PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. LUCAS RAMOS Y MACASIRAY, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

DISSENTING OPINION

AQUINO, J.:

I dissent for reasons stated in the Daniel Case.

The Court of Appeals in People vs. Lucas Ramos, CA-G.R. No.
17008-CR rendered a decision with complete findings of fact and
law. The last paragraph of that
decision reads as follows:

“However, since the imposable penalty for the crime of rape is
reclusion perpetua (Art. 335, Revised Penal Code, as amended by
R.A. 4111), this Court, instead of entering judgment, hereby certifies this
case to the Supreme Court for final determination, pursuant to the provisions
of section 12, Rule 124 of the Rules of Court.”

The above certification, contained in a decision on the merits
of the appeal (as distinguished from a mere resolution), is a suffi­cient
compliance with section 34 of the Judiciary Law and section 12, Rule 124 of the
Rules of Court.

To require the Court of Appeals to impose the penalty of reclusion
perpetua is not necessary and is not within the contemplation of those
legal rules.

CONCURRING OPINION

BARREDO, J.:

In the case of People vs. Daniel referred to in the main opinion,
I voted with the majority. I did so not
because I agreed with the opinion of Chief Justice Castro on the issue of whether
or not the Court of Appeals has the jurisdiction to render a judgment imposing
the penalty of death or of life imprisonment. Actually, I originally voted with the minority, but when it appeared
that there were seven votes in favor of the view of the Chief Justice, it
occurred to me that if I persisted in my vote, the matter in issue would remain
legally unresolved and the Court of Appeals would be at a loss whether to
adhere to the old practice or follow the view of the majority, notwithstanding there
would actually be not enough votes to make it binding. I felt apprehensive that considering that
the majority would lack only one vote, the various divisions in the appellate
court might take different positions on the matter, thereby producing juridical
chaos. Under the circumstances, I
thought it best to vote for the adoption of the position of the Chief Justice
as a matter of judicial necessity, without prejudice to my making my adverse
personal views of record. Thru my own
oversight, how­ever, the decision in that case was released without my separate
opinion. I now take this opportunity to
express my views, using as frame of reference the same case of Daniel.

Charged with the crime of rape allegedly committed on September
20, 1965, the court below after due trial, found appel­lant Amado Daniel guilty
as charged and sentenced him to suffer an indeterminate penalty of “not
more than TWELVE (12) YEARS and ONE (1) DAY of reclusion temporal and
not less than SIX (6) YEARS and ONE (1) DAY of prision mayor, and to pay
the costs,” evidently overlooking that Article 335 of the Revised Penal
Code had already been amended by Republic Act 4111 on June 20, 1964 by
increasing the penalty for rape to reclusion perpetua, provided that
when it is committed with the use of a deadly weapon or by two or more persons,
the penalty shall be reclusion perpetua to death. An appeal was taken to the Court of Appeals
where on March 6, 1975, as to be expected, in view of the passage of Republic
Act 4111, the Tenth Division of that court rendered the “decision”,
from which it is evident that the Court of Appeals studied the evidence and
found the appellant guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but refrained from imposing
any penalty, considering that in its opinion, under Republic Act 4111, the
penalty that should be imposed is reclusion perpetua and pursuant to
Section 17 of Chapter II of the Judiciary Act, as amended, the Supreme Court
has exclusive appellate jurisdiction in “all criminal cases
involving offenses for which the penalty imposed is death or life imprisonment
x x x.” Instead, said court certified the case to this Supreme Court
“for appropriate proceedings pursuant to law.”

