ALEJANDRO C. SIAZON, SENIOR STATE PROSECUTOR, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, PETITIONER, VS. HON. PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE CIRCUIT CRIMINAL COURT, 16TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT, DAVAO CITY, JOSE…

Challenged as a grave abuse of discretion is an order of
respondent Judge Constante E. Evangelista, presiding the Circuit Criminal
Court, 16th Judicial Dis­trict, Davao City, issued on September 23, 1971 in con­nection
with the petition for bail of respondents Jose Escribano and Renan Padilla,
accused with two others who are still at large, in three murder cases pending
in said Court and numbered CCC-XVI-9-CC, CCC-XVI-10-CC and CCC-XVI-12-CC,
respectively.  Also originally accused
with them was one Angelico Najar, who was subsequently discharged upon motion
of the prosecution so that he could be utilized as State witness.

At the outset it should be mentioned that the instant petition is
formally defective in that the petitioner appears to be the State Prosecutor
handling the case below instead of the People of the Philippines, who should
properly be represented in this proceeding by the Solicitor General.  The defect being merely formal, however, we
have chosen to overlook it in the interest of a speedy disposition of this
case, involving as it does a question of some urgency.

The order sought to be reviewed and set aside, which contains a
concise statement of what transpired before the respondent Court, reads as
follows:

“This is an urgent supplementary petition for bail dated
September 20, 1971, filed by the accused thru counsel, wherein it is prayed
that the prosecu­tion be ordered to close its evidence in support of its
opposition to the applications for bail on September 23, 1971, or, in the
alternative, that it be ordered to present the state witness Angelico Najar on
said date.  The prosecution filed its
opposition to said supplementary petition.

At the outset, let it be stated that after the arraignment of the
accused and before the commencement of the trial, the applications for bail,
dated February 8 and July 2, 1971, were heard. 
After hearing both parties and with the announcement made by the Fiscal
that he has between 40 and 50 witnesses to present, the Court ruled and ordered
a joint hearing of the cases on the merits and of the applications for
bail.  On this same occasion the Court
also considered the motion filed by the prosecution to discharge the defendant
Angelico Najar.  Without any objection on
the part of the defense, said motion to discharge was granted and accused Najar
was discharged to become state witness pursuant to Sec. 11, Rule 119 of the
Rules of Court.

As the trial progressed, with the prosecution presenting several
witnesses whose testimonies have not established evidence directly linking the
accused Escribano and Padilla to the conspiracy alleged in the informations in
these cases, the defense on August 2, 1971 filed an urgent motion for the recon­sideration
of the order given in open Court ordering a joint hearing of the cases on the
merits and of the applica­tions for bail, to which the prosecution also filed
its opposition.  After hearing the
arguments of both parties and realizing that it should give paramount
importance to the constitutional provision regarding the right to bail,
specially before conviction, and considering the announcement of the
prosecution that it has about 50 witnesses to present, and considering further
that this Court has also to travel to other provinces to try other cases, the
Court reconsidered its previous order and ordered that the applications for
bail be first heard to which the prosecution gave its assent.

Going now to the urgent motion under consideration, after hearing
the arguments of both parties and going over the authorities cited by them in
support of their respective contentions, it is the opinion of the Court that
the only prin­cipal issue in this matter is whether or not a proceeding in an
application for bail is still summary in nature as it was under the old rule,
and whether or not we should give meaning to the spirit of the constitutional
provision regard­ing the right to bail. 
The Court takes the stand that this proceeding is still summary in
nature and that the Court has the power to limit, in the exercise of wise
discretion, the number of witnesses to be presented if in its judgment it can
foresee that said right to bail may be defeated due to an unnecessary delay in
the presentation of witnesses showing strong evidence of guilt.  While it is true that the Fiscal has control
over the presentation of evidence as he deems should fit the right of the
accused to know whether he is entitled to bail within a reasonable time should
not be overlooked.  The prosecution has
already presented some 27 witnesses but their testimonies, in the opinion of
the Court, have not established evidence directly linking the accused to the conspiracy
on the basis of which the Court can determine whether strong evidence of guilt
exists or not.  The defense has
manifested that accused Jose Escribano is a candidate for Mayor of Tacurong
Cotabato and should be given some special because of the proximity of the
coming local elec­tions.  This matter of
the accused being a candidate is only incidental and the Court refrains from
making any comment of whether to consider it as a special circumstance or
not.  The main basis upon which the Court
issues this order is simple and not compartmentalized justice.

“IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the Court hereby orders the prosecution
to present its witness Angelico Najar during the next scheduled dates of
hearing on Sep­tember 30 and October 1, 1971, and if it fails to do so without
justifiable cause the Court will be compelled to declare the evidence already
presented closed and order the defense to present its evidence only in so far
as this bail proceedings is concerned.”

The petitioner charges the respondent Court with having gravely
abused its discretion in interfering with what he submits is the right of the
prosecution to present as many witnesses as it considers necessary, and in the
order it chooses to do so, in order to show that the evidence of the guilt of
the accused is strong, in support of its opposition to their petition for
bail.  Specifically, the petitioner
states that aside from the 27 prosecution witnesses he had already presented
over a period of three months since the hearing on the petition for bail
started on July 2, 1971, he intends to present many more – some 13 of them* –
before he calls Angelico Najar to the stand; and that since the testimonies of
all these 40 witnesses are circumstantial and corroborative in nature and are
intended to establish a basis for the testimony to be given by Angelico Najar,
who is the only one who can testify directly as to the connection of the
accused to the offenses charged, all the said witnesses should be presented
before Najar himself is called.

