of the respondents, the present petition for
habeas corpus may be deemed moot and academic as in similar cases.

1) His freedom of movement is curtailed by the condition that petitioner

gets the approval of respondents for any travel outside Metro Manila.
2) His liberty of abode is restricted because prior approval of
respondents is also required in case petitioner wants to change his place
of residence.
3) His freedom of speech is muffled by the prohibition that he should not
"participate in any interview conducted by any local or foreign mass
media representatives nor give any press release or information that is
inimical to the interest of national security."
4) He is required to report regularly to respondents or their
representatives.
The petitioner argues that although admittedly his temporary release is
an improvement upon his actual detention, the restrictions imposed by
the respondents constitute an involuntary and illegal restraint on his
freedom.
The petitioner stresses that his temporary release did not render the
instant petitioner moot and academic but that "it merely shifted the
inquiry from the legality of his actual detention to the legality of the
conditions imposed by the respondents."
We agree with the petitioner.
The reservation of the military in the form of restrictions attached to the
temporary release of the petitioner constitute restraints on the liberty of
Mr. Moncupa. Such restrictions limit the freedom of movement of the
petitioner. It is not physical restraint alone which is inquired into by the
writ of habeas corpus.
In Villavicencio v. Lukban, the women who had been illegally seized and
transported against their will to Davao were no longer under any official

restraint. Unlike petitioner Moncupa, they were free to change their

domicile without asking for official permission. Indeed, some of them
managed to return to Manila. Yet, the Court condemned the involuntary
restraints caused by the official action, fined the Mayor of Manila and
expressed the hope that its "decision may serve to bulwark the
fortifications of an orderly government of laws and to protect individual
liberty from Megal encroachment."
In the light of the above ruling, the present petition for habeas corpus
has not become moot and academic. Other precedents for such a
conclusion are not wanting.
The decision in Caunca v. Salazar (82 Phil. 851) states:
An employment agency, regardless of the amount it may
advance to a prospective employee or maid, has absolutely
no power to curtail her freedom of movement. The fact that
no physical force has been exerted to keep her in the house
of the respondent does not make less real the deprivation of
her personal freedom of movement, freedom to transfer
from one place to another, from to choose one's residence.
Freedom may be lost due to external moral compulsion, to
founded or groundless fear, to erroneous belief in the
existence of the will. If the actual effect of such
psychological spell is to place a person at the mercy of
another, the victim is entitled to the protection of courts of
justice as much as the individual who is illigally deprived of
liberty by deprived or physical coercion.
In Tibo v. The Provincial Commander (85 SCRA 564), this Court ruled:
Although the release in the custody of the Deputy Minister
did not signify that petitioners could once again enjoy their
full freedom, the application could have been dismissed, as
it could be withdrawn by the parties themselves. That is a
purely voluntary act. When the hearing was held on
September 7, 1978, it turned out that counsel for petitioner
Bonifacio V. Tupaz could have academic in a hasty manner
when he set forth the above allegations in his manifestation
of August 30, 1978, for Attorney Jose C. Espinas, who
appeared for petitioners, while conceding that there was

such a release from confinement, also alleged that it was

conditioned on their restricting their activities as labor
union leaders to the premises of the Trade Unions of the
Philippines and ABSOLUTE Services, presumably in
Macaraig as well as the Ministry of labor. As the voting was
to take place in the business firm in Bataan, the acts set
would nullify whatever efforts they could have exerted. To
that extent, and with the prohibition against their going to
Bataan, the restraint on liberty was undeniable. If so, the
moot and academic character of the petition was far from
clear.
More recently, we had occasion to rule squarely on whether or not a
temporary release from detention renders the petition for writ of habeas
corpus moot and academic. As in this case of Moncupa, the petitioners in
Toyoto, et al v. Hon. Fidel Ramos, et al, G.R. No. 69270, October 15,
1985, were temporarily released from detention. The respondents filed a
motion to dismiss the petition for habeas corpus on the ground that the
petitioners had been temporarily released and their case had, therefore,
become moot and academic. The petitioners insisted, however, that their
case may be considered moot and academic only "if their release would
be permanent." In ruling for the petitioners, we said:
Ordinarily, a petition for habeas corpus becomes moot and
academic when the restraint on the liberty of the petitioners
is lifted either temporarily or permanently. We have so held
in a number of cases. But the instant case presents a
different situation. The question to be resolved is whether
the State can reserve the power to re-arrest a person for an
offense after a court of competent jurisdiction has absolved
him of the offense. An affirmative answer is the one
suggested by the respondents because the release of the
petitioners being merely 'temporary' it follows that they can
be re-arrested at anytime despite their acquittal by a court
of competent jurisdiction. We hold that such a reservation is
repugnant to the government of laws and not of men
principle. Under this principle the moment a person is
acquitted on a criminal charge he can no longer be detained
or re-arrested for the same offense. This concept is so basic
and elementary that it needs no elaboration.

In effect the principle is clear. A release that renders a petition for a writ
of habeas corpus moot and academic must be one which is free from
involuntary restraints. Where a person continues to be unlawfully denied
one or more of his constitutional freedoms, where there is present a
denial of due process, where the restraints are not merely involuntary
but appear to be unnecessary, and where a deprivation of freedom
originally valid has, in the light of subsequent developments, become
arbitrary, the person concerned or those applying in his behalf may still
avail themselves of the privilege of the writ.
The respondents have failed to show why the writ may not issue and why
the restraints on the petitioner's freedom of movement should not be
lifted.
WHEREFORE, the PETITION is GRANTED. The conditions attached to
the temporary release of the petitioner are declared null and void. The
temporary release of the petitioner is declared ABSOLUTE. No costs

"Habeas corpus is a writ directed to the person detaining another,

commanding him to produce the body of the prisoner at a designated
time and place, with the day and cause of his capture and detention, to
do, submit to, and receive whatsoever the court or judge awarding the
writ shall consider in that behalf." 3[3]

FIRST DIVISION
[G.R. No. 139789. May 12, 2000]
ERLINDA K. ILUSORIO, petitioner, vs. ERLINDA I. BILDNER and
SYLVIA K. ILUSORIO, JOHN DOE and JANE DOE, respondents.
Mesm
[G.R. No. 139808. May 12, 2000]
POTENCIANO ILUSORIO, MA. ERLINDA I. BILDNER, and SYLVIA
ILUSORIO, petitioners, vs. COURT OF APPEALS and ERLINDA K.
ILUSORIO, respondents.
DECISION
PARDO, J.:
May a wife secure a writ of habeas corpus to compel her husband to live
with her in conjugal bliss? The answer is no. Marital rights including
coverture and living in conjugal dwelling may not be enforced by the
extra-ordinary writ of habeas corpus.
A writ of habeas corpus extends to all cases of illegal confinement or
detention,1[1] or by which the rightful custody of a person is withheld
from the one entitled thereto.2[2] Slx

It is a high prerogative, common-law writ, of ancient origin, the great

object of which is the liberation of those who may be imprisoned without
sufficient cause.4[4] It is issued when one is deprived of liberty or is
wrongfully prevented from exercising legal custody over another person. 5
[5]
The petition of Erlinda K. Ilusorio6[6] is to reverse the decision7[7] of the
Court of Appeals and its resolution8[8] dismissing the application for
habeas corpus to have the custody of her husband, lawyer Potenciano
Ilusorio and enforce consortium as the wife.
On the other hand, the petition of Potenciano Ilusorio 9[9] is to annul that
portion of the decision of the Court of Appeals giving Erlinda K. Ilusorio
visitation rights to her husband and to enjoin Erlinda and the Court of
Appeals from enforcing the visitation rights.
The undisputed facts are as follows: Scslx
Erlinda Kalaw Ilusorio is the wife of lawyer Potenciano Ilusorio.
Potenciano Ilusorio is about 86 years of age possessed of extensive
property valued at millions of pesos. For many years, lawyer Potenciano
3
4
5
6
7

Ilusorio was Chairman of the Board and President of Baguio Country

Club.

