THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, VS. CARLOS LA CASTE, FRANCISCO CASTRO AND PEDRO CUENTO, ACCUSED-APPELLEES.

Appeal on a question of law by the State from the joint order of
the Court of First Instance of Zamboanga City
ordering the dismissal of the three criminal cases pending trial before it upon
motion of one of the accused on the alleged ground that no preliminary
investigation had been conducted prior to the filing of said cases.

For a brief background of the proceedings in the lower court:

In Criminal Cases Nos. 3068 and 3072, filed on April 17,
1962, the accused Carlos La Caste, Francisco Castro, Pedro Cuento
and Jose L. Gonzales^[1]
were charged in two separate informations filed by
special prosecutor Edilberto Barot,
Jr. of the Department of Justice and special counsel Vicente T. Largo, of
having swindled through falsification of public/official documents the
Philippine National Bank (Zamboanga City Branch) of
the sum of P1,000.00 on each occasion, in connection with homestead loans being
granted by the said bank.  Sworn statements
of the homesteaders used as tools of the crimes charged in the informations, stating that they received only P100.00 of
the P1,000.00 loans given by the bank, were attached to the informations.

Separate identical orders in each of the said two cases were
issued under the same date by the lower court,^[2]
as follows:

“After conducting the required preliminary investigation, the
Court believes that there is reasonable cause against the accused x x x x
and the Court hereby orders the arrest of said accused and fixes their bond in
the amount of P1,000.00 per accused, which bond may be approved either by this
Court, the Municipal Court of Zamboanga City or any
other court within the Republic of the Philippines.”

In Criminal Case No. 3086, filed on May 24, 1962, the same
accused Francisco Castro, security inspector of the Philippine National Bank at
its Zamboanga City branch, this time with Abdu Jalo and Jesus Ibanez and
two other unidentified persons were charged with a third crime of estafa through falsification of public/official documents
(with the same offended party and the same modus operandi) in an
information filed by the same government prosecutors.  The prosecutors duly certified in the
information that they had conducted a preliminary investigation of the case in
accordance with law, that there was reasonable ground to believe that the
offense charged had been committed and that the accused were guilty
thereof.  On May 24, 1962, then vacation judge of the lower
court, now appellate court justice, Carmelino Alvendia, issued an order for the arrest of the accused and
fixed bail at P10,000.00, which was reduced to P1,000.00 by order of the
regular judge of the lower court per order of June 9, 1962, upon the accused’s
motion.

The accused in all three cases accordingly posted therein the
bail fixed for their liberty.  As there
were common accused in the three cases and the same offended party, the minutes
show that the cases were scheduled for joint arraignment and trial.  After several postponements for various
reasons over a period of two years, the accused in the three cases were all
finally arraigned and entered their not-guilty plea on June 26, 1964. 
On the same date, upon motion of the accused Francisco Castro, the lower
court issued a joint order ordering the prosecution “to produce and permit
the inspection and copying or photographing, by or on behalf of the accused or
of his defense counsels, of any written statements given by the complainants
and other witnesses in the investigations of the offenses conducted by the
prosecution or by any other investigating officers as well as of any designated
documents, papers, books, accounts, letters, photographs, objects or tangible
things, not otherwise privileged, which constitute or contain evidence material
to any matter involved in the actions, and which are in the possession or under
the control of the prosecution.”

The trial scheduled for October
21, 1964 was postponed until new assignment upon motion of the
prosecution.  Thereafter, almost two
years later on March 30, 1966,
the accused Francisco Castro filed a motion for an order directing the state
prosecutor to reinvestigate the cases against him “because no
preliminary investigation had been conducted with notice to [him] previous to
the issuance of the warrants of arrest” and “there is sufficient
evidence in [his] favor . . which, if made known to the state prosecutor in a
re-investigation, will clear [him] of any responsibility” – which bore the
state prosecutor’s written conformity and was granted by the lower court on the
same date.

