ROMEO DELA CRUZ, ZALDY BAUTISTA, FELMONDE RUNDEZ AND GERARDO MARTINEZ, PETITIONERS, VS. JUDGE EUFREN F. CHANGALE, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, SECOND JUDICIAL REGION, BRANCH 32, CABARR…

Dela Cruz versus Changale

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by Romeo Dela Cruz, Zaldy Bautista, Felmonde Rundez, and Gerardo Martinez against Judge Eufren Changale of the Regional Trial Court of Cabarroguis, Quirino. The petitioners were charged with robbery under the Revised Penal Code after a nighttime raid on the home of the Ghisellini spouses. They moved to quash the information, insisting that their warrantless arrests were unlawful and that the trial court therefore never acquired jurisdiction over their persons. When the trial court refused to quash, they came to the Supreme Court. The case matters because it is a clean teaching vehicle on the lawfulness of a hot pursuit arrest under the Rules of Court, and on how personal knowledge of the arresting officers may be supplied by the victim herself.

Procedural History

The Provincial Prosecutor of Quirino conducted a preliminary investigation, received the petitioners' counter-affidavits, and recommended the filing of an information for robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons. The information was filed in the Regional Trial Court of Cabarroguis, Quirino. The petitioners then filed a motion to quash, arguing that the court had no jurisdiction over their persons because their warrantless arrests were invalid. The trial court, through Judge Changale, denied the motion, holding that the arresting officers need not personally witness the offense, and that in any event the petitioners had waived the objection by their supervening acts. The petitioners moved for reconsideration, and the trial court denied it for lack of merit. The petitioners then filed this petition for certiorari under Rule 65 directly with the Supreme Court, alleging grave abuse of discretion.

Facts

At about two fifteen in the morning of May 31, 2012, four armed men forcibly entered the back door of the house of the Ghisellini spouses in Barangay San Marcos, Cabarroguis, Quirino. They took cellphones, jewelry, a wristwatch, a portable game console, and an air rifle, and in the course of the robbery they struck Luciano Ghisellini on the head with a shotgun and took a jewelry pouch directly from Imelda Ghisellini at gunpoint.

Immediately after the robbery, Imelda Ghisellini herself accompanied the police in a follow-up operation. She described one of the robbers, whom she recognized as a former high school classmate. The police of Cabarroguis coordinated with the police of Diffun, a neighboring town, and learned that Romeo Dela Cruz had been spotted walking along the road there at about three in the morning, less than an hour after the robbery. He was later seen at a pawnshop in Santiago City with Zaldy Bautista and Gerardo Martinez, trying to sell a portable game console taken from the house.

Dela Cruz was invited to the police station, where Imelda Ghisellini positively identified him as the man who had grappled with her husband. Bautista was identified as her former high school classmate. Dela Cruz then named Rundez and Martinez as his companions, and on that information the police arrested them. All four were arrested within one day of the robbery.

Issues

• Whether or not the trial court judge committed grave abuse of discretion in denying the motion to quash the criminal information.
• Whether or not the warrantless arrests of the petitioners were lawful under the rule on hot pursuit arrests.
• Whether or not the petitioners, by posting bail and filing a motion to quash, submitted their persons to the jurisdiction of the trial court.

Applicable Provisions

Section 5 of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court provides:

Section 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful. A peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant, arrest a person: (a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense; (b) When an offense has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that the person to be arrested has committed it; and (c) When the person to be arrested is a prisoner who escaped from a penal establishment or place where he is serving final judgment or temporarily confined while his case is pending, or has escaped while being transferred from one confinement to another.

Paragraph (b) is the hot pursuit rule, and it is the provision on which the entire case turns.

Ruling

The Court denied the petition for lack of merit. On the first issue, it found no grave abuse of discretion. On the second issue, it held that all four arrests were lawful under paragraph (b) of Section 5. Two elements must concur: first, an offense has in fact just been committed; and second, the arresting officer has personal knowledge of facts indicating that the person to be arrested committed it. The Court stressed that it is not enough that there be reasonable ground to believe a crime was committed; a crime must in fact have been committed, and here the robbery was undisputed.

On the second element, the Court defined personal knowledge as based on probable cause, which it described as an actual belief or reasonable grounds of suspicion, supported by circumstances sufficiently strong in themselves to create the probable cause of guilt of the person to be arrested, coupled with good faith on the part of the arresting officers. Applying this, the Court found that Imelda Ghisellini was with the police throughout the hot pursuit and supplied the crucial details. Dela Cruz was spotted in Diffun less than an hour after the robbery and was seen trying to sell a stolen item at a pawnshop. Bautista was positively identified as her former classmate. As for Rundez and Martinez, Dela Cruz himself pointed to them as his co-perpetrators, and the Court applied its earlier ruling in Umil versus Ramos, quoting with approval:

The obligation of an agent of authority to make an arrest by reason of a crime, does not presupposed as a necessary requisite for the fulfillment thereof, the indubitable existence of a crime. For the detention to be perfectly legal, it is sufficient that the agent or person in authority making the arrest has reasonably sufficient grounds to believe the existence of an act having the characteristics of a crime and that the same grounds exist to believe that the person sought to be detained participated therein.

On the third issue, the Court noted that a preliminary investigation had been conducted, that the petitioners had been heard through their counter-affidavits, and that they had never denied participation in the robbery, assailing only the legality of their arrest. It found the arrests lawful and therefore had no occasion to reach the waiver question.

Doctrine

A warrantless arrest under paragraph (b) of Section 5 of Rule 113, the hot pursuit arrest, requires two concurring elements: the offense has in fact just been committed, and the arresting officer has personal knowledge of facts indicating that the person to be arrested committed it. The fact of the crime must be undisputed; reasonable belief alone will not do. Personal knowledge means probable cause, an actual belief or reasonable grounds of suspicion founded on actual facts strong enough to create probable cause of guilt, coupled with good faith. The officer need not personally witness the crime, because the victim's own knowledge, communicated to the officers who act with her during the pursuit, supplies that personal knowledge. A co-accused's identification of his companions may likewise furnish the reasonable grounds of suspicion for their arrest.

Disposition

The petition was denied for lack of merit, and the orders of the trial court denying the motion to quash and the motion for reconsideration were sustained.

Remember This

Memorize the two elements of a hot pursuit arrest and the rule that the victim's personal knowledge, shared with the pursuing officers, counts as the officer's personal knowledge. Examiners use this case to test Section 5 of Rule 113 and to distinguish a valid hot pursuit arrest from a mere suspicion-based warrantless arrest.