The issue is whether or not the Court of Appeals omitted to
perform its duty in the premises in not actually imposing the penalty of reclusion
perpetua before making said certification or together with it. And the principal argument advanced in favor
of the affirmative view is that what the applicable provision of the Rules of
Court, which is Sec. 12 of Rule 124 providing as follows:

“x       x          x

“Whenever in any criminal case submitted to a division the
said division should be of the opinion that the penalty of death or life
imprison­ment should be imposed, the said court shall refrain from entering
judgment thereon and shall forthwith certify the case to the Supreme Court for
final determination, as if the case had been brought before it on appeal.”

restrains the Court of Appeals from doing
is not the act of rendering judgment, which necessarily includes imposing the
corresponding penalty, but that of “entering judgment thereon.” It is
maintained that, considering that the known connotation of the term
“entering judgment” contemplates judgments that are already final and
executory, it follows that there is no prohibition against the Court of Appeals
“rendering” the appropriate judgment, as long as no entry thereof is
made, which in effect means that the decision containing the penalty is to be
elevated to the Supreme Court in the same fashion as judgments of the Courts of
First Instance of the same nature. It
is further pointed out that if Courts of First Instance have jurisdiction and
power to impose the penalties of reclusion perpetua and death in
appropriate cases, there is no reason why the Court of Appeals should be held
to be devoid of such prerogative.

I hold that the issue should be resolved in the light of the
limits expressly laid down in the Judiciary Act upon the jurisdiction of the
Court of Appeals, in the sense that since the constitutional appellate
jurisdiction o the Supreme Court over “all cases in which the penalty
imposed is death or life imprisonment” [Article X, Section 5 (2) (d)] has
been made exclusive to the Supreme Court by the Judiciary Act, [Sec. 17 (1)] it
is ineludibly implicit thereunder that only the Supreme Court can on appeal
impose said grave penalties to the exclusion of the Court of Appeals,
specially, because under Section 29 of the same Act, the appellate jurisdiction
of the Court of Appeals is extensive only to “all cases, actions and
proceedings not enumerated in Section seventeen.” True it is that what are
referred to are appeals in cases in which either of said penalties has been
actually imposed and not to those in which the offense charged is merely
punishable therewith under the Revised Penal Code, but logic and obvious
considerations of hierarchical import in the judicial system dictate inevitably
that no other appellate court, under any circumstances, should partake or share
with the Supreme Court the authority in question. To concede to the Court of Appeals the authority to render
judgment and impose the penalties in issue, even if such judgment could have no
legal import whatsoever, since it would not even be reviewable by Us, is to
indulge in an exercise in futility, utterly purposeless in law and
procedure. Let us not forget that
Section 12 of Rule 124 very explicitly says that on the basis of the
certification that the Court of Appeals is supposed to make, the appeal shall
be in “the Supreme Court for final determina­tion, as if the case had been
brought before it on appeal”, obviously meaning the appeal from the trial
court and not from the Court of Appeals, since it is incontrovertible that in
capital cases, the Supreme Court reviews the whole record, both on facts and on
law, which would not be the case were the rule to be construed as referring to
the appeal from the Court of Appeals, it being the law that conclu­sions of
fact of the Court of Appeals are as a rule not reviewable by the Supreme
Court. And I underline the point that I
am referring to appellate and not original jurisdiction, since by
necessity and in the very nature of the criminal process, courts of first
instance must be clothed with the power to impose said penalties.

Accordingly, on the premise that in appeals from judgments of
trial courts, it is only the Supreme Court that can impose those penalties, the
injunction that the Court of Appeals “shall refrain from entering
judgment” in the pertinent provision of the rules above-quoted may not be reasonably
or logically construed in any other sense than that of rendering judgment. And this is not strange at all. As a matter of fact, it is not true that in
the Rules of Court the term “entering judgment” necessarily and
exclusively refers to the entry of judgment as contemplated in Section 2 of
Rule 36, Section 10 of Rule 51 and Section 8 of Rule 120 and other similar
provisions in said rules. In Rule 36
itself, there are two provisions wherein the term “entering judgment”
is used to mean “rendering” judgment. Sections 5 and 6 of said rule provide:

“SEC. 5. Judgment
at various stages. – When more than
one claim for relief is presented in an action, the court at any stage, upon a
determination of the issues material to a particular claim and all counterclaims
arising out of the transaction or occurrence which is the subject matter of the
claim, may enter a judgment disposing of such claim. The judgment shall terminate the action with respect to the claim
so disposed of and the action shall proceed as to the remaining claims. In case a separate judgment is so entered,
the court by order may stay its enforcement until the entering of a subsequent
judgment or judgments and may prescribe such conditions as are necessary to
secure the benefit thereof to the party in whose favor the judgment is
entered.”

