THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. FRANCISCO CENTENO, JUAN CENTENO ALIAS TOTOK, MANUEL CENTENO ALIAS IYAO ALL OF MALAYA-ILOILO, ACCUSED-APPELLANTS.

Charged with Murder in the Court of First Instance of Iloilo,
Francisco Centeno, Juan Centeno
alias Totok and
Manuel Centeno alias Iyao, were found guilty of
simple homicide, treachery and evident premeditation or the quali­fying
circumstances alleged in the information not having been found to be
present.  They were thus sentenced each
to a penalty of “imprisonment of not less than SIX (6) YEARS, EIGHT (8)
MONTHS and ONE (1) DAY of prision mayor, as minimum,
to not more than FIFTEEN (15) YEARS, SIX (6) MONTHS and TWENTY-ONE (21) DAYS of
reclusion temporal, as maximum, with all the accessory penalties provided for
by law, to indemnify Arsenio Asistido
and Nenita C. Asistido, the
heirs of the deceased, the sum of P12,000.00 for the death of Nestor Asistido and in addition thereto, the sum of P33,696.00 for
loss of income, plus P10,000.00 for moral damages, and to pay the costs, the
Court appreciating in their favor the mitigating circumstance of voluntary
surrender.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals neither affirmed nor modified the
judgment appealed from.  It simply
expressed the opinion that, although it adopted the view of the Solici­tor
General that the crime committed is Murder, for which he recommended the
penalty of death, there being present the qualifying circumstance of treachery
and aggravated by evident premeditation, said Court stated that the penalty
could be life imprisonment or death. 
Refraining, however, from impos­ing one or the other, the Court of
Appeals certified the case to this Court for final determination, allegedly in
pursuance of Section 34 of the Judiciary Act and Section 12 of Rule 124 of the
Rules of Court.

This Court has recently held that in a situation like the
present, the Court of Appeals should render judgment as it may deem proper.  Thus, in the case of People
vs. Daniel, G.R. No. L-40330, November 20,
1978, this Court directed that “henceforth, should the Court of Appeals be
of the opinion that the penalty of death or reclusion perpetua
(life imprisonment) should be imposed in any criminal case appealed to it where
the penalty imposed by the trial court is less than reclusion perpetua, the said Court, with a comprehensive written
analysis of the evidence and discussion of the law involved, render judgment
expressly and explicitly imposing the penalty of either death or reclusion
perpetua as the circumstances warrant, refrain from
entering judgment, and forthwith certify the case and elevate the entire record
thereof to this Court for review.” Pursuant to this ruling of this Court,
this case should be returned to the Court of Appeals for the imposition of the
proper penalty.  (People
vs. Lucas Ramos, G.R. No. L-49818, February 20, 1979).

The writer, however, wishes to take this occasion to express his
own personal views on the question of whether, as held in the Daniel Case, the
Court of Appeals should, “with a comprehensive written analysis of the
evidence and discussion of the law involved, render judgment expressly and
explicitly imposing the penalty of either death or reclusion perpetua, as circumstances warrant,” or following
the old practice, the Court of Appeals should simply certify the case to this
Court after an analysis of the evidence sufficient to enable it (Court of
Appeals) to arrive at the conclusion that the proper imposable penalty is
either death or life imprisonment.  I
incline to the latter view because of the mandate of the law that the Court of
Appeals should refrain from entering judgment, which to the writer’s mind,
simply means that no “express and explicit” imposition of the proper
penalty is required; for of what use is such kind of judgment if it could not
be entered or immediately executed in case the penalty is only life
imprisonment, because the case has to be certified, anyway, to the Supreme
Court?

The provision of Section 17 of the Judiciary Act which provides:

“The Supreme Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction to
review, revise, reverse, modify or affirm on appeal as the law or rules of
court may provide, final judgments and decrees of inferior courts as herein
provided, in –

“(1)     All criminal cases involving offenses for
which the penalty imposed is death or life imprisonment; x x
x“

is apparently
viewed as an unauthorized modification of the power of the Supreme Court as
conferred by the Consti­tution over appealed “criminal cases in which the
penalty imposed is death or life imprisonment,” and is thus consti­tutionally
objectionable.  Viewed as enlarging or
otherwise altering the constitutionally conferred appellate jurisdiction of the
Supreme Court, the constitutional infirmity suggested may seem, indeed, to
exist.  But it can be viewed equally as a
limitation of the appellate jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals by removing
from such jurisdiction cases in which death or life imprisonment is, or would
be, imposed.  Then, the above-quoted
provision would be free from any constitutional infirmity since the law may
define and limit the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals being its own
creation.  Judicial rulings enjoin
interpreting a law in such a way as to save it from the doom of
unconstitutionality, as against one that would consign it to such fate.  (Alba vs. Evangelista,
L-10360, January
17, 1957, 100 Phil. 683; Teehankee vs. Rovira, L-101, December 20, 1945, 75 Phil. 634; Po vs. Zeta, L-7140, December 22, 1955, 52 O.G.
222).  The interpretation as is
reflected in Section 12 of Rule 124, and the long practice adopted in its
observance, would seem to me to counsel against any change in such practice
which would make the full-blown decision required to be rendered by the Daniel
doctrine of no practical value, since said decision may not be executed
forthwith even if the penalty imposed is only life imprisonment, despite that
the appellant is satisfied with such penalty and is ready and willing to commence
execution thereof upon its rendition, as, ordinarily, it may be done without
awaiting entry of the judgment.  In case
the penalty deemed by the Court of Appeals to be properly imposable is death,
of course, compulsory review by the Supreme Court may not be avoided, and
execution of said penalty has to await its imposition by the said Court either
in affirmance of the trial court’s decision, or on
the basis of its own evaluation of the evidence.

In passing, it may be pertinent to ask:  what is the effect of Justice Barredo’s “Concurring Opinion” in People vs.
Ramos, supra, which actually clashes with the
doctrine as laid down in the Daniel Case, which became such
“doctrine” only because of Justice Barredo’s
vote therefor? 
Whatever may be the answer to this question, and regardless of my
personal views as above expressed, the controlling effect of the Daniel
doctrine has to be conceded.

Accordingly, We refrain from passing on
the correctness of the assessment of the evidence by the Court of Appeals which
We find to be sufficiently thorough and exhaustive, and let said Court
determine for itself what the proper penalty should be under its own analysis
of the evidence, in accordance with the aforecited
ruling of People vs. Daniel, supra.

WHEREFORE, let this case be returned to the Court of
Appeals for proper action as above indicated.

SO ORDERED.

Fernandez and Melencio-Herrera, JJ., concur.

Teehankee, (Chairman), J., concurs in the result in a separate opinion.

Makasiar, J., concurs pursuant to the Daniel doctrine.

Guerrero, J., concurs in the
result.