"WHEREFORE, in the light of the foregoing disquisitions,

judgment is hereby rendered:

On July 11, 1942, Erlinda Kalaw and Potenciano Ilusorio contracted

matrimony and lived together for a period of thirty (30) years. In 1972,
they separated from bed and board for undisclosed reasons. Potenciano
lived at Urdaneta Condominium, Ayala Ave., Makati City when he was in
Manila and at Ilusorio Penthouse, Baguio Country Club when he was in
Baguio City. On the other hand, Erlinda lived in Antipolo City.

"(1) Ordering, for humanitarian consideration and upon

petitioners manifestation, respondents Erlinda K. Ilusorio
Bildner and Sylvia Ilusorio-Yap, the administrator of
Cleveland Condominium or anywhere in its place, his guards
and Potenciano Ilusorios staff especially Ms. Aurora
Montemayor to allow visitation rights to Potenciano Ilusorios
wife, Erlinda Ilusorio and all her children, notwithstanding
any list limiting visitors thereof, under penalty of contempt
in case of violation of refusal thereof; xxx

Out of their marriage, the spouses had six (6) children, namely: Ramon
Ilusorio (age 55); Erlinda Ilusorio Bildner (age 52); Maximo (age 50);
Sylvia (age 49); Marietta (age 48); and Shereen (age 39).

"(2) ORDERING that the writ of habeas corpus previously

issued be recalled and the herein petition for habeas corpus
be DENIED DUE COURSE, as it is hereby DISMISSED for
lack of unlawful restraint or detention of the subject of the
petition.

On December 30, 1997, upon Potencianos arrival from the United States,
he stayed with Erlinda for about five (5) months in Antipolo City. The
children, Sylvia and Erlinda (Lin), alleged that during this time, their
mother gave Potenciano an overdose of 200 mg instead of 100 mg Zoloft,
an antidepressant drug prescribed by his doctor in New York, U.S.A. As a
consequence, Potencianos health deteriorated.
On February 25, 1998, Erlinda filed with the Regional Trial Court,
Antipolo City a petition10[10] for guardianship over the person and
property of Potenciano Ilusorio due to the latters advanced age, frail
health, poor eyesight and impaired judgment.
On May 31, 1998, after attending a corporate meeting in Baguio City,
Potenciano Ilusorio did not return to Antipolo City and instead lived at
Cleveland Condominium, Makati. Slxsc
On March 11, 1999, Erlinda filed with the Court of Appeals a petition for
habeas corpus to have the custody of lawyer Potenciano Ilusorio. She
alleged that respondents11[11] refused petitioners demands to see and
visit her husband and prohibited Potenciano from returning to Antipolo
City.

"SO ORDERED."12[12]
Hence, the two petitions, which were consolidated and are herein jointly
decided.
As heretofore stated, a writ of habeas corpus extends to all cases of
illegal confinement or detention,13[13] or by which the rightful custody of
a person is withheld from the one entitled thereto. It is available where a
person continues to be unlawfully denied of one or more of his
constitutional freedoms, where there is denial of due process, where the
restraints are not merely involuntary but are unnecessary, and where a
deprivation of freedom originally valid has later become arbitrary. 14[14] It
is devised as a speedy and effectual remedy to relieve persons from
unlawful restraint, as the best and only sufficient defense of personal
freedom.15[15] Jksm
12

After due hearing, on April 5, 1999, the Court of Appeals rendered

decision the dispositive portion of which reads:

13

10

14

11

15

The essential object and purpose of the writ of habeas corpus is to

inquire into all manner of involuntary restraint, and to relieve a person
therefrom if such restraint is illegal.16[16]
To justify the grant of the petition, the restraint of liberty must be an
illegal and involuntary deprivation of freedom of action. 17[17] The illegal
restraint of liberty must be actual and effective, not merely nominal or
moral.18[18]
The evidence shows that there was no actual and effective detention or
deprivation of lawyer Potenciano Ilusorios liberty that would justify the
issuance of the writ. The fact that lawyer Potenciano Ilusorio is about 86
years of age, or under medication does not necessarily render him
mentally incapacitated. Soundness of mind does not hinge on age or
medical condition but on the capacity of the individual to discern his
actions.
After due hearing, the Court of Appeals concluded that there was no
unlawful restraint on his liberty.
The Court of Appeals also observed that lawyer Potenciano Ilusorio did
not request the administrator of the Cleveland Condominium not to allow
his wife and other children from seeing or visiting him. He made it clear
that he did not object to seeing them.
As to lawyer Potenciano Ilusorios mental state, the Court of Appeals
observed that he was of sound and alert mind, having answered all the
relevant questions to the satisfaction of the court.
Being of sound mind, he is thus possessed with the capacity to make
choices. In this case, the crucial choices revolve on his residence and the
people he opts to see or live with. The choices he made may not appeal to
some of his family members but these are choices which exclusively
belong to Potenciano. He made it clear before the Court of Appeals that
he was not prevented from leaving his house or seeing people. With that
16
17
18

declaration, and absent any true restraint on his liberty, we have no

reason to reverse the findings of the Court of Appeals.
With his full mental capacity coupled with the right of choice, Potenciano
Ilusorio may not be the subject of visitation rights against his free choice.
Otherwise, we will deprive him of his right to privacy. Needless to say,
this will run against his fundamental constitutional right. Es m
The Court of Appeals exceeded its authority when it awarded visitation
rights in a petition for habeas corpus where Erlinda never even prayed
for such right. The ruling is not consistent with the finding of subjects
sanity.
When the court ordered the grant of visitation rights, it also emphasized
that the same shall be enforced under penalty of contempt in case of
violation or refusal to comply. Such assertion of raw, naked power is
unnecessary.
The Court of Appeals missed the fact that the case did not involve the
right of a parent to visit a minor child but the right of a wife to visit a
husband. In case the husband refuses to see his wife for private reasons,
he is at liberty to do so without threat of any penalty attached to the
exercise of his right.
No court is empowered as a judicial authority to compel a husband to live
with his wife. Coverture cannot be enforced by compulsion of a writ of
habeas corpus carried out by sheriffs or by any other mesne process.
That is a matter beyond judicial authority and is best left to the man and
womans free choice.
WHEREFORE, in G. R. No. 139789, the Court DISMISSES the petition
for lack of merit. No costs.
In G. R. No. 139808, the Court GRANTS the petition and nullifies the
decision of the Court of Appeals insofar as it gives visitation rights to
respondent Erlinda K. Ilusorio. No costs.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. 189155