The accused Francisco Castro, however, forsook this boon and
filed on November 16, 1966
still another motion for dismissal of the cases on the very same ground of lack
of preliminary investigation or lack of notice thereof to him.  The hearing thereof set on November 19, 1966 was postponed to November 26, 1966 in order to give
the state prosecutor time to reply thereto. 
On November 26, 1966, the lower court, finding no opposition on record
to the same, found it “well taken” and ordered the cancellation of
the “bonds filed by the accused” and the dismissal “of the
above-entitled cases with costs de-oficio and
without prejudice to refiling the same.”

The state prosecutor seemed to have finally realized the peculiar
turn of events and timely filed on December
6, 1966 this appeal.  The lower
court still gave the accused Francisco Castro the opportunity of objecting to
the appeal on the ground that the dismissal order was “only interlocutory
and therefore unappealable” but finally issued
its order of April 21, 1967 “giving due course” to the appeal and
ordering the forwarding of the records to this Court.

Notwithstanding the lack of any transcripts to be submitted with
the appeal, since the dismissal order was issued on the pleadings above stated,
it nevertheless took the clerk of the lower court, L. T. Mendoza, Jr., almost
one year to forward to this Court through his letter dated March 4, 1968, the
records of the cases at bar, which were finally received via PAL by this
Court on March 30, 1968.  No brief for appellees having been filed within the reglementary
period, the appeal was declared submitted for decision on February 11, 1969.

The appealed order of dismissal must be set aside on manifest
factual and legal grounds.

1.  The gross error of the
factual premise of the lower court’s dismissal order that no preliminary
investigation of the cases was conducted is shown by the records
themselves.  In Criminal Cases Nos. 3068
and 3072, the lower court itself in its order of April 17, 1962, ordering the arrest of the accused and
fixing their bail made of record that it had “conducted the required
preliminary investigation”^[3]
and that it found the existence of reasonable cause against the accused.  In Criminal Case No. 3086, the prosecutors
had certified in the information under their oath before then vacation Judge Alvendia to the fact of their having conducted a preliminary
investigation in accordance with law. 
The accused Francisco Castro himself, in his motion of March 30, 1966
for reinvestigation, while claiming not to have had notice of the preliminary
investigation, conceded in effect the fact of such preliminary investigation
having been held and merely asked for a re-investigation.

2.  Even assuming arguendo that the above facts of record were absent,
still the lower court had no factual basis for relying merely on the unverified
assertion of the accused Francisco Castro as to the alleged lack of preliminary
investigation.  As recently reiterated by
the Court in People vs. Figueroa,^[4]
the trial court should not disregard “the presumption that official duty
has been regularly performed and the well-settled rule that when nothing
appears affirmatively on the record that a preliminary investigation was not in
fact held, an objection on the ground of denial or deprivation thereof deserves
scant consideration by virtue of the presumption that both the court as well as
the prosecution proceeded in accordance with law.  Certainly, defense counsel must first
overcome the presumption of regularity in the performance of official duty and
present strong prima facie evidence of irregularity or falsification of
the investigating fiscal’s certification and record
of the investigation for the Court to deny them the faith and credence properly
due them.”

3.  On legal premises, the
lower court’s action was likewise patently erroneous.  As has been time and again stated by the
Court, the posting of bail by the accused and their entry of their plea
constituted a waiver of their right to preliminary investigation and any irregularity
that attended it.^[5]
The apparent neglect and failure of the prosecution to file an opposition to
Castro’s motion for dismissal could not of course be deemed – as erroneously
implied by the lower court in its order – to cancel out the accused’s
waiver of the right to a preliminary investigation when they submitted to
arraignment and entered their pleas. 
Furthermore, aside from the fact that all objections available to the
accused were taken to be waived upon failure to move to quash at the time of their
plea, as provided by Rule 117, section 10, (subject to the specific exceptions
provided therein), failure to hold preliminary investigation cannot be made the
basis of a motion to quash.  We are
constrained to point out once more, as in Figueroa and Bandiola vs. Querubin^[6]
that where the absence of a proper preliminary investigation has been timely
raised and has not been waived, the trial court is called upon “not to
dismiss the information but hold the case in abeyance and conduct its own
investigation or require the fiscal to hold a reinvestigation.  This Court, speaking through now Mr. Chief
Justice Concepcion in People vs. Casiano,^[7]
had stressed this as the proper procedure, pointing out that the ‘absence of
such investigation did not impair the validity of the information or otherwise
render it defective.  Much less did it
affect the jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance over the present case.’
“^[8]

4.  Incomprehensible,
unauthorized and contrary to law is the lower court’s outright dismissal of all
the three cases as against all the accused “with costs de-oficio and without prejudice to refiling
the same” when it had noted in its very order that the sole movant for dismissal on the ground of lack of preliminary
investigation was only the accused Francisco Castro.  Assuming that the lower court found merit in
the accused Castro’s dismissal motion, it had no basis whatever for dismissing
the cases as against Castro’s co-accused, who were represented by other
counsel, and who had not made a similar claim as Castro for dismissal of the
cases against them.

5.  The Court has noted,
furthermore, that notwithstanding the undue length of time during which the
cases were awaiting trial, the lower court perfunctorily granted Castro’s
motion for a reinvestigation on the basis of Castro’s bare representation that
there was sufficient evidence, which, if made known to the state prosecutor,
would clear him of responsibility, without even requiring the accused-movant to justify his assertion and to inform it of the
nature of such alleged exculpatory evidence. 
Considering that a prima facie case had been made out
against the accused at the preliminary investigation conducted by the lower
court itself and by the government prosecutors, the lower court should have exercised
great restraint in granting any reinvestigation with the consequent delay
involved, since the weighing and evaluation of such evidence in defense of the
accused as against the State’s evidence is best left to its judgment and its
verdict rather than to that of the prosecutor. 
It may be noted that the Department of Justice has likewise adopted such
a policy against reinvestigations of cases already filed in court, limiting
them to cases where serious irregularities have been committed during the preliminary
investigation or where new and material evidence not available at the
investigation have been discovered, which if proven or admitted, would probably
change the fiscal’s findings as to the existence of a prima facie
case.^[9]

As noted above in the narration of the background facts, the
proceedings in the lower court have been characterized by inaction and delay so
detrimental to the need of promptly trying criminal cases and determining the
innocence or guilt of the accused.  The
undue delay of almost one year incurred by the clerk of the lower court in
discharging his ministerial duty of forwarding on appeal the records of the
cases at bar to this Court requires some explanation also.  These matters should be referred to the
Secretary of Justice for appropriate investigation and the filing of
administrative proceedings against those found responsible therefor,
as the facts may warrant.

ACCORDINGLY, the order of dismissal appealed from is
hereby set aside and the lower court is directed to proceed without further
delay with the trial of the accused-appellees upon
the informations filed in the cases at bar.  With costs in solidum
against the accused-appellees.  Let a copy of this decision be furnished the
Secretary of Justice for the corresponding investigation of the matters noted
in the preceding paragraph.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Ruiz Castro, Villamor, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.

Fernando and Barredo, JJ., took no part.

^[1] Gonzales
was accused only in Criminal Case No. 3072.

^[2]
Presided by Judge Gregorio D. Montejo, who ceased as
such on March 6, 1968.  (Administrative Order No. 114 of the
President, March 5, 1968.)

^[3]
See Rule 108, section 4 of the old Rules, now Rule 112, section 13.

^[4]
27 SCRA 1239 (Apr. 30, 1969)
citing People vs. Selfaison, 1 SCRA 235 (1961)
and other cases.

^[5] Zacarias vs. Cruz, 30 SCRA 728 (Nov. 29, 1969) and Palanca vs. Querubin, 30
SCRA 738 (Nov. 29, 1969) and cases cited.

^[6] L-24652,
September 30, 1970.

^[7] 1
SCRA 478 (February 16, 1961).

^[8]
Figueroa, supra fn. 4.

^[9]
Department of Justice Circular No. 74, July
26, 1967.