EDUARDO C. LAPENA, PETITIONER, VS. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT.

Lapeña versus People of the Philippines

The Case

This is Lapeña versus People of the Philippines, a criminal case that reached the Supreme Court by petition for review after a police jail guard was convicted of Evasion Through Negligence under the Revised Penal Code. The petitioner, a Senior Police Officer assigned as jailer at the Taguig City Police Station, was charged after a detention prisoner in his custody walked out of the detention cell and never returned. The case matters because it fixes the exact elements of this neglected crime, explains what kind of carelessness the law punishes, and settles two defenses every reviewee will meet: that custody was passed to a superior officer, and that the guard was merely obeying an order.

Procedural History

An Information was filed with the Metropolitan Trial Court of Taguig City, Branch 74, charging the petitioner with Evasion Through Negligence. He pleaded not guilty at arraignment. After trial, the Metropolitan Trial Court rendered judgment finding him guilty and sentencing him to imprisonment ranging from two months and one day of arresto mayor as minimum to one year and one day of prision correccional as maximum, without temporary disqualification since he had retired from service.

The petitioner appealed to the Regional Trial Court of Taguig City, Branch 153. The Regional Trial Court affirmed the conviction, stressing that the trial court relied not only on the prosecution witnesses but also on the petitioner's own Incident Report, which established his guilt. From that affirmance, the petitioner filed a Petition for Review with the Supreme Court under Rule 42 of the Rules of Court, raising the lone issue of whether the Regional Trial Court gravely erred in affirming his conviction despite the prosecution's failure to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Facts

On the fourteenth of February 2007, the petitioner was the jail officer on duty at the Tuktukan Jail of the Taguig Police Station for a twenty-four hour shift, from eight in the morning of that day to eight in the morning of the next. He was responsible for the custody of approximately thirty to forty detainees, among them Alfred Reyes, a detention prisoner facing a robbery charge.

At about six thirty in the evening, while the petitioner was busy attending to other detainees who were cleaning the premises inside the detention cell, Reyes was tasked to throw the trash at the garbage dump located at the premises of City Hall, Taguig City. Reyes failed to return. The petitioner made a headcount, realized Reyes was missing, and executed an Incident Report dated the fifteenth of February 2007. Acting on orders of their commanding officer, two police officers investigated the matter and, on the basis of the petitioner's own statement in that Incident Report, arrested him.

The petitioner's defense was that his commanding officer, Police Chief Inspector Edgardo Mendoza, was the one directly responsible, because he habitually summoned Reyes to run errands for him, and that as a subordinate the petitioner had no choice but to comply. He claimed he recorded these instances in a prison logbook, including the day of the escape, but the logbook was never presented in evidence.

Issues

• Whether or not the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt all the elements of Evasion Through Negligence under Article 224 of the Revised Penal Code.
• Whether or not the petitioner was negligent in the performance of his duties as jail guard, resulting in the escape of the detainee.
• Whether or not the petitioner may escape criminal liability by claiming that custody of the detainee had been transferred to his superior officer, or that he was merely obeying an order.

Applicable Provisions

Article 224 of the Revised Penal Code defines and penalizes the crime charged:

Article 224. Evasion through negligence. If the evasion of the prisoner shall have taken place through the negligence of the officer charged with the conveyance or custody of the escaping prisoner, said officer shall suffer the penalties of arresto mayor in its maximum period to prision correccional in its minimum period and temporary special disqualification.

This is the very provision under which the petitioner was convicted, and its three elements frame the entire ruling.

Section 4 of Rule 129 of the Rules of Court governs the petitioner's admissions:

Section 4. Judicial admissions. An admission, verbal or written, made by the party in the course of the proceedings in the same case, does not require proof. The admission may be contradicted only by showing that it was made through palpable mistake or that no such admission was made.

This supplies the first and second elements without any need for prosecution evidence.

Section 23 of Rule 132 of the Rules of Court governs the petitioner's Incident Report:

Section 23. Public documents as evidence. Documents consisting of entries in public records made in the performance of a duty by a public officer are prima facie evidence of the facts stated therein. All other public documents are evidence, even against a third person, of the fact which gave rise to their execution and of the date of the latter.

This makes the petitioner's own report sufficient to establish that the detainee was sent out at night to throw garbage.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that all three elements were established beyond reasonable doubt: that the offender is a public officer; that he is charged with the conveyance or custody of a prisoner, either detention prisoner or prisoner by final judgment; and that such prisoner escapes through his negligence. The first two elements rested on the petitioner's own judicial admissions that he was a public officer and that he had custody of the detainee, which required no proof under Section 4 of Rule 129. In any event, the two prosecution witnesses testified that only one jailer was assigned for each twenty-four hour period, that the petitioner was that jailer, and that the sole prison gate was under his control.

On the second issue, the Court defined the gravamen of the crime as positive carelessness short of deliberate non-performance of the guard's duties, a definite laxity amounting to deliberate non-performance of duty. The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology rules require all inmates to be kept inside their cells after visiting hours, and at night only compelling reasons or emergency situations justify letting them out. The petitioner's Incident Report, a public document and prima facie evidence of its contents, showed that at six thirty in the evening he directed the detainee to throw garbage outside the prison facility. Garbage inside the cell is not a compelling reason or emergency. By letting the detainee leave the cell at night and proceed outside the jail premises on his own without any precautionary measure, the petitioner committed definite laxity amounting to negligence.

On the third issue, the Court rejected the claim that custody had passed to the superior officer. The alleged logbook was never presented, the investigator to whom it was supposedly submitted was never named, and the defense never compelled the prosecution witnesses to produce it. As to the order of a superior, the Court held that the petitioner knew the practice was contrary to prison rules and could not be compelled to follow an illegal order, because a person who acts in obedience to an order issued by a superior incurs no criminal liability only when the order is for some lawful purpose. Finally, the Court applied the settled rule that factual findings of the trial court on credibility are accorded great respect and even conclusive effect on appeal absent any overlooked circumstance of weight and substance.

Doctrine

Evasion Through Negligence under Article 224 of the Revised Penal Code has three elements: the offender is a public officer; he is charged with the conveyance or custody of a prisoner, whether a detention prisoner or a prisoner by final judgment; and the prisoner escapes through his negligence. The negligence contemplated is not mere inadvertence but positive carelessness, a definite laxity amounting to deliberate non-performance of the guard's duty to take every necessary precaution against escape.

A jail guard who allows a detainee to leave the cell at night, outside visiting hours, without compelling reason or emergency, and who lets him move outside the prison premises unescorted, is negligent under this article. His own Incident Report is a public document and prima facie evidence of the facts stated in it, and his admissions in the course of the proceedings are judicial admissions that dispense with proof of the elements they cover. The defenses of transfer of custody and obedience to a superior officer both fail where the transfer is uncorroborated and the order is for an unlawful purpose.

Disposition

The Supreme Court denied the petition for lack of merit and affirmed the Decision of the Regional Trial Court convicting the petitioner of Evasion Through Negligence.

Remember This

Memorize the three elements of Article 224 and the standard of positive carelessness amounting to deliberate non-performance of duty. Examiners use this case to test the elements of Evasion Through Negligence, the prima facie weight of a public officer's own report, and the rule that obedience to an illegal order of a superior is no defense.