September 7, 2010

IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR THE WRIT OF AMPARO

AND THE WRIT OF HABEAS DATA IN FAVOR OF MELISSA C.
ROXAS, MELISSA C. ROXAS, Petitioner,
vs.
GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO, GILBERT TEODORO, GEN.
VICTOR S. IBRADO, P/DIR. GEN. JESUS AME VERZOSA, LT. GEN.
DELFIN N. BANGIT, PC/SUPT. LEON NILO A. DELA CRUZ, MAJ.
GEN. RALPH VILLANUEVA, PS/SUPT. RUDY GAMIDO LACADIN,
AND CERTAIN PERSONS WHO GO BY THE NAME[S] DEX, RC
AND ROSE, Respondents.
DECISION
PEREZ, J.:
At bench is a Petition For Review on Certiorari1 assailing the Decision2
dated 26 August 2009 of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. SP No. 00036WRA a petition that was commenced jointly under the Rules on the
Writ of Amparo (Amparo Rule) and Habeas Data (Habeas Data Rule). In
its decision, the Court of Appeals extended to the petitioner, Melissa C.
Roxas, the privilege of the writs of amparo and habeas data but denied
the latters prayers for an inspection order, production order and return
of specified personal belongings. The fallo of the decision reads:
WHEREFORE, the Petition is PARTIALLY MERITORIOUS. This Court
hereby grants Petitioner the privilege of the Writ of Amparo and Habeas
Data.
Accordingly, Respondents are enjoined to refrain from distributing or
causing the distribution to the public of any records in whatever form,
reports, documents or similar papers relative to Petitioners Melissa C.
Roxas, and/or Melissa Roxas; alleged ties to the CPP-NPA or pertinently
related to the complained incident. Petitioners prayers for an inspection

order, production order and for the return of the specified personal
belongings are denied for lack of merit. Although there is no evidence
that Respondents are responsible for the abduction, detention or torture
of the Petitioner, said Respondents pursuant to their legally mandated
duties are, nonetheless, ordered to continue/complete the investigation of
this incident with the end in view of prosecuting those who are
responsible. Respondents are also ordered to provide protection to the
Petitioner and her family while in the Philippines against any and all
forms of harassment, intimidation and coercion as may be relevant to the
grant of these reliefs.3
We begin with the petitioners allegations.
Petitioner is an American citizen of Filipino descent.4 While in the United
States, petitioner enrolled in an exposure program to the Philippines with
the group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-United States of America
(BAYAN-USA) of which she is a member.5 During the course of her
immersion, petitioner toured various provinces and towns of Central
Luzon and, in April of 2009, she volunteered to join members of BAYANTarlac6 in conducting an initial health survey in La Paz, Tarlac for a future
medical mission.7
In pursuit of her volunteer work, petitioner brought her passport, wallet
with Fifteen Thousand Pesos (P15,000.00) in cash, journal, digital camera
with memory card, laptop computer, external hard disk, IPOD,8
wristwatch, sphygmomanometer, stethoscope and medicines. 9
After doing survey work on 19 May 2009, petitioner and her companions,
Juanito Carabeo (Carabeo) and John Edward Jandoc (Jandoc), decided to
rest in the house of one Mr. Jesus Paolo (Mr. Paolo) in Sitio Bagong Sikat,
Barangay Kapanikian, La Paz, Tarlac.10 At around 1:30 in the afternoon,
however, petitioner, her companions and Mr. Paolo were startled by the
loud sounds of someone banging at the front door and a voice demanding
that they open up.11
Suddenly, fifteen (15) heavily armed men forcibly opened the door,
barged inside and ordered petitioner and her companions to lie on the
ground face down.12 The armed men were all in civilian clothes and, with
the exception of their leader, were also wearing bonnets to conceal their
faces.13

Petitioner tried to protest the intrusion, but five (5) of the armed men
ganged up on her and tied her hands.14 At this juncture, petitioner saw
the other armed men herding Carabeo and Jandoc, already blindfolded
and taped at their mouths, to a nearby blue van. Petitioner started to
shout her name.15 Against her vigorous resistance, the armed men
dragged petitioner towards the vanbruising her arms, legs and knees. 16
Once inside the van, but before she can be blindfolded, petitioner was
able to see the face of one of the armed men sitting beside her. 17 The van
then sped away.
After about an hour of traveling, the van stopped. 18 Petitioner, Carabeo
and Jandoc were ordered to alight.19 After she was informed that she is
being detained for being a member of the Communist Party of the
Philippines-New Peoples Army (CPP-NPA), petitioner was separated from
her companions and was escorted to a room that she believed was a jail
cell from the sound of its metal doors. 20 From there, she could hear the
sounds of gunfire, the noise of planes taking off and landing and some
construction bustle.21 She inferred that she was taken to the military
camp of Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija.22
What followed was five (5) straight days of interrogation coupled with
torture.23 The thrust of the interrogations was to convince petitioner to
abandon her communist beliefs in favor of returning to "the fold." 24 The
torture, on the other hand, consisted of taunting, choking, boxing and
suffocating the petitioner.25
Throughout the entirety of her ordeal, petitioner was made to suffer in
blindfolds even in her sleep.26 Petitioner was only relieved of her
blindfolds when she was allowed to take a bath, during which she
became acquainted with a woman named "Rose" who bathed her. 27 There
were also a few times when she cheated her blindfold and was able to
peek at her surroundings.28
Despite being deprived of sight, however, petitioner was still able to learn
the names of three of her interrogators who introduced themselves to her
as "Dex," "James" and "RC."29 "RC" even told petitioner that those who
tortured her came from the "Special Operations Group," and that she was
abducted because her name is included in the "Order of Battle." 30
On 25 May 2009, petitioner was finally released and returned to her
uncles house in Quezon City.31 Before being released, however, the

abductors gave petitioner a cellular phone with a SIM 32 card, a slip of

paper containing an e-mail address with password, 33 a plastic bag
containing biscuits and books,34 the handcuffs used on her, a blouse and a
pair of shoes.35 Petitioner was also sternly warned not to report the
incident to the group Karapatan or something untoward will happen to
her and her family.36
Sometime after her release, petitioner continued to receive calls from RC
via the cellular phone given to her.37 Out of apprehension that she was
being monitored and also fearing for the safety of her family, petitioner
threw away the cellular phone with a SIM card.
Seeking sanctuary against the threat of future harm as well as the
suppression of any existing government files or records linking her to the
communist movement, petitioner filed a Petition for the Writs of Amparo
and Habeas Data before this Court on 1 June 2009. 38 Petitioner
impleaded public officials occupying the uppermost echelons of the
military and police hierarchy as respondents, on the belief that it was
government agents who were behind her abduction and torture.
Petitioner likewise included in her suit "Rose," "Dex" and "RC." 39
The Amparo and Habeas Data petition prays that: (1) respondents be
enjoined from harming or even approaching petitioner and her family; (2)
an order be issued allowing the inspection of detention areas in the 7th
Infantry Division, Fort Magsaysay, Laur, Nueva Ecija; (3) respondents be
ordered to produce documents relating to any report on the case of
petitioner including, but not limited to, intelligence report and operation
reports of the 7th Infantry Division, the Special Operations Group of the
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and its subsidiaries or branch/es
prior to, during and subsequent to 19 May 2009; (4) respondents be
ordered to expunge from the records of the respondents any document
pertinent or connected to Melissa C. Roxas, Melissa Roxas or any name
which sounds the same; and (5) respondents be ordered to return to
petitioner her journal, digital camera with memory card, laptop
computer, external hard disk, IPOD, wristwatch, sphygmomanometer,
stethoscope, medicines and her P15,000.00 cash.40
In a Resolution dated 9 June 2009, this Court issued the desired writs
and referred the case to the Court of Appeals for hearing, reception of
evidence and appropriate action.41 The Resolution also directed the
respondents to file their verified written return.42

