ANTONIO M. BOLASTIG, PETITIONER, VS. HON. SANDIGANBAYAN (THIRD DIVISION) AND THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENTS.

This is a petition for certiorari to set aside the resolution,
dated March 18, 1993, of the Sandiganbayan, granting the motion of the Special
Prosecution Officer to suspend the accused from office pendente lite and the resolution,
dated March 29, 1993, denying reconsideration of the first resolution.

Petitioner Antonio M. Bolastig is governor of Samar. On August 31, 1989, an information was filed
against him and two others for alleged overpricing of 100 reams of onion skin
paper in violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (Republic Act
No. 3019). The Information alleged:

That on or about June 24, 1986, in the Municipality of Catbalogan,
Samar, Philip­pines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the
above-named accused ANTONIO M. BOLASTIG, PEDRO ASON and PRUDENCIO MACABENTA,
all public officers, duly appointed and qualified as such, being the OIC
Governor, Provincial Treasurer and Property Officer respectively, all of the
Province of Samar, and being members of Bids and Awards Committee responsible
for the purchase of office sup­plies for the Provincial Government of Samar and
while in the performance of their respec­tive positions, confederating and
mutually helping one another and through manifest partiality and evident bad
faith, did then and there wilfully and unlawfully enter into a purchase
contract with REYNALDO ESPARAGUERRA, a private citizen, for this purchase of
certain office supplies, namely: one
hundred (100) reams of Onion Skin size 11″ x 17″ at a unit price of
Five Hundred Fifty pesos (P550.00) or a total price of Fifty-Five Thousand
Pesos (P55,000.00), which contract was manifestly and grossly disadvantageous
to the government as the prevailing unit price for said item was only
Fifty-Five Pesos (P55.00) or a total price of Five Thousand Five Hundred Pesos
(P5,500.00), thereby causing undue injury to the government in the total amount
of Forty-Nine Thousand Five Hundred Pesos (P49,500.00).

CONTRARY TO LAW.

Petitioner was arraigned on January 5, 1993, whereupon he entered
a plea of “not guilty.”

On January 25, 1993, Special Prosecution Officer III Wilfredo
Orencia moved for petitioner’s suspension, citing sec. 13 of Republic Act No.
3019 which provides in part:

Sec. 13. Suspension and
loss of bene­fits. – Any incumbent public officer against whom any criminal
prosecution under a valid information under this Act or under Title 7, Book II
of the Revised Penal Code or for any offense involving fraud upon government or
public funds or property, whether as a simple or as a complex offense and in
whatever stage of execution and mode of participation, is pending in court,
shall be suspended from office.

Petitioner opposed the motion, arguing inter alia that:

2. Upon a bare
invocation of the fore­going provision, the prosecution would have this
Honorable Court issue an Order suspending the accused, as if suspension of a
public officer is a mindless and meaningless exer­cise, and is imposed without
regard to the spirit and intent of the law upon which it is based.

3.
Indeed, it cannot be simply assumed that laws are enacted and followed without
a particular purpose to be served, especially
when a mechanical application shall injure not only the public official
concerned, but the entire electorate as well.^[1]

The Sandiganbayan rejected petitioner’s argument and ordered the
suspension of petitioner from office for a period of 90 days. It held that preventive sus­pension is
mandatory under sec. 13, of Rep. Act No. 3019, pursuant to which all that is
required is for the court to make a finding that the accused stands charged
under a valid information “for any of the above-described crimes for the
purpose of granting or denying the sought for suspension.”^[2]

Implementation of the resolution was held in abey­ance to allow
petitioner to file a motion for reconsid­eration, which the Sandiganbayan,
however, eventually denied on March 29, 1993.

Hence, this petition. It
is contended that the Sandiganbayan committed a grave abuse of its discretion
in issuing its resolution

(a)  despite the failure of the prosecu­tion to
show any public interest to be served, or injury to be prevented, or any other
compelling factual circumstance which justifies the preventive suspension of
petitioner; and

(b) despite the
injury not only upon petitioner but also upon the people of Samar whose
political rights are trenched upon by the suspension for no valid reason of
their duly elected Governor.

To the Solicitor General’s contention
that upon the filing of a valid information suspension pendente lite is
mandatory as held in several decisions of this Court,^[3]
petitioner replies that, while the Sandigan­bayan has the power to order
preventive suspension, there is a “need [for the Sandiganbayan] to go
further, beyond the filing of the information, to a determina­tion of the
necessity of the preventive suspension in accordance with the spirit and intent
of the Anti-Graft Law.” Petitioner explains:

In other words, when the Anti-Graft Law gave the courts the
authority to order the preventive suspension of the accused, it never intended
to impose a mindless and meaningless exercise. The exercise of such authority must always be within the confines of the
legislative intent, for to go beyond it would be to exceed the bounds of the
law. Preventive suspension should
therefore be ordered only when the legislative purpose is achieved, that is,
when “the suspension order x x x prevent(s)
the accused from using his office to influence potential witnesses or tamper
with records which may be vital in the prosecution of the case against
him.” Corollarily, when the legislative purpose is not achieved,
preventive suspension is improper and should not be decreed.”^[4]