“SEC. 6. Judgment
against association. – When
judgment is entered against two or more persons sued as an association, the
judgment shall set out their individual or proper names, if known.”

It is therefore clear that under the rules, the term “to
enter judgment” is to be construed not in only one sense but according to
the context in which it is employed. It
can refer to a judgment that is already final and executory as well as to a
judgment that is to be rendered, depending on the intended purpose. Indeed, I would say that this is generally
true in remedial law everywhere. And as
Justice Muñoz-Palma very aptly put it in her dissent in Daniel, supra,
“(i)t is incumbent upon Us to construe the Rule (in dispute) in the spirit
and intent it was conceived and in harmony with pertinent laws and
jurisprudence”, and may I add, with the Constitution and current practice
of long standing. I know for a fact
that in my ten years in this Court, certifications of the tenor now in question
have never been challenged at all, even as I believe it is best that the
Supreme Court settled once and for all whatever doubts there might be about the
matter in the minds of the members of the bench and bar.

Before closing, however, I might add that like Justices Tuazon,
Bengzon (Cesar) and Padilla in People vs. Ramos,^[1]
I will go as far as holding that it is not only useless but improper to require
the Court of Appeals in cases of the nature of the one at bar to prepare any
opinion stating in detail its findings of fact, much less of law. It is my considered view that a simple
certification reciting in general and broad terms the circumstances or points
that the Court of Appeals considers would make the penalty reclusion perpetua
or death imposable should suffice.

When a court of first instance imposes in any case the penalty of
either life imprisonment or death, under the existing rules and uniform
practice, the Supreme Court accepts the appeal without inquiring preliminarily
whether under the circumstances found by the trial court — much less those
duly proven by the evidence — the said penalty is justified. Thus, even if on the face of the decision,
it is clear that a lighter penalty should have been imposed, We acquire jurisdiction
over the appeal. This simply means,
that correct or not, the opinion of the trial court as to such penalty binds
this Court, for purposes of determining whether the appeal should be here or in
the Court of Appeals. With this point
in mind, I cannot understand why it has to be required of the Court of Appeals
to make the usual statement of facts and of law to support its opinion in its
certification that the proper penalty should be either of the two penalties in
question. For what purpose? If We do not make any preliminary inquiry of
that kind as regards decisions of the trial courts, why should We do so when
the case comes from the Court of Appeals? Are We supposed to give more credence and reliability to the opinion of
a trial judge than to the joint opinion of three or five justices of the Court
of Appeals?

In any event, whatever opinion the Court of Appeals may have on
the matter can at best serve the purposes of that court only. It cannot be even recommendatory in any
sense — much less binding — to this Court. It should not in fact and in principle influence Our own
conclusions. It is bad enough that a
broad and general certification can create some degree of persuasion on the
formulation of Our judgment. The
certification would naturally be more inducive if the detailed conclusions of
fact and ratiocination were to be before Us, and that would be worse. Indeed, it can even give rise to patent
conflicts of views between the two courts on material points which can mar in
the eyes of some the intrinsic merit of Our decision. As I have said, such a requirement does not only serve no useful
purpose, it gives the impression that the opinion of the Court of Appeals does
not deserve full respect, when in truth, under the law, it should be binding
for purposes of conferring jurisdiction upon this Court to take cognizance of
the case “as if the same had been brought before it on appeal” (Sec.
12, Rule 124) directly from the Court of First Instance.

Incidentally, may I add that I cannot understand how the Court of
Appeals has referred to its subject certification as a decision. To my mind, the dispositive part of a
decision is what really counts, and in a criminal case it must contain the
finding of innocence or guilt and in the latter instance the penalty. Without such part, there is no
decision. A “decision”
without the finding of guilt or innocence and without the imposition of a
penalty is like a human being without a head — which if mysteriously alive is
useless and cannot have any juridical standing. And I believe that in this particular case the Court of Appeals
unnecessarily exceeded its jurisdiction by making a conclusion as to the guilt
of appellant. Such a conclusion can
embarrass Us.

^[1]
79 Phil. 612