On 18 June 2009, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), filed a Return
of the Writs43 on behalf of the public officials impleaded as respondents.
We now turn to the defenses interposed by the public respondents.
The public respondents label petitioners alleged abduction and torture
as "stage managed."44 In support of their accusation, the public
respondents principally rely on the statement of Mr. Paolo, as contained
in the Special Report45 of the La Paz Police Station. In the Special Report,
Mr. Paolo disclosed that, prior to the purported abduction, petitioner and
her companions instructed him and his two sons to avoid leaving the
house.46 From this statement, the public respondents drew the distinct
possibility that, except for those already inside Mr. Paolos house, nobody
else has any way of knowing where petitioner and her companions were
at the time they were supposedly abducted.47 This can only mean, the
public respondents concluded, that if ever there was any "abduction" it
must necessarily have been planned by, or done with the consent of, the
petitioner and her companions themselves. 48
Public respondents also cited the Medical Certificate49 of the petitioner,
as actually belying her claims that she was subjected to serious torture
for five (5) days. The public respondents noted that while the petitioner
alleges that she was choked and boxed by her abductorsinflictions that
could have easily produced remarkable bruisesher Medical Certificate
only shows abrasions in her wrists and knee caps. 50
For the public respondents, the above anomalies put in question the very
authenticity of petitioners alleged abduction and torture, more so any
military or police involvement therein. Hence, public respondents
conclude that the claims of abduction and torture was no more than a
charade fabricated by the petitioner to put the government in bad light,
and at the same time, bring great media mileage to her and the group
that she represents.51
Nevertheless, even assuming the abduction and torture to be genuine,
the public respondents insist on the dismissal of the Amparo and Habeas
Data petition based on the following grounds: (a) as against respondent
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in particular, because of her
immunity from suit,52 and (b) as against all of the public respondents, in
general, in view of the absence of any specific allegation in the petition

that they had participated in, or at least authorized, the commission of

such atrocities.53
Finally, the public respondents posit that they had not been remiss in
their duty to ascertain the truth behind the allegations of the petitioner. 54
In both the police and military arms of the government machinery,
inquiries were set-up in the following manner:
Police Action
Police authorities first learned of the purported abduction around 4:30
oclock in the afternoon of 19 May 2009, when Barangay Captain Michael
M. Manuel came to the La Paz Municipal Police Station to report the
presence of heavily armed men somewhere in Barangay Kapanikian.55
Acting on the report, the police station launched an initial investigation. 56
The initial investigation revolved around the statement of Mr. Paolo, who
informed the investigators of an abduction incident involving three (3)
personslater identified as petitioner Melissa Roxas, Juanito Carabeo
and John Edward Jandocwho were all staying in his house. 57 Mr. Paolo
disclosed that the abduction occurred around 1:30 oclock in the
afternoon, and was perpetrated by about eight (8) heavily armed men
who forced their way inside his house. 58 Other witnesses to the abduction
also confirmed that the armed men used a dark blue van with an
unknown plate number and two (2) Honda XRM motorcycles with no
plate numbers.59
At 5:00 oclock in the afternoon of 19 May 2009, the investigators sent a
Flash Message to the different police stations surrounding La Paz, Tarlac,
in an effort to track and locate the van and motorcycles of the suspects.
Unfortunately, the effort yielded negative results. 60
On 20 May 2009, the results of the initial investigation were included in a
Special Report61 that was transmitted to the Tarlac Police Provincial
Office, headed by public respondent P/S Supt. Rudy Lacadin (Supt.
Lacadin). Public respondent Supt. Lacadin, in turn, informed the
Regional Police Office of Region 3 about the abduction. 62 Follow-up
investigations were, at the same time, pursued. 63
On 26 May 2009, public respondent PC/Supt. Leon Nilo Dela Cruz, as
Director of the Regional Police Office for Region 3, caused the creation of

Special Investigation Task GroupCAROJAN (Task Group CAROJAN) to

conduct an in-depth investigation on the abduction of the petitioner,
Carabeo and Jandoc.64
Task Group CAROJAN started its inquiry by making a series of
background examinations on the victims of the purported abduction, in
order to reveal the motive behind the abduction and, ultimately, the
identity of the perpetrators.65 Task Group CAROJAN also maintained
liaisons with Karapatan and the Alliance for Advancement of Peoples
Rightsorganizations trusted by petitionerin the hopes of obtaining the
latters participation in the ongoing investigations. 66 Unfortunately, the
letters sent by the investigators requesting for the availability of the
petitioner for inquiries were left unheeded.67
The progress of the investigations conducted by Task Group CAROJAN
had been detailed in the reports68 that it submitted to public respondent
General Jesus Ame Verzosa, the Chief of the Philippine National Police.
However, as of their latest report dated 29 June 2009, Task Group
CAROJAN is still unable to make a definitive finding as to the true
identity and affiliation of the abductorsa fact that task group CAROJAN
attributes to the refusal of the petitioner, or any of her fellow victims, to
cooperate in their investigative efforts.69
Military Action
Public respondent Gilbert Teodoro, the Secretary of National Defense,
first came to know about the alleged abduction and torture of the
petitioner upon receipt of the Resolution of this Court directing him and
the other respondents to file their return.70 Immediately thereafter, he
issued a Memorandum Directive71 addressed to the Chief of Staff of the
AFP, ordering the latter, among others, to conduct an inquiry to
determine the validity of the accusation of military involvement in the
abduction.72
Acting pursuant to the Memorandum Directive, public respondent
General Victor S. Ibrado, the AFP Chief of Staff, sent an AFP Radio
Message73 addressed to public respondent Lieutenant General Delfin N.
Bangit (Lt. Gen. Bangit), the Commanding General of the Army, relaying
the order to cause an investigation on the abduction of the petitioner. 74

