G.R. No. L-4396. October 30, 1951
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. SERGIO DAGATAN ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.
PARAS, C.J.:
was filed in the Court of First Instance of Cebu (criminal case No.
1095) against Julio Dagatan, Sergio Dagatan and Saturnino Dagatan.
According to counsel for the accused, although the parties had long
presented their respective evidence, the case has remained undecided.
The records were destroyed during the last war. Nothing was done with
the case until February 22, 1949, when the provincial fiscal of Cebu
filed a petition for reconstitution of the original records. At the
hearing of the petition for reconstitution, counsel for the accused did
not appear. Whereupon the Court of First Instance of Cebu directed said
counsel to produce copies of all pertinent papers in his possession
within five days from notice. As counsel for the accused failed to do
so, a new information for murder was filed against Sergio Dagatan and
Saturnino Dagatan. Julio Dagatan was not included, because he was
already dead. The provincial fiscal filed an amended information on
August 8, 1949, to which the accused pleaded not guilty on February 16,
1950. Counsel for the accused filed a motion to quash the information
on the ground of double jeopardy. From the order of the Court of First
Instance of Cebu of October 31, 1950, dismissing the information, the
Government has appealed.
The dismissal complained of was based upon the following
theory: “The Court is, therefore, inclined to conclude as it hereby
concludes that to subject the defendants now to the requirements of a
new trial under the new information would be tantamount to placing them
twice in jeopardy for the same offense.”
Section 9, Rule 113, of the Rules of Court provides that “when a
defendant shall have been convicted or acquitted, or the case against
him dismissed or otherwise terminated without the express consent of
the defendant, by a court of competent jurisdiction, upon a valid
complaint or information or other formal charge sufficient in form and
substance to sustain a conviction, and after the defendant had pleaded
to the charge, the conviction or acquittal of the defendant or the
dismissal of the case shall be 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.” It is very clear that there can be no double jeopardy
where there has been no conviction, acquittal, dismissal or termination
in a former case for the same offense. No pretense is made in the case
at bar that the defendants were ever acquitted or convicted in Criminal
Case No. 1095, or that said case was ever dismissed or otherwise
terminated without the consent of the defendants. Upon the other hand,
it is admitted that the records were destroyed during the war without
the case having been decided. In such a situation the remedy of the
parties is reconstitution in conformity with law (Act No. 3110 and Rule
124, section 5, paragraph [h], of the Rules of Court). The
provincial fiscal of Cebu therefore took the proper step when he filed
on February 22, 1949, a petition for reconstitution; and there is
absolutely no allegation that said petition was out of time. Indeed,
under Republic Act No. 441, the period for reconstituting destroyed
judicial records was extended up to June 7, 1951.
In the cases of People vs. Comon, Criminal Case No. 4798 of the Court of First Instance of Surigao, Resolution of October 8, 1948, and Ramos vs.
Director of Prisons, G, R. No. L-3017, Resolution of July 22, 1949, we
already authorized the filing of new informations against the accused
in view of the loss or destruction of the records and the impossibility
of reconstitution.
In the present case, there might have been a delay that has worked
hardship or disadvantage on the accused, but the same cannot be
attributed solely to the Government, since reconstitution is as much
the duty of the prosecution as of the defense (Gunabe vs. Director of Prisons, 44 O. G. 1244)[1].
Again, if it be claimed that decision of the former case was
unreasonably delayed, the accused had the ample remedy of mandamus to
compel the lower court to render the necessary judgment (Talabon vs. Iloilo Provincial Warden, 44 O. G., No. 11, p. 4326)[2].
The following passage from the decision of this Court in U. S. vs.
Laguna, 17 Phil. 532, 540, has full application to the case now before
us: “Every person who finds himself in a court of justice, in whatever
capacity, must hold himself while there subject to those unforeseen
events which suddenly and unavoidably intervene and change the whole
aspect4of things. The sickness or death of the judge, or of counsel for
the prosecution, the destruction by fire or flood of the court-house
and all the records and evidence of the pending trial—any of these
things are sufficient to interrupt the course of the proceedings and to
require that they be begun anew. Such events weigh equally against all.
As no one can be charged with their occurrence, so no one can legally
lose or profit by their results. While the law protects persons charged
with crime from the unjust and arbitrary acts of man, there is no
shield which may be interposed against the tyranny of unforeseen
events. Until the proceedings which, under the system which the law
provides, constitute his trial are terminated, the happening of an
unforeseen event which renders the continuance of his trial for the
time impossible, as it can not be used for his conviction, can not be
urged for his absolution. As the burning of this court-house with all
the criminal records which it contains could not be used as a basis for
the affirmance of the conviction of all those whose causes axe pending
in this court, so the same event could not be urged as a reason for the
delivery of such persons from jail on the ground that a retrial would
be a second jeopardy.”
Wherefore, the appealed order is hereby reversed and the case
remanded to the Court of First Instance of Cebu for further
proceedings. So ordered without costs.
Feria, Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Tuason, Reyes, and Jugo, JJ., concur.
[1] 77 Phil., 993.
[2] 78 Phil., 599.