The petitioner’s contention has no merit. It is now settled that sec. 13 of Republic
Act No. 3019 makes it mandatory for the Sandiganbayan to suspend any public
officer against whom a valid information charg­ing violation of that law, Book II, Title 7 of the Revised Penal Code,
or any offense involving fraud upon government or public funds or property is
filed.^[5]
The court trying a case has neither discretion nor duty to determine whether
preventive suspension is required to prevent the accused from using his office
to intimidate witnesses or frustrate his prosecution or continue committing
malfeasance in office. The presumption
is that unless the accused is suspended
he may frustrate his prosecution or commit further acts of malfeasance
or do both, in the same way that upon a finding that there is probable cause to
believe that a crime has been committed and that the accused is probably guilty
thereof, the law requires the judge to issue a warrant for the arrest of the
accused. The law does not require the
court to determine whether the accused is likely to escape or evade the
jurisdiction of the court.

It is indeed true that in some of our decisions^[6]
the expression “the maximum period of ninety (90) days” is used. But that is only for the purpose of
emphasizing that the preventive suspension therein involved, which were for
more than ninety (90) days, were excessive and unreasonable. It is to be noted that the ninety-day period
of preventive suspension is not found in sec. 13 of Republic Act No. 3019 but
was adopted from sec. 42 of the Civil Service Decree (P.D. No. 807),^[7]
which is now sec. 52 of the Administrative Code of 1987. This latter provision states:

Sec. 52. Lifting of Preventive
Suspension Pending Administrative Investigation. – When the administrative
case against the officer or employee under preventive suspension is not finally
decided by the disciplining authority within the period of ninety (90) days
after the date of suspension of the respondent who is not a presidential
appointee, the respond­ent shall be automatically reinstated in the
service: Provided, That when the
delay in the disposition of the case is due to the fault, negligence or
petition of the respondent, the period of delay shall not be counted in com­puting
the period of suspension herein provided.

The duration of preventive suspension is thus coeval with the
period prescribed for deciding admin­istrative disciplinary cases. If the case is decided before ninety days,
then the suspension will last less than ninety days, but if the case is not
decided within ninety days, then the preventive suspension must be up to ninety
days only. Similarly, as applied to criminal
prosecutions under Republic Act No. 3019, preventive suspension will last for
less than ninety days only if the case is decided within that period;
otherwise, it will continue for ninety days.

The duration of preventive suspension will, there­fore, vary to
the extent that it is contingent on the time it takes the court to decide the
case but not on account of any discretion lodged in the court, taking into
account the probability that the accused may use his office to hamper his
prosecution.

Indeed, were the Sandiganbayan given the discre­tion to impose a
shorter period of suspension, say, 80, 70 or 60 days, as petitioner asserts, it would lie in its power not to
suspend the accused at all. That, of
course, would be contrary to the command of sec. 13 of Republic Act No. 3019.

Our holding that, upon the filing of a valid information charging
violation of Republic Act No. 3019, Book II, Title 7 of the Revised Penal Code,
or fraud upon government or public property, it is the duty of the court to
place the accused under preventive suspension disposes of petitioner’s other
contention that since the trial in the Sandiganbayan is now over with respect
to the presentation of evidence for the prosecution there is no longer any
danger that peti­tioner would intimidate prosecution’s witnesses. The fact is that the possibility that the
accused would intimidate witnesses or
otherwise hamper his prosecu­tion is just one of the grounds for preventive
suspen­sion. The other one is, as
already stated, to prevent the accused from committing further acts of malfea­sance
while in office.

Finally, the fact that petitioner’s preventive suspension may
deprive the people of Samar of the services of an official elected by them, at
least temporarily, is not a sufficient basis for reducing what is otherwise a
mandatory period prescribed by law. The
vice governor, who has likewise been elected by them, will act as governor.^[8]
Indeed, even the Consti­tution authorizes the suspension for not more than
sixty days of members of Congress found guilty of disorderly behavior,^[9]
thus rejecting the view expressed in one case^[10] that
members of the legislature could not be suspended because in the case of
suspension, unlike in the case of removal, the seat remains filled but the
constituents are deprived of representation.

For the foregoing reasons, we hold that in order­ing the preventive
suspension of petitioner, the Sandiganbayan acted according to law.

WHEREFORE, the Petition for Certiorari is
DISMISSED.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, C.J., (Chairman), Padilla, Regalado, and Puno, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Rollo, p. 19.

^[2]
Rollo, p. 27.

^[3]
Bunye v. Escareal, G.R. No. 110216, Sept. 10, 1993, 226 SCRA 332;
Gonzaga v. Sandiganbayan, G.R. No. 96131, Sept. 6, 1991, 201 SCRA 417
(1991); People v. Albano, G.R. No. L-45376-77, July 26, 1988,163 SCRA
511 (1988).

^[4]
Rollo, p. 65.

^[5]
Supra note 3.

^[6]
E.g., Gonzaga v. Sandiganbayan, supra; Doromal v.
Sandiganbayan, G.R. No. 85468, Sept 7, 1989, 177 SCRA 354 (1989).

^[7]
Gonzaga v. Sandiganbayan, supra note 3.

^[8]
The Local Goverment Code of 1991, sec. 46(a).

^[9]
Art. VI, sec. 16 (3).

^[10]
Alejandrino v. Quezon, 46 Phil. 83, 96 (1924).