For his part, and taking cue from the allegations in the amparo petition,
public respondent Lt. Gen. Bangit instructed public respondent Major
General Ralph A. Villanueva (Maj. Gen. Villanueva), the Commander of
the 7th Infantry Division of the Army based in Fort Magsaysay, to set in
motion an investigation regarding the possible involvement of any
personnel assigned at the camp in the purported abduction of the
petitioner.75 In turn, public respondent Maj. Gen. Villanueva tapped the
Office of the Provost Marshal (OPV) of the 7th Infantry Division, to
conduct the investigation.76
On 23 June 2009, the OPV of the 7th Infantry Division released an
Investigation Report77 detailing the results of its inquiry. In substance,
the report described petitioners allegations as "opinionated" and thereby
cleared the military from any involvement in her alleged abduction and
torture.78
The Decision of the Court of Appeals
In its Decision,79 the Court of Appeals gave due weight and consideration
to the petitioners version that she was indeed abducted and then
subjected to torture for five (5) straight days. The appellate court noted
the sincerity and resolve by which the petitioner affirmed the contents of
her affidavits in open court, and was thereby convinced that the latter
was telling the truth.80
On the other hand, the Court of Appeals disregarded the argument of the
public respondents that the abduction of the petitioner was "stage
managed," as it is merely based on an unfounded speculation that only
the latter and her companions knew where they were staying at the time
they were forcibly taken.81 The Court of Appeals further stressed that the
Medical Certificate of the petitioner can only affirm the existence of a
true abduction, as its findings are reflective of the very injuries the latter
claims to have sustained during her harrowing ordeal, particularly when
she was handcuffed and then dragged by her abductors onto their van. 82
The Court of Appeals also recognized the existence of an ongoing threat
against the security of the petitioner, as manifested in the attempts of
"RC" to contact and monitor her, even after she was released. 83 This
threat, according to the Court of Appeals, is all the more compounded by
the failure of the police authorities to identify the material perpetrators
who are still at large.84 Thus, the appellate court extended to the

petitioner the privilege of the writ of amparo by directing the public

respondents to afford protection to the former, as well as continuing,
under the norm of extraordinary diligence, their existing investigations
involving the abduction.85
The Court of Appeals likewise observed a transgression of the right to
informational privacy of the petitioner, noting the existence of "records of
investigations" that concerns the petitioner as a suspected member of the
CPP-NPA.86 The appellate court derived the existence of such records
from a photograph and video file presented in a press conference by
party-list representatives Jovito Palparan (Palparan) and Pastor Alcover
(Alcover), which allegedly show the petitioner participating in rebel
exercises. Representative Alcover also revealed that the photograph and
video came from a female CPP-NPA member who wanted out of the
organization. According to the Court of Appeals, the proliferation of the
photograph and video, as well as any form of media, insinuating that
petitioner is part of the CPP-NPA does not only constitute a violation of
the right to privacy of the petitioner but also puts further strain on her
already volatile security.87 To this end, the appellate court granted the
privilege of the writ of habeas data mandating the public respondents to
refrain from distributing to the public any records, in whatever form,
relative to petitioners alleged ties with the CPP-NPA or pertinently
related to her abduction and torture.88
The foregoing notwithstanding, however, the Court of Appeals was not
convinced that the military or any other person acting under the
acquiescence of the government, were responsible for the abduction and
torture of the petitioner.89 The appellate court stressed that, judging by
her own statements, the petitioner merely "believed" that the military
was behind her abduction.90 Thus, the Court of Appeals absolved the
public respondents from any complicity in the abduction and torture of
petitioner.91 The petition was likewise dismissed as against public
respondent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in view of her immunity
from suit.92
Accordingly, the petitioners prayers for the return of her personal
belongings were denied.93 Petitioners prayers for an inspection order
and production order also met the same fate.94
Hence, this appeal by the petitioner.

AMPARO
A.
Petitioner first contends that the Court of Appeals erred in absolving the
public respondents from any responsibility in her abduction and torture. 95
Corollary to this, petitioner also finds fault on the part of Court of
Appeals in denying her prayer for the return of her personal belongings. 96
Petitioner insists that the manner by which her abduction and torture
was carried out, as well as the sounds of construction, gun-fire and
airplanes that she heard while in detention, as these were detailed in her
two affidavits and affirmed by her in open court, are already sufficient
evidence to prove government involvement.97
Proceeding from such assumption, petitioner invokes the doctrine of
command responsibility to implicate the high-ranking civilian and
military authorities she impleaded as respondents in her amparo
petition.98 Thus, petitioner seeks from this Court a pronouncement
holding the respondents as complicit in her abduction and torture, as
well as liable for the return of her belongings. 99
Command Responsibility in Amparo Proceedings
It must be stated at the outset that the use by the petitioner of the
doctrine of command responsibility as the justification in impleading the
public respondents in her amparo petition, is legally inaccurate, if not
incorrect. The doctrine of command responsibility is a rule of substantive
law that establishes liability and, by this account, cannot be a proper
legal basis to implead a party-respondent in an amparo petition. 100
The case of Rubrico v. Arroyo,101 which was the first to examine command
responsibility in the context of an amparo proceeding, observed that the
doctrine is used to pinpoint liability. Rubrico notes that: 102
The evolution of the command responsibility doctrine finds its context in
the development of laws of war and armed combats. According to Fr.
Bernas, "command responsibility," in its simplest terms, means the
"responsibility of commanders for crimes committed by subordinate
members of the armed forces or other persons subject to their control in
international wars or domestic conflict." 103 In this sense, command

responsibility is properly a form of criminal complicity. The Hague

Conventions of 1907 adopted the doctrine of command responsibility, 104
foreshadowing the present-day precept of holding a superior accountable
for the atrocities committed by his subordinates should he be remiss in
his duty of control over them. As then formulated, command
responsibility is "an omission mode of individual criminal liability,"
whereby the superior is made responsible for crimes committed by his
subordinates for failing to prevent or punish the perpetrators 105 (as
opposed to crimes he ordered). (Emphasis in the orginal, underscoring
supplied)
Since the application of command responsibility presupposes an
imputation of individual liability, it is more aptly invoked in a full-blown
criminal or administrative case rather than in a summary amparo
proceeding. The obvious reason lies in the nature of the writ itself:
The writ of amparo is a protective remedy aimed at providing judicial
relief consisting of the appropriate remedial measures and directives that
may be crafted by the court, in order to address specific violations or
threats of violation of the constitutional rights to life, liberty or
security.106 While the principal objective of its proceedings is the initial
determination of whether an enforced disappearance, extralegal killing
or threats thereof had transpiredthe writ does not, by so doing, fix
liability for such disappearance, killing or threats, whether that may be
criminal, civil or administrative under the applicable substantive law. 107
The rationale underpinning this peculiar nature of an amparo writ has
been, in turn, clearly set forth in the landmark case of The Secretary of
National Defense v. Manalo:108
x x x The remedy provides rapid judicial relief as it partakes of a
summary proceeding that requires only substantial evidence to make the
appropriate reliefs available to the petitioner; it is not an action to
determine criminal guilt requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt, or
liability for damages requiring preponderance of evidence, or
administrative responsibility requiring substantial evidence that will
require full and exhaustive proceedings. 109(Emphasis supplied)
It must be clarified, however, that the inapplicability of the doctrine of
command responsibility in an amparo proceeding does not, by any
measure, preclude impleading military or police commanders on the
ground that the complained acts in the petition were committed with

