GOTARDO FLORDELIS AND RAFAEL BOLLOZOS, THE LATTER IN HIS CAPACITY AS ASST. FISCAL OF TAGBILARAN, BOHOL, PETITIONERS, VS. THE HON. HERACLEO CASTILLO, AS CITY JUDGE, BRANCH I, TAG…

Flordelis versus Castillo

The Case

This is a petition for review brought by Gotardo Flordelis, a principal teacher, together with Assistant City Fiscal Rafael Bollozos of Tagbilaran, Bohol, against Judge Heracleo Castillo of the City Court of Tagbilaran, Branch One. The petitioners ask the Supreme Court to set aside the trial court's order provisionally dismissing a perjury case against six private respondents on the ground that a pre-judicial question existed in a pending administrative case. The case matters because it draws the precise boundary of the pre-judicial question doctrine: that doctrine belongs to a pending civil action, not to an administrative complaint, and it teaches what happens to the defense of double jeopardy when the accused himself asks for the dismissal.

Procedural History

The private respondents, teachers of the Bohol School of Arts and Trades, filed a sworn administrative complaint against the petitioner Flordelis before the Department of Education and Culture. Flordelis responded by filing a complaint for perjury against them. After preliminary investigation, the second assistant city fiscal of Tagbilaran, Rafael Bollozos, found that the charge of tax evasion was not substantiated, and an information for perjury was filed against the private respondents.

Upon arraignment before the City Court of Tagbilaran, the private respondents pleaded not guilty and simultaneously moved to quash the information, on the grounds that the facts recited do not constitute an offense and that the information contains averments which, if true, would constitute a legal excuse or justification. The respondent judge resolved the motion by provisionally dismissing the case and ordering the release of the private respondents, on the sole ground that the tax evasion issue pending in the administrative case was a pre-judicial question that had to be resolved first. Flordelis, joined by the assistant city fiscal, then filed the present petition for review with the Supreme Court.

Facts

On November 29, 1972, six teachers of the Bohol School of Arts and Trades lodged a sworn administrative complaint with the Department of Education and Culture against their principal teacher, Gotardo Flordelis. The complaint recited several counts, one of which accused him of being a tax evader by refusing to pay his income tax for many years and of misdeclaring the sales of his business under the pretext of his son's name.

Flordelis reacted by filing a complaint for perjury against the teachers. After preliminary investigation, the assistant city fiscal resolved that the administrative complaint imputed two distinct offenses, income tax evasion and misdeclaration of business sales. He found that the misdeclaration charge had some semblance of truth which could be the basis of good faith, but that on the tax evasion charge the private respondents failed to adduce evidence to substantiate it. An information for perjury was accordingly filed, alleging that the accused, moved by hate and personal resentment, had executed and filed a verified administrative complaint containing a false statement, particularly the charge that Flordelis was a tax evader.

On March 27, 1973, the private respondents pleaded not guilty and moved to quash the information. On March 30, 1973, the respondent judge provisionally dismissed the case and ordered their release, holding that the tax evasion issue pending in the administrative case was a pre-judicial question that had first to be resolved before the criminal action could proceed.

Issues

• Whether or not the doctrine of pre-judicial question applies where what pends is an administrative complaint rather than a civil action.
• Whether or not the criminal case should have been merely suspended under Section 5 of Rule 111 instead of provisionally dismissed.
• Whether or not the provisional dismissal exposes the private respondents to double jeopardy, or whether their own motion to quash amounts to a waiver of that defense.

Applicable Provisions

Article 36 of the new Civil Code provides:

Pre-judicial questions, which must be decided before any criminal action may be instituted or may proceed, shall be governed by rules of court which the Supreme Court shall promulgate and which shall not be in conflict with the provisions of this Code.

This provision delegates the governing rules to the Supreme Court and frames the doctrine the trial court misapplied.

Section 5 of Rule 111 of the Rules of Court provides:

Section 5. Suspension by reason of pre-judicial question. — A petition for the suspension of the criminal action based upon the pendency of a pre-judicial question in a civil case, may only be presented by any party before or during the trial of the criminal action.

This provision confines the pre-judicial question to one pending in a civil case, and it is the provision the petitioners invoked as the proper remedy in place of dismissal.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled that the doctrine of pre-judicial question has no application to the situation below. As delineated in Article 36 of the Civil Code and Section 5 of Rule 111, and as uniformly applied in numerous decisions, the doctrine comes into play generally where a civil action and a criminal action both pend, and there exists in the former an issue which must be preemptively resolved before the criminal action may proceed, because howsoever that issue is resolved would be determinative of the guilt or innocence of the accused in the criminal case. In the case at bar, no civil action pends, nor has any been instituted; the complaint is merely an administrative one. Moreover, neither success nor failure of the private respondents in proving their tax evasion charge in the administrative case can attain the character of a final determination binding and conclusive upon the court in the criminal action so as to foreclose the issue of guilt or innocence upon the perjury indictment.

On the second issue, the Court held that the criminal case should not have been dismissed at all; the trial court was ordered to reinstate the perjury case and proceed with the trial in accordance with law.

On the third issue, the Court ruled that the petitioner's apprehension that double jeopardy may set in is unwarranted. The record shows that the quashal of the information was explicitly and actively sought by the private respondents. When a criminal case is dismissed upon the express application of the defendant, the dismissal is not a bar to another prosecution for the same offense, because the defendant's action in having the case dismissed constitutes a waiver of his constitutional prerogative against double jeopardy, as he thereby prevented the court from proceeding to trial on the merits and rendering a judgment of conviction against him. The Court quoted with approval:

The doctrine of estoppel is in quintessence the same as the doctrine of waiver: the thrust of both is that a dismissal, other than on the merits, sought by the accused in a motion to dismiss, is deemed to be with his express consent and bars him from subsequently interposing the defense of double jeopardy on appeal or in a new prosecution for the same offense.

Doctrine

First, the pre-judicial question doctrine under Article 36 of the Civil Code and Section 5 of Rule 111 requires a pending civil action, not a mere administrative complaint, and it applies only where the issue in the civil action would be determinative of the guilt or innocence of the accused in the criminal case. Second, a dismissal sought by the accused himself in a motion to quash is deemed to be with his express consent, and he waives his constitutional defense of double jeopardy; he cannot later plead that dismissal as a bar to a new prosecution for the same offense.

Disposition

The Supreme Court set aside the resolution of the City Court of Tagbilaran and ordered it to reinstate the perjury case against the private respondents and to proceed with the trial in accordance with law, with no costs.

Remember This

Memorize this line: a pre-judicial question requires a pending civil action, and a dismissal sought by the accused is a waiver of double jeopardy. Examiners use this case to test the requisites of the pre-judicial question doctrine and the rule that a dismissal upon the defendant's own motion does not bar a new prosecution.