The issue, as stated by the respondent Court in the order now
sought to be set aside, is “whether or not a proceeding in an application
for bail is still summary in nature as it was under the old rule…. and
whether or not the court has the power to limit, in the exercise of wise
discretion, the number of witnesses to be presented if in its judgment it can
fore­see that said right to bail may be defeated due to an unnecessary delay in
the presentation of witnesses showing strong evidence of guilt.”

The respondent Judge in effect ruled on both questions in the
affirmative.  The petitioner contends
that the ruling is erroneous and constitutes a grave abuse of discretion in
this case.

As a general proposition, all persons shall before conviction be
bailable except when the charge is a capital offense and the evidence of guilt
is strong.^[1]
At the hear­ing of the application for bail the burden of showing that the case
falls within the exception is on the prosecution, according to Section 7, Rule
114 of the Rules of Court.  The
determination of whether or not the evidence of guilt is strong is a matter of
judicial discretion, which in the very nature of things may rightly be
exercised only aft the evidence is submitted to the court at the hearing.^[2]
Neither under the old nor under the new Rules is there any specific provision
defining what kind of hearing it should be, but in the two cases cited at the
footnote hereof it was stated that the hearing should be summary or otherwise
in the discretion of the court. “By ‘summary hearing,’ this Court added,
“we mean such brief and speedy method of receiving and considering the
evidence of guilt as is practicable and consistent with the purpose of the
hearing which is merely to determine the weight of the evidence for purposes of
bail.  On such hearing, the court ‘does
not sit to try the merits or to enter into any nice inquiry as to the weight
that ought to be allowed to the evidence for or against accused, nor will it
speculate on the outcome of the trial or on what further evidence may be
therein offered and admitted.’ (8 C.J.S. 93,94.) The course of the inquiry may
be left to the discretion of the court which may confine itself to receiving
such evidence as has re­ference to substantial matters, avoiding unnecessary
thoroughness in the examination and cross-examination of witnesses and reducing
to a reasonable minimum at the amount of corroboration particularly on details
that are not essential to the purposes of the hearing.”

The petitioner submits that the nature of the hearing on a
petition for bail has been changed and that it is now no longer summary in view
of the addition to the former Section 7, Rule 110, which now appears as Section
7, Rule 114, of the following provision:

“SECTION 7.  Capital
offenses – Burden of proof.  –

x        x          x

“The evidence presented during such hearing in the Court of
First Instance shall be considered automatically re­produced at the trial,
without need of retaking the same; but, upon motion of either party, the Court
may recall any witness for additional examination unless the witness is dead,
outside the Philip­pines or otherwise unable to testify.”

We do not see that the addition of the provision aforequoted has
materially changed the nature of the hearing on a petition for bail to the
extent of depriving the Court of its discretion to confine the evidence to the
extent necessary for the proper determination of the ques­tion of whether or
not the evidence of guilt is strong.  The
only change that has been introduced is that such evidence shall be considered
automatically reproduced at the trial in order to avoid unnecessary
repetition.  The proviso that any witness
may be recalled at the trial for additional examination underscores, if
anything, the difference between the hearing for purposes of the petition for
bail and the trial on the merits.  This
is as it should be, because one has for its purpose, from the standpoint of the
prosecution, to show that strong evidence of guilt exists while the other
contemplates proof beyond reasonable doubt.

After going over the pleadings before Us and their accompanying
annexes We fail to find any grave abuse of discretion committed by the
respondent Judge.  The pro­secution had
had three months since the hearing started until the questioned order was
issued and had called 27 witnesses just to lay a sufficient corroborative basis
for the testimony of its principal witness, Angelico Najar.  The plea that this witness will reveal the
names of persons who have some knowledge of circumstances which tend to con­nect
the two accused with the crimes and who presumably will also be called to
testify, and whose willingness to do so may thereby be adversely influenced by
such revelation, does not appear to be convincing, since the record of the
cases below already contains the testimony which Najar gave at the preliminary investigation,
aside from his three sworn statements consisting of 16 pages typed single-space
in question and answer form.

The right of the prosecution to control the quantum of evidence
and the order of presentation of the witnesses, while not to be disregarded,
must nevertheless be equated with the purpose of the hearing, which is to
determine whether the accused falls within the exception to the general rule
that he is constitutionally entitled to bail before conviction.  To allow the prosecution to conduct the
hearing as if it were a full-dress trial on the merits would defeat the purpose
of the proceeding.

In view of the foregoing, the petitions is dismissed and
the temporary restraining order issued by this Court is lifted, with
instructions to the respond­ent Court to resume the hearing forthwith for the
presentation of Angelico Najar as witness for the pro­secution, without
prejudice to said Court’s allowing, in the exercise of its discretion, the
presentation of such other prosecution witnesses as it may deem advisable, in
the interests of justice.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando,
Barredo, Villamor, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.

Teehankee, J., files a separate
concurrence.

*
Per verbal manifestation of petitioner at the hearing of the instant petition.

^[1]
ART. III, Section 1, par. 16, of the Constitution.

^[2]
Herras Teehankee v. Director of Prisons, 76 Phil. 756: Ocampo v.
Bernabe, 77 Phil., 55.