their direct or indirect acquiescence. In which case, commanders may be

impleadednot actually on the basis of command responsibilitybut
rather on the ground of their responsibility, or at least accountability. In
Razon v. Tagitis,110 the distinct, but interrelated concepts of responsibility
and accountability were given special and unique significations in
relation to an amparo proceeding, to wit:
x x x Responsibility refers to the extent the actors have been
established by substantial evidence to have participated in whatever way,
by action or omission, in an enforced disappearance, as a measure of the
remedies this Court shall craft, among them, the directive to file the
appropriate criminal and civil cases against the responsible parties in the
proper courts. Accountability, on the other hand, refers to the measure
of remedies that should be addressed to those who exhibited involvement
in the enforced disappearance without bringing the level of their
complicity to the level of responsibility defined above; or who are
imputed with knowledge relating to the enforced disappearance and who
carry the burden of disclosure; or those who carry, but have failed to
discharge, the burden of extraordinary diligence in the investigation of
the enforced disappearance.
Responsibility of Public Respondents
At any rate, it is clear from the records of the case that the intent of the
petitioner in impleading the public respondents is to ascribe some form
of responsibility on their part, based on her assumption that they, in one
way or the other, had condoned her abduction and torture. 111
To establish such assumption, petitioner attempted to show that it was
government agents who were behind her ordeal. Thus, the petitioner
calls attention to the circumstances surrounding her abduction and
torturei.e., the forcible taking in broad daylight; use of vehicles with no
license plates; utilization of blindfolds; conducting interrogations to elicit
communist inclinations; and the infliction of physical abusewhich,
according to her, is consistent with the way enforced disappearances are
being practiced by the military or other state forces. 112
Moreover, petitioner also claims that she was held inside the military
camp Fort Magsaysaya conclusion that she was able to infer from the
travel time required to reach the place where she was actually detained,

and also from the sounds of construction, gun-fire and airplanes she
heard while thereat.113
We are not impressed. The totality of the evidence presented by the
petitioner does not inspire reasonable conclusion that her abductors
were military or police personnel and that she was detained at Fort
Magsaysay.
First. The similarity between the circumstances attending a particular
case of abduction with those surrounding previous instances of enforced
disappearances does not, necessarily, carry sufficient weight to prove
that the government orchestrated such abduction. We opine that insofar
as the present case is concerned, the perceived similarity cannot stand as
substantial evidence of the involvement of the government.
In amparo proceedings, the weight that may be accorded to parallel
circumstances as evidence of military involvement depends largely on the
availability or non-availability of other pieces of evidence that has the
potential of directly proving the identity and affiliation of the
perpetrators. Direct evidence of identity, when obtainable, must be
preferred over mere circumstantial evidence based on patterns and
similarity, because the former indubitably offers greater certainty as to
the true identity and affiliation of the perpetrators. An amparo court
cannot simply leave to remote and hazy inference what it could otherwise
clearly and directly ascertain.
In the case at bench, petitioner was, in fact, able to include in her Offer
of Exhibits,114 the cartographic sketches115 of several of her abductors
whose faces she managed to see. To the mind of this Court, these
cartographic sketches have the undeniable potential of giving the
greatest certainty as to the true identity and affiliation of petitioners
abductors. Unfortunately for the petitioner, this potential has not been
realized in view of the fact that the faces described in such sketches
remain unidentified, much less have been shown to be that of any
military or police personnel. Bluntly stated, the abductors were not
proven to be part of either the military or the police chain of command.
Second. The claim of the petitioner that she was taken to Fort Magsaysay
was not adequately established by her mere estimate of the time it took
to reach the place where she was detained and by the sounds that she
heard while thereat. Like the Court of Appeals, We are not inclined to

take the estimate and observations of the petitioner as accurate on its

facenot only because they were made mostly while she was in
blindfolds, but also in view of the fact that she was a mere sojourner in
the Philippines, whose familiarity with Fort Magsaysay and the travel
time required to reach it is in itself doubtful. 116 With nothing else but
obscure observations to support it, petitioners claim that she was taken
to Fort Magsaysay remains a mere speculation.

But perhaps the more fundamental reason in denying the prayer of the
petitioner, lies with the fact that a persons right to be restituted of his
property is already subsumed under the general rubric of property rights
which are no longer protected by the writ of amparo.119 Section 1 of the
Amparo Rule,120 which defines the scope and extent of the writ, clearly
excludes the protection of property rights.
B.

In sum, the petitioner was not able to establish to a concrete point that
her abductors were actually affiliated, whether formally or informally,
with the military or the police organizations. Neither does the evidence
at hand prove that petitioner was indeed taken to the military camp Fort
Magsaysay to the exclusion of other places. These evidentiary gaps, in
turn, make it virtually impossible to determine whether the abduction
and torture of the petitioner was in fact committed with the acquiescence
of the public respondents. On account of this insufficiency in evidence, a
pronouncement of responsibility on the part of the public respondents,
therefore, cannot be made.
Prayer for the Return of Personal Belongings
This brings Us to the prayer of the petitioner for the return of her
personal belongings.

The next error raised by the petitioner is the denial by the Court of
Appeals of her prayer for an inspection of the detention areas of Fort
Magsaysay.121
Considering the dearth of evidence concretely pointing to any military
involvement in petitioners ordeal, this Court finds no error on the part of
the Court of Appeals in denying an inspection of the military camp at Fort
Magsaysay. We agree with the appellate court that a contrary stance
would be equivalent to sanctioning a "fishing expedition," which was
never intended by the Amparo Rule in providing for the interim relief of
inspection order.122 Contrary to the explicit position 123 espoused by the
petitioner, the Amparo Rule does not allow a "fishing expedition" for
evidence.

In its decision, the Court of Appeals denied the above prayer of the
petitioner by reason of the failure of the latter to prove that the public
respondents were involved in her abduction and torture. 117 We agree with
the conclusion of the Court of Appeals, but not entirely with the reason
used to support it. To the mind of this Court, the prayer of the petitioner
for the return of her belongings is doomed to fail regardless of whether
there is sufficient evidence to hold public respondents responsible for the
abduction of the petitioner.

An inspection order is an interim relief designed to give support or

strengthen the claim of a petitioner in an amparo petition, in order to aid
the court before making a decision.124 A basic requirement before an
amparo court may grant an inspection order is that the place to be
inspected is reasonably determinable from the allegations of the party
seeking the order. While the Amparo Rule does not require that the place
to be inspected be identified with clarity and precision, it is,
nevertheless, a minimum for the issuance of an inspection order that the
supporting allegations of a party be sufficient in itself, so as to make a
prima facie case. This, as was shown above, petitioner failed to do.

In the first place, an order directing the public respondents to return the
personal belongings of the petitioner is already equivalent to a conclusive
pronouncement of liability. The order itself is a substantial relief that can
only be granted once the liability of the public respondents has been
fixed in a full and exhaustive proceeding. As already discussed above,
matters of liability are not determinable in a mere summary amparo
proceeding.118

Since the very estimates and observations of the petitioner are not strong
enough to make out a prima facie case that she was detained in Fort
Magsaysay, an inspection of the military camp cannot be ordered. An
inspection order cannot issue on the basis of allegations that are, in
themselves, unreliable and doubtful.
HABEAS DATA

