MARILOU ALMADEN, CIPRIANO LUSPO, MORLY STEWART NUEVA, HAROLD JAMES NUEVA, NORBERT VIDANES, AND MEL FELICIANO, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. LEILI CRUZ SUAREZ, AS ACTING PRESIDING JUDGE …

Almaden versus Suarez

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 filed by Marilou Almaden, Cipriano Luspo, Morly Stewart Nueva, Harold James Nueva, Norbert Vidanes, and Mel Feliciano against Judge Leili Cruz Suarez in her capacity as acting presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court of Pasig City. The petitioners were charged with reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide and multiple physical injuries arising from the stampede at the first anniversary show of the Wowowee noontime program at the Philsports Arena, formerly known as ULTRA, in Pasig City. They asked the Supreme Court to compel the trial court to dismiss the criminal case and to quash the Information. The case matters because it is the Supreme Court's clearest recent statement on how the right to speedy disposition of cases is measured in criminal prosecutions, and on the sufficiency of an Information for reckless imprudence.

Procedural History

After the stampede, a Department of Justice Investigating Panel conducted a preliminary investigation and, in a Resolution dated October 9, 2006, found probable cause and recommended the filing of an Information against the petitioners. The case was raffled to Branch 261 of the Regional Trial Court of Pasig City in July 2008. Acting on the petitioners' Motion for Determination of Probable Cause, then Presiding Judge Agnes Reyes-Carpio issued an Order on December 2, 2008 dismissing the case against four accused for lack of probable cause and suspending the proceedings against the remaining accused pending completion of the Department of Justice investigation into the possible culpability of the public officials charged for the same offense. The petitioners' Motion for Partial Reconsideration was denied in the Order of May 29, 2009, which also directed completion of the preliminary investigation within thirty days. In its Order of February 11, 2010, the trial court found probable cause against the petitioners and set their arraignment. The petitioners then filed an Omnibus Motion invoking their rights to speedy disposition, equal protection, due process, and an impartial trial, and alternatively moving to quash the Information. Judge Leili Cruz Suarez denied these pleas in her Order of December 15, 2010, holding that the delay in the preliminary investigation was justified, and set the arraignment. Reconsideration was denied in the Order of May 5, 2011, which reset the arraignment to June 29, 2011. The petitioners then went directly to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari with a prayer for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, imputing grave abuse of discretion to the trial court.

Facts

On February 4, 2006, the Wowowee noontime game show held its first anniversary episode at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City. A massive crowd converged at the venue, and a stampede broke out. Seventy-one persons died and more than eight hundred were injured. The petitioners were members of the production staff or security of the program, or its director and assistant director.

An Investigating Panel of the Department of Justice found probable cause for reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide and multiple physical injuries and recommended the filing of an Information. The case reached the Regional Trial Court of Pasig City in July 2008. On December 2, 2008, the trial court dismissed the case against several accused for lack of probable cause and suspended the proceedings against the rest pending the Department of Justice's determination of the possible culpability of the public officials charged for the same offense. The court later directed that the preliminary investigation be completed within thirty days.

The Pasig City prosecutor's office, however, sought clarification from the Department of Justice on who should conduct the investigation, and the investigation was resumed only in August 2010 and concluded on October 8, 2010, when the prosecutor absolved the public officials. Meanwhile, in its Order of February 11, 2010, the trial court found probable cause against the petitioners and set their arraignment, and it reiterated this stance in its December 15, 2010 and May 5, 2011 Orders. The petitioners resisted at every turn through motions and pleadings, and the arraignment never took place.

Issues

• Whether or not the petitioners' right to speedy disposition of cases was violated by the delay in the conduct of the preliminary investigation, warranting dismissal of the criminal case.
• Whether or not the Information should be quashed because the facts charged therein do not constitute an offense.

Applicable Provisions

Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code, on reckless imprudence, is the provision the Court construes in testing the sufficiency of the Information. The Court describes the quasi-offense in these terms:

Reckless imprudence consists of voluntarily doing or failing to do, without malice, an act from which material damage results by reason of an inexcusable lack of precaution on the part of the person performing or failing to perform such act.

This definition supplies the elements against which the averments of the Information are measured.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled against the petitioners. The right to speedy disposition of cases, like the right to speedy trial, is violated only when the proceedings are attended by vexatious, capricious, and oppressive delays. The Court weighs the conduct of both the prosecution and the accused, the length of the delay, the reasons for it, the assertion or failure to assert the right, and the prejudice caused. A mere mathematical reckoning of time is not sufficient. Here, the petitioners failed to show that the delay was oppressive and vexatious; the record was bereft of the clarifications and confirmations they relied upon; and the sheer volume of victims from the stampede made the thirty-day period a tall order. The Court also found that the petitioners themselves contributed to the delay through their successive motions, and that they slept on their right, invoking it only when arraignment was imminent. The Court stressed that the protection should not deprive the government of its inherent prerogative to prosecute criminal cases.

On the second issue, the Court likewise ruled against the petitioners. The fundamental test is whether the facts alleged, if hypothetically admitted, would establish the essential elements of the crime, without considering extrinsic matters or evidence aliunde. The Court held that the averments in the Information, if hypothetically admitted, suffice for reckless imprudence. The petitioners' claims that the damage occurred outside the venue and that the public officials' failure caused the stampede are matters for a full-blown trial, and in any event the public officials had already been exonerated. The Court found no grave abuse of discretion, which it defined as a capricious or whimsical exercise of judgment equivalent to lack of jurisdiction, patent and gross enough to amount to an evasion of a positive duty.

Doctrine

The right to speedy disposition of cases is violated only when the proceedings are attended by vexatious, capricious, and oppressive delays. The Court balances the conduct of both the prosecution and the accused, the length of the delay, the reasons for it, the assertion or failure to assert the right, and the prejudice caused; a mere mathematical reckoning of time will not do. The accused who sleeps on the right, or who himself causes the delay through successive motions, cannot later claim its violation. The protection must not operate to deprive the government of its inherent prerogative to prosecute criminal cases.

On the sufficiency of an Information, the fundamental test is whether the facts alleged, if hypothetically admitted, would establish the essential elements of the crime, without regard to extrinsic matters or evidence aliunde. For reckless imprudence under Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code, the Information need only allege the voluntary act or omission without malice, the material damage resulting from it, and the inexcusable lack of precaution measured by the offender's employment, intelligence, physical condition, and the circumstances of persons, time, and place.

Disposition

The petition for certiorari was dismissed, and the trial court's refusal to dismiss the criminal case and to quash the Information was sustained.

Remember This

Memorize the balancing test: the right to speedy disposition is violated only by vexatious, capricious, and oppressive delay, never by mere mathematical reckoning of time. Examiners use this case to test the sufficiency of an Information for reckless imprudence and the rule that an accused who causes or tolerates the delay cannot invoke the right.