AAA, PETITIONER, VS. HON. