RE-CASES APPEALED FROM THE PEOPLE’S COURT.

PARAS, J.:


There are about forty treason cases appealed to this Court before the
re-creation of the Court of Appeals wherein the penalty imposed is less than or
death. After the re-creation of the Court of Appeals, these cases were certified
to it. The question that arises is whether they should be left with that court
or whether they correspond and should be returned to this Court.

Under Commonwealth Act No. 682, the People’s Court had jurisdiction not only
to try and decide all cases of crimes against national security but to convict
and sentence the accused for any crime included in the acts alleged in the
information and established by the evidence, and decisions and final orders of
said court were subject to review by the Supreme Court.

When Commonwealth Act No. 682 was enacted on September 25, 1945, there was no
Court of Appeals, this court having been abolished by Executive Order No. 37
dated March 10, 1945; and this is evidently the only reason why the decisions of
the People’s Court were appealable to the Supreme Court irrespective of the
penalty imposed.

The Court of Appeals was re-created by Republic Act No. 52, approved on
October 4, 1946, with the result, needless to say, that it has thereafter
resumed its exclusive appellate jurisdiction of all cases, actions and
proceedings not falling within the exclusives appellate jurisdiction of the
Supreme Court. Act No. 52, section 3, further provides that “all cases which
properly correspond to the Court of Appeals by virtue of the provisions of
Commonwealth Act Numbered Three, as revived and amended, which may be pending in
the Supreme Court and which have not yet been heard on argument and submitted
for decision by this Court, shall be certified by the Clerk of the Supreme Court
to the Clerk of the Court of Appeals, to be heard and decided by the latter in
conformity with the provisions of this Act.”

The Judiciary Act of 1948 (No. 296), passed on June 17, 1948, has preserved
the exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court over “all criminal
cases involving offenses for which the penalty imposed is death or life
imprisonment; and those involving other offenses which, although not so
punished, arose out of the same occurrence or which may have been committed by
the accused on the same occasion, as that giving rise to the more serious
offense, regardless of whether the accused are charged as principals,
accomplices, or accessories, or whether they have been tried jointly or
separately” (Section 17, par. A7), as well as the exclusive appellate
jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals over “all cases, actions, and proceedings
not enumerated in section seventeen of this Act. (Section 29). Moreover, the
said Judiciary Act has repealed all laws and rules inconsistent therewith
(Section 99).

With the complete restoration of the exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the
Court of Appeals and the repeal of all laws and rules inconsistent with the
Judiciary Act of 1948, it must logically follow that the treason cases
hereinabove mentioned fall under the exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the
Court of Appeals, because they do not belong to criminal cases specified in
section 17 of said Act. It is not even necessary to invoke, in support of the
propriety of the certification by this Court of those cases to the Court of
Appeals, section 3 of Act No. 52, because, in view of the repealing clause of
the Judiciary Act of 1948, all cases falling under the exclusive appellate
jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals, whether or not heard on argument and
submitted for decision by the Supreme Court, have to be certified to the Court
of Appeals. This step is expressly authorized by section 31 of the Judiciary Act
(formerly section 145-H of the Revised Administrative Code, as revived by
Republic Act No. 52) which provides that “all cases which may be erroneously
brought to the Supreme Court or to the Court of Appeals shall be sent to the
proper court, which shall hear the same, as if it had originally been brought
before it.” This provision is comprehensive enough to include cases “erroneously
brought” not only after but also before the approval of the Judiciary Act.

It is true that section 29 of the Judiciary Act, in referring to the
exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals, speaks of “all cases,
actions, and proceedings not enumerated in section seventeen of this Act,
properly brought to it from Court of First Instance.” But, in our
opinion, the specific mention of “Courts of First Instance” cannot alter or
qualify the limits of the exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court
as expressly fixed by section 17 of the Judiciary Act and determined, as regards
criminal cases, by the penalty imposed (death or life imprisonment), and as a
corrollary the exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals over
criminal cases in which the penalty imposed is less than death or life
imprisonment.

Moreover, the People’s Court should be considered as having at most the
category of a court of first instance in the sense contemplated in section 29 of
the Judiciary Act. Whereas the people’s Court had special and limited
jurisdiction, the court of first instance has general jurisdiction, so that, if
one is higher than the other, it must be the court of first instance. Our
classification finds official support in Republic Act No. 311 which has
transferred all cases pending in the People’s Court upon the latter1s abolition
to the respective courts of first instance of the province or cities where the
offenses are alleged to have been committed, and which makes the decisions of
the courts of first instance in such cases appealable to the Court of Appeals or
to the Supreme Court as the case may be, in accordance with the provisions of
the existing laws and rules. Even the People’s Court Act (No. 682) considered
that court as having merely the category of a court of first instance when, in
section 2, it provided that treason cases not instituted within the period
therein fixed “shall be filed with, tried and determined by the proper Court of
First Instance.”

If the treason cases in question should be returned to and decided by this
Court, we shall furthermore have the anomaly that similar cases decided by the
courts of first instance after the abolition of the People’s Court will be
appealable to and disposed of by the Court of Appeals in virtue of Republic Act
No. 311. The decision by the Supreme Court of some such cases was warranted
before the revival of the Court of Appeals, but for the Supreme Court to take
cognizance of said treason cases now, when the Court of Appeals is functioning,
would amount to a discrimination.

We therefore hold that the treason cases here-inabove referred to were
properly certified to, and should be duly disposed of, by the Court of
Appeals.

Ozaeta, Bengzon, Briones, Tuason, and Montemayor,
JJ., concur.

CONCURRING

PERFECTO, J.:

When the treason cases mentioned in the
resolution were, many months ago, certified to the Court of Appeals, we made of
record our objection. We did not see then, and we do not see now, any valid
legal reason why the Supreme Court should not continue taking cognizance of said
cases and proceed to their final determination. We felt that by transferring the
cases to the Court of Appeals.

DISSENTING

FERIA, J.:

The Courts of First Instance existed and were known as such before the
creation of the People’s Court, When the People’s Court was created by
Commonwealth Act No. 682 to try treason cases, the jurisdiction to try and
decide these c ases was transferred to the People’s Court, the two Courts were
distinct and different. The Courts of First Instance were unipersonal and of
general jurisdiction over cases arising within their respective territory or
territorial jurisdiction, while the People’s Court was a collective court, that
is, composed of three or more judges acting as a body, and of special
jurisdiction over all treason cases committed within the Philippines, and such
other crimes which are included in the charge of treason which might be alleged
and proven if the latter was not established.

The sentences rendered by the Courts of First Instance were and are
appealable to the Court of Appeals or to the Supreme Court, depending upon the
penalty imposed or the question raised on appeal; while all sentences rendered
by the People’s Court, irrespective of the penalty actually imposed, were
appealable only to the supreme Court. The reason why they were not appealable to
the Court of Appeals even if the penalty imposed were not life imprisonment or
death, was not precisely because at the time the People’s Court was created, the
Court of Appeals had been previously abolished, for otherwise at the recreation
of the court of Appeals by Republic Act No. 52, on October 2, 1946, it would
have been provided therein that appeal should be taken to the Court of Appeals
or to the Supreme Court as the case may be; but because there was no justifiable
reason for appealing from, a sentence rendered by the People’s Court ofimposed
of three judges to another Court or Court of Appeals which acts in division
composed of three judges also, except where the division fails to reach a
decision in a case submitted toi t, or whenever such decision shall so order, or
whenever the Presiding judge in the exercise of his sound discretion shall so
order in which case the action snail be heard and decided by the Court in
banc (section 145 k, as amended by Commonwealth Act No, 52) and
besides because it was the apparent intention of Congress to have all treason
cases tried originally and on appeal by Judges and Justices who had not served
in the Government during the Japanese occupation, line members of the Court of
Appeals ngfire appointed without taking into consideration whether or not the
person so appointed had so served, and the fact that they had served in the
Government during the Japanese occupation did not disqualify them to act in a
case appealed to that Court; while members of the Supreme Court who had served
as officer or employee in the puppet Republic of the Philippines were
disqualified to act in a treason case appealed from the people’s Court, though
the provisions of the People’s Court At referring to such disqualification were
declared by the majority of this Court unconstitutional.

The appellate jurisdiction of the court of Appeals Is purely statutory or
conferred by the statute, and therefore, it has jurisdiction only over cases
expressly provided by law. Before the creation of the People’s Court the Court
of Appeals had appellate jurisdiction only over cases properly brought to it
from the Courts of First Instance not falling within the appellate jurisdiction
of the Supreme Court. When the Court of Appeals was recreated after the People’s
Court had been established it preserved its appellate jurisdiction over cases
properly brought to it from the courts of First Instance, and that was
the reason why after a thorough deliberation on the matter of whether to
transfer treason cases appealed from the People’s could not transfer such cases
appealed from the People’s Court to the newly recreated Court of Appeals. The
new Judiciary Act of June 17, 1948, did not enlarge the appellate jurisdiction
of the Court of Appeals, for section 29 thereof which refers to the appellate
jurisdiction of the said Court is a literal reproduction of section 145-F of the
Administrative Code as amended by Commonwealth Act No. 3, as revised by Republic
Act No. 52, and provides that “the Court of Appeals shall have exclusive
appellate jurisdiction over all cases, actions, and proceedings not enumerated
in section seventeen of this Act which speaks of cases falling within the
exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court properly brought to it
from the Courts of First Instance.” It did not and does not have appellate
jurisdiction over cases tried and decided by the People’s Court because there is
no law conferring upon it such jurisdiction.

The exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the supreme Court over cases appealed
from the People’s Court in which the penalty is less than life imprisonment is
also statutory or conferred by sec. 13 of Act No, 682 which created the People’s
Court. Under the Constitution as well as under the other laws or statutory in
force, the supreme Court has no such jurisdiction. And when Act No. 311 was
promulgated it abolished only the People’s Court and provided in its sec. 29,
that “all cases pending before said Court and not embraced by Amnesty
Proclamation shall be transferred to and tried by the respective Courts of First
Instance of the province or city where the offense are alleged to have been
committed”, and that “the decision of the Courts of First Instance in such case
shall be appealed to the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court as the case may
be, in accordance with the provisions of the exist-laws and rules, and shall be
disposed of by the appellate court in the same manner as other criminal cases”

From the provisions of section 29 of Republic Act No. 311, it dearly appears
that it was the intention of Congress to have the treason cases not pending
before, but already decided by the people’s court at the time said Act became
effective, appealed to the Supreme Court as theretofore in accordance with the
provisions of section 13 of Commonwealth Act No. 682, because said section has not
been repealed by said Act No. 311, and is still in force as to such cases, for this Act has only abolished the People’s Court. Had the intention of
Congress been otherwise, that is, that all cases pending as those decided
already by the People’s Court at the time Republic Act No. 311 was promulgated,
should be appealed to the Court of Appeals or to the Supreme Court, as the case
may be, it should have so expressly stated therein, impliedly repealing thereby
the provisions of section 13 of Commonwealth Act No. 682. Congress, by referring
only in said section 2 of Republic Act No. 311 to appeals from decisions of the
Courts of First Instance over cases then pending in the People’s Court and
transferred to said courts, it excluded therefrom cases already decided by the
People’s Court and appealed or to be appealed to the Suprane Court accordding to
section 13 of said Act No, 682, in accordance with the legal maxim inclusio
unios est exclusio alterius. This is further confirmed by the legislative
history of Act No. 311, which originally was Bill No. 1621, and provided in its
section 6 that commonwealth Act No. 682 is hereby repealed * * *,” but said
section 6 was eliminated by the Senate, which clearly shows that it was not the
intention of Congress to repeal Act No. 682, but only abolish the People’s
Court, thus leaving the provisions of section 6 of Act No. 682 not inconsistent
with Act No. 311, full force and effect) regarding appeal from the decisions the
People’s Court already rendered at the time the Republic Act No. 311 became
effective, in full force and effect.

This conclusion is in conformity with
the well known rule laid down by the Courts of last resort in the States of the
Union from which our laws on appeal were taken, which ruling, if not not
mandatory at least of persuasive authority, and which reads that “while tine
abolition of an inferior court may abridge the appellate jurisdiction
theretofore possessed by another court over its judgments, it does not have such
effect as to cases pending on appeal at the t ime of abolition. Where a new
appellate district is created, or where there has been a redistricting of
existing appellate districts, pending appeals will be transferred to the
appellate court having jurisdiction thereof when a statute or valid order of the
supreme court so provides; bat in the absence of such a statute or order,
appeals which have been perfected prior to the effective date of the statute
will not be transferred to the court having jurisdiction under the new statute
(Fla.—Ferlita vs. Figarrota, 145 So., 605, 106 Fla. 578; Whitlock
vs. American Central Ins. Co. of St. Louis, 144 So., 412; 107 Fla., 13;
Tex.—Keator vs. Whittaker, 143 S.W., 607; 104 Tex., 628; Tex.—Kennedy
vs. Wheeler, Civ. App., 256 S. W. 315; Tex.—Pry vs. Barron,
229 S. W., 230; 117 Tex.—170. (21 C.J.S., p. 206.)

DISSENTING

MORAN, C. J.:

I concur substantially in this dissent of Mr. Justice Feria. I believe that
section 13 of Commonwealth Act No. 682 still governs appeal la treason
cases.

PABLO, M.:

Concurro con estas disidencias.