As earlier intimated, the Court of Appeals granted to the petitioner the

privilege of the writ of habeas data, by enjoining the public respondents
from "distributing or causing the distribution to the public any records in
whatever form, reports, documents or similar papers" relative to the
petitioners "alleged ties with the CPP-NPA or pertinently related to her
abduction and torture." Though not raised as an issue in this appeal, this
Court is constrained to pass upon and review this particular ruling of the
Court of Appeals in order to rectify, what appears to Us, an error
infecting the grant.
For the proper appreciation of the rationale used by the Court of Appeals
in granting the privilege of the writ of habeas data, We quote hereunder
the relevant portion125 of its decision:
Under these premises, Petitioner prayed that all the records, intelligence
reports and reports on the investigations conducted on Melissa C. Roxas
or Melissa Roxas be produced and eventually expunged from the records.
Petitioner claimed to be included in the Governments Order of Battle
under Oplan Bantay Laya which listed political opponents against whom
false criminal charges were filed based on made up and perjured
information.
Pending resolution of this petition and before Petitioner could testify
before Us, Ex-army general Jovito Palaparan, Bantay party-list, and
Pastor Alcover of the Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy party-list
held a press conference where they revealed that they received an
information from a female NPA rebel who wanted out of the organization,
that Petitioner was a communist rebel. Alcover claimed that said
information reached them thru a letter with photo of Petitioner holding
firearms at an NPA training camp and a video CD of the training
exercises.
Clearly, and notwithstanding Petitioners denial that she was the person
in said video, there were records of other investigations on Melissa C.
Roxas or Melissa Roxas which violate her right to privacy. Without a
doubt, reports of such nature have reasonable connections, one way or
another, to petitioners abduction where she claimed she had been
subjected to cruelties and dehumanizing acts which nearly caused her
life precisely due to allegation of her alleged membership in the CPPNPA. And if said report or similar reports are to be continuously made
available to the public, Petitioners security and privacy will certainly be

in danger of being violated or transgressed by persons who have strong

sentiments or aversion against members of this group. The unregulated
dissemination of said unverified video CD or reports of Petitioners
alleged ties with the CPP-NPA indiscriminately made available for public
consumption without evidence of its authenticity or veracity certainly
violates Petitioners right to privacy which must be protected by this
Court. We, thus, deem it necessary to grant Petitioner the privilege of the
Writ of Habeas Data. (Emphasis supplied).
The writ of habeas data was conceptualized as a judicial remedy
enforcing the right to privacy, most especially the right to informational
privacy of individuals.126 The writ operates to protect a persons right to
control information regarding himself, particularly in the instances where
such information is being collected through unlawful means in order to
achieve unlawful ends.
Needless to state, an indispensable requirement before the privilege of
the writ may be extended is the showing, at least by substantial evidence,
of an actual or threatened violation of the right to privacy in life, liberty
or security of the victim.127 This, in the case at bench, the petitioner failed
to do.
The main problem behind the ruling of the Court of Appeals is that there
is actually no evidence on record that shows that any of the public
respondents had violated or threatened the right to privacy of the
petitioner. The act ascribed by the Court of Appeals to the public
respondents that would have violated or threatened the right to privacy
of the petitioner, i.e., keeping records of investigations and other reports
about the petitioners ties with the CPP-NPA, was not adequately proven
considering that the origin of such records were virtually unexplained
and its existence, clearly, only inferred by the appellate court from the
video and photograph released by Representatives Palparan and Alcover
in their press conference. No evidence on record even shows that any of
the public respondents had access to such video or photograph.
In view of the above considerations, the directive by the Court of Appeals
enjoining the public respondents from "distributing or causing the
distribution to the public any records in whatever form, reports,
documents or similar papers" relative to the petitioners "alleged ties
with the CPP-NPA," appears to be devoid of any legal basis. The public

respondents cannot be ordered to refrain from distributing something

that, in the first place, it was not proven to have.
Verily, until such time that any of the public respondents were found to
be actually responsible for the abduction and torture of the petitioner,
any inference regarding the existence of reports being kept in violation of
the petitioners right to privacy becomes farfetched, and premature.
For these reasons, this Court must, at least in the meantime, strike down
the grant of the privilege of the writ of habeas data.
DISPOSITION OF THE CASE
Our review of the evidence of the petitioner, while telling of its innate
insufficiency to impute any form of responsibility on the part of the public
respondents, revealed two important things that can guide Us to a proper
disposition of this case. One, that further investigation with the use of
extraordinary diligence must be made in order to identify the
perpetrators behind the abduction and torture of the petitioner; and two,
that the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), pursuant to its
Constitutional mandate to "investigate all forms of human rights
violations involving civil and political rights and to provide appropriate
legal measures for the protection of human rights," 128 must be tapped in
order to fill certain investigative and remedial voids.
Further Investigation Must Be Undertaken
Ironic as it seems, but part and parcel of the reason why the petitioner
was not able to adduce substantial evidence proving her allegations of
government complicity in her abduction and torture, may be attributed to
the incomplete and one-sided investigations conducted by the
government itself. This "awkward" situation, wherein the very persons
alleged to be involved in an enforced disappearance or extralegal killing
are, at the same time, the very ones tasked by law to investigate the
matter, is a unique characteristic of these proceedings and is the main
source of the "evidentiary difficulties" faced by any petitioner in any
amparo case.129
Cognizant of this situation, however, the Amparo Rule placed a potent
safeguardrequiring the "respondent who is a public official or
employee" to prove that no less than "extraordinary diligence as required

by applicable laws, rules and regulations was observed in the

performance of duty."130 Thus, unless and until any of the public
respondents is able to show to the satisfaction of the amparo court that
extraordinary diligence has been observed in their investigations, they
cannot shed the allegations of responsibility despite the prevailing
scarcity of evidence to that effect.
With this in mind, We note that extraordinary diligence, as required by
the Amparo Rule, was not fully observed in the conduct of the police and
military investigations in the case at bar.
A perusal of the investigation reports submitted by Task Group CAROJAN
shows modest effort on the part of the police investigators to identify the
perpetrators of the abduction. To be sure, said reports are replete with
background checks on the victims of the abduction, but are, at the same
time, comparatively silent as to other concrete steps the investigators
have been taking to ascertain the authors of the crime. Although
conducting a background investigation on the victims is a logical first
step in exposing the motive behind the abductionits necessity is clearly
outweighed by the need to identify the perpetrators, especially in light of
the fact that the petitioner, who was no longer in captivity, already came
up with allegations about the motive of her captors.
Instead, Task Group CAROJAN placed the fate of their investigations
solely on the cooperation or non-cooperation of the petitionerwho, they
claim, was less than enthusiastic in participating in their investigative
efforts.131 While it may be conceded that the participation of the
petitioner would have facilitated the progress of Task Group CAROJANs
investigation, this Court believes that the formers reticence to cooperate
is hardly an excuse for Task Group CAROJAN not to explore other means
or avenues from which they could obtain relevant leads. 132 Indeed, while
the allegations of government complicity by the petitioner cannot, by
themselves, hold up as adequate evidence before a court of lawthey
are, nonetheless, a vital source of valuable investigative leads that must
be pursued and verified, if only to comply with the high standard of
diligence required by the Amparo Rule in the conduct of investigations.
Assuming the non-cooperation of the petitioner, Task Group CAROJANs
reports still failed to explain why it never considered seeking the
assistance of Mr. Jesus Paolowho, along with the victims, is a central
witness to the abduction. The reports of Task Group CAROJAN is silent in

