REYNALDO PULIDO Y FOJAS, PETITIONER, VS. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS AND THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENTS.

Petition for review of a resolution of the Court of Appeals (Case
No. 02780-Cr.) denying a motion for reconsideration and new trial.

Charged and tried in the Court of First Instance of Manila with
the crimes of bribery and falsification of a private document, Reynaldo Pulido y Fojas was convicted of
the first offense charged and acquitted of the second.  He was sentenced to not less than 3 months
and 11 days of arresto mayor and not
more than 1 year, 8 months and 21 days of prision
correccional, plus a fine of Ten Thousand Pesos
(P10,000.00) with subsidiary imprisonment, and 8 years and 1 day of temporary
special disqualification.

Upon his appeal, through a special division, the Court of Appeals
affirmed the judgment of the court a quo by a vote of 4 (Justices Esguerra, Lucero, Cañizares and
Martin) to I (Justice Gatmaitan) on 28 February
1967.  After his petition for certiorari
was rejected by the Supreme Court (G. R. No. L-27490), appellant Pulido petitioned the Court of Appeals for a new trial on
alleged newly discovered evidence (a) that the special division of five of the
Court of Appeals, which affirmed his conviction, was illegally constituted,
because Justices Lucero and Esguerra of the Majority
were disqualified to sit, and (b) that one Frisco Panganiban,
after the decision of the Court of Appeals, had written to appellant Pulido revealing that it was he (Panganiban)
who really received the bribe money.  The
petition for new trial was re­jected by the special division, this time with
Justices Gatmaitan and Cañizares
dissenting.  Appellant Pulido resorted to this Court for the second time,
insisting that he should be declared entitled to a new trial.

We find no merit in the argument that Justice Lucero of the Court
of Appeals was disqualified to sit in the case because his son, Antonio Lucero,
Jr., appeared for accused Evelio Geroche
at the preliminary investigation of the case for falsification, and Attorney
Jose C. Zulueta, a first cousin of the Justice’s
wife, had appeared as counsel also for Geroche in the
bribery case; for herein appellant Pulido was anyway
acquitted in the case for falsification, and the case against Geroche was dismissed when he became a prosecution witness
at the start of the trial.  Evidently,
all intervention and interest of the attorneys above named ceased when their
client was discharged, and thereafter, it became immaterial to them or to
Justice Lucero whether or not Geroche’s testimony
should be believed by the trial court or not, since the acquittal of Geroche was already irreversible.  The appearance of Attorneys Lucero, Jr. and Zulueta, therefore, could not induce bias in Justice Lucero
when he, on appeal, voted for affirmance of Pulido’s conviction and sentence by the trial court.

Equally worthless is the argument that Appellate Justice Esguerra should be disqualified because, as Chief of the
Legal Staff of the Office of the President, he sat in the administrative
investigation of appellant for his peculation while employed in the Central
Bank.  As head of the Legal Staff, Justice
Esguerra’s opinion was irrelevant to the criminal
case, which was prosecuted by the City Fiscal of Manila.  Justice Esguerra’s
opinion on the case would have been advisory to the President, at most, and, as
this Court has ruled in the Emergency Powers Cases (Rodriguez vs. Insular
Treasurer, 45 Official Gazette, 4457), such advisory opinion constitutes no
ground for judicial disqualification.

“Furthermore, the fact that Justice
Padilla, while Secretary of Justice had advised the President on the question
of emergency powers, does not disqualify him to act in these cases for he
cannot be considered as having acted previously in these actions as counsel for
any of the parties.  The President is not
here a party” (Case cited).

By his insistence on the applicability of the second paragraph of
section I of Revised Rule 137, to the effect that –

“A judge may, in the exercise of his
sound discretion, disqualify himself from sitting in a case, for just and valid
reasons other than those mentioned above”

appellant Pulido
in effect admits that there exist none of the legal grounds for
disqualification described in the first paragraph of said Rule.  While the Justices affected could voluntarily
refrain from participating in the case had they felt that there were just and
valid reasons for such action, their refusal to yield to appellant’s
solicitations is evidence that there were no such reasons, and their discretion
in the matter is fully entitled to respect.

We are aware that if it should appear that appellant’s case was
not given a fair and impartial review due to bias or prejudice, even if there
be no ground for, disqualification, this Court can, and will order a new trial
in the interest of justice.^[1]
But appellant has made no attempt to show any such prejudice or bias, and what
is more, the affirmance of appellant’s conviction was
concurred in by two other justices of the Court of Appeals (Martin and Cañizares) against whom nothing is alleged, and that
concurrence is proof that Justices Esguerra and
Lucero were not swayed by prejudice; otherwise, the other justices would have
joined in the dissent of Justice Gatmaitan.  And in fact, Pulido’s
original appeal from the decision was rejected by this Court (L -27490).

Granting that appellant herein had no knowledge of the justices
composing the special division before the decision was rendered, and could not
make his challenges prior to that occasion, the stubborn fact remains that no
reason is shown why Justices Lucero and Esguerra
should be disqualified and their views set aside.

Neither can this Court regard the letter of Frisco Panganiban as constituting adequate ground for new trial,
even if the writer thereof, after asking appellant Pulido
for the favor of securing employment for one of his children, avows that it was
he (Panganiban) who actually received the bribe money
from prosecution witness Geroche.  For as stated in the brief of the Solicitor
General (pages 24-25),

“It is obvious that the weight of the proffered newly
discovered evidence is practically niI.  It comes from a polluted source.  What is more, such evidence can only be
categorized as impeaching in nature or corroborative to that of the accused
petitioner, hence, it will not, constitute ground for new trial (4 Moran op.
cit. p. 298).  The said Frisco Panganiban was asking the accused-petitioner for a favor —
the employment of his children and in such situation his propensity to
prevaricate is strong considering the desire to ingratiate himself to the
accused-petitioner in order to merit the favor he was asking.  And so, the alleged newly discovered letter
comes from one who has no compunction of admitting that he was the one who
received and pocketed the bribe money.  In
other word’s, he was so willing to be the scapegoat — for the favor
of securing employment for his children. 
But it is not explained why State witness Geroche
will ever give such substantial amount of P10,000.00 to a total stranger to
him, whose connection with or influence among officials of the Central Bank is
not even shown.  Considering that the proffered
newly discovered evidence or the testimony of its writer, Frisco Panganiban, even if admitted and considered by the Court,
is valueless, it cannot prevail over positive evidence, with much
corroboration of the prosecution’s witnesses and jibing documentary evidence
(See decision, CA-G.R No. 02780-Cr, p. 16, supra).  Hence, the same cannot discredit the testimony
of State witness Evelio Geroche
who declared that he gave the bribe money of P10,000.00 to the accused
petitioner Reynaldo Pulido personally (p. 19, t.s.n., Dec. 19, 1959).”

WHEREFORE, the order of the Court of Appeals denying
Reynaldo Pulido’s motion for new trial is affirmed,
with costs against said appellant.

Concepcion, C.J., Dizon,
Makalintal, Zaldivar,
Castro, Teehankee, and
Villamor, JJ.,
concur.

Fernando and Barredo, JJ., did not take
part.

^[1]
Dais vs. Torres, 57 Phil. 897.