any attempt to obtain from Mr. Paolo, a cartographic sketch of the

abductors or, at the very least, of the one who, by petitioners account,
was not wearing any mask.1avvphi1
The recollection of Mr. Paolo could have served as a comparative material
to the sketches included in petitioners offer of exhibits that, it may be
pointed out, were prepared under the direction of, and first submitted to,
the CHR pursuant to the latters independent investigation on the
abduction and torture of the petitioner.133 But as mentioned earlier, the
CHR sketches remain to be unidentified as of this date.
In light of these considerations, We agree with the Court of Appeals that
further investigation under the norm of extraordinary diligence should be
undertaken. This Court simply cannot write finis to this case, on the basis
of an incomplete investigation conducted by the police and the military.
In a very real sense, the right to security of the petitioner is continuously
put in jeopardy because of the deficient investigation that directly
contributes to the delay in bringing the real perpetrators before the bar
of justice.
To add teeth to the appellate courts directive, however, We find it fitting,
nay, necessary to shift the primary task of conducting further
investigations on the abduction and torture of the petitioner upon the
CHR.134 We note that the CHR, unlike the police or the military, seems to
enjoy the trust and confidence of the petitioneras evidenced by her
attendance and participation in the hearings already conducted by the
commission.135 Certainly, it would be reasonable to assume from such
cooperation that the investigations of the CHR have advanced, or at the
very least, bears the most promise of advancing farther, in terms of
locating the perpetrators of the abduction, and is thus, vital for a final
resolution of this petition. From this perspective, We also deem it just
and appropriate to relegate the task of affording interim protection to the
petitioner, also to the CHR.
Hence, We modify the directive of the Court of the Appeals for further
investigation, as follows
1.) Appointing the CHR as the lead agency tasked with conducting
further investigation regarding the abduction and torture of the
petitioner. Accordingly, the CHR shall, under the norm of
extraordinary diligence, take or continue to take the necessary

steps: (a) to identify the persons described in the cartographic

sketches submitted by the petitioner, as well as their whereabouts;
and (b) to pursue any other leads relevant to petitioners abduction
and torture.
2.) Directing the incumbent Chief of the Philippine National Police
(PNP), or his successor, and the incumbent Chief of Staff of the
AFP, or his successor, to extend assistance to the ongoing
investigation of the CHR, including but not limited to furnishing
the latter a copy of its personnel records circa the time of the
petitioners abduction and torture, subject to reasonable
regulations consistent with the Constitution and existing laws.
3.) Further directing the incumbent Chief of the PNP, or his
successor, to furnish to this Court, the Court of Appeals, and the
petitioner or her representative, a copy of the reports of its
investigations and their recommendations, other than those that
are already part of the records of this case, within ninety (90) days
from receipt of this decision.
4.) Further directing the CHR to (a) furnish to the Court of Appeals
within ninety (90) days from receipt of this decision, a copy of the
reports on its investigation and its corresponding
recommendations; and to (b) provide or continue to provide
protection to the petitioner during her stay or visit to the
Philippines, until such time as may hereinafter be determined by
this Court.
Accordingly, this case must be referred back to the Court of Appeals, for
the purposes of monitoring compliance with the above directives and
determining whether, in light of any recent reports or recommendations,
there would already be sufficient evidence to hold any of the public
respondents responsible or, at least, accountable. After making such
determination, the Court of Appeals shall submit its own report with
recommendation to this Court for final action. The Court of Appeals will
continue to have jurisdiction over this case in order to accomplish its
tasks under this decision.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition is PARTIALLY MERITORIOUS. We
hereby render a decision:

1.) AFFIRMING the denial of the petitioners prayer for the return
of her personal belongings;
2.) AFFIRMING the denial of the petitioners prayer for an
inspection of the detention areas of Fort Magsaysay.
3.) REVERSING the grant of the privilege of habeas data, without
prejudice, however, to any modification that this Court may make
on the basis of the investigation reports and recommendations
submitted to it under this decision.
4.) MODIFYING the directive that further investigation must be
undertaken, as follows
a. APPOINTING the Commission on Human Rights as the
lead agency tasked with conducting further investigation
regarding the abduction and torture of the petitioner.
Accordingly, the Commission on Human Rights shall, under
the norm of extraordinary diligence, take or continue to take
the necessary steps: (a) to identify the persons described in
the cartographic sketches submitted by the petitioner, as
well as their whereabouts; and (b) to pursue any other leads
relevant to petitioners abduction and torture.
b. DIRECTING the incumbent Chief of the Philippine
National Police, or his successor, and the incumbent Chief of
Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or his
successor, to extend assistance to the ongoing investigation
of the Commission on Human Rights, including but not
limited to furnishing the latter a copy of its personnel
records circa the time of the petitioners abduction and
torture, subject to reasonable regulations consistent with
the Constitution and existing laws.
c. Further DIRECTING the incumbent Chief of the Philippine
National Police, or his successor, to furnish to this Court, the
Court of Appeals, and the petitioner or her representative, a
copy of the reports of its investigations and their
recommendations, other than those that are already part of
the records of this case, within ninety (90) days from receipt
of this decision.

d. Further DIRECTING the Commission on Human Rights (a)

to furnish to the Court of Appeals within ninety (90) days
from receipt of this decision, a copy of the reports on its
investigation and its corresponding recommendations; and
(b) to provide or continue to provide protection to the
petitioner during her stay or visit to the Philippines, until
such time as may hereinafter be determined by this Court.
5.) REFERRING BACK the instant case to the Court of Appeals for
the following purposes:
a. To MONITOR the investigations and actions taken by the
PNP, AFP, and the CHR;
b. To DETERMINE whether, in light of the reports and
recommendations of the CHR, the abduction and torture of
the petitioner was committed by persons acting under any of
the public respondents; and on the basis of this
determination
c. To SUBMIT to this Court within ten (10) days from receipt
of the report and recommendation of the Commission on
Human Rightsits own report, which shall include a
recommendation either for the DISMISSAL of the petition as
against the public respondents who were found not
responsible and/or accountable, or for the APPROPRIATE
REMEDIAL MEASURES, AS MAY BE ALLOWED BY THE
AMPARO AND HABEAS DATA RULES, TO BE
UNDERTAKEN as against those found responsible and/or
accountable.
Accordingly, the public respondents shall remain personally impleaded in
this petition to answer for any responsibilities and/or accountabilities
they may have incurred during their incumbencies.
Other findings of the Court of Appeals in its Decision dated 26 August
2009 in CA-G.R. SP No. 00036-WRA that are not contrary to this decision
are AFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED.

JOSE PORTUGAL PEREZ

Associate Justice

RENATO C. CORONA
Chief Justice

WE CONCUR:
RENATO C. CORONA
Chief Justice

ANTONIO T. CARPIO
Associate Justice

CONCHITA CARPIO
MORALES
Associate Justice

PRESBITERO J. VELASCO,
JR.
Associate Justice

ANTONIO EDUARDO B.
NACHURA
Associate Justice

TERESITA J. LEONARDODECASTRO
Associate Justice

(On Official Leave)

ARTURO D. BRION*
Associate Justice

DIOSDADO M. PERALTA
Associate Justice

LUCAS P. BERSAMIN
Associate Justice

MARIANO C. DEL CASTILLO

Associate Justice

ROBERTO A. ABAD
Associate Justice

MARTIN S. VILLARAMA, JR.

Associate Justice

JOSE CATRAL MENDOZA

Associate Justice

MARIA LOURDES P.A. SERENO

Associate Justice
CERTIFICATION
Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution, it is hereby
certified that the conclusions in the above Decision were reached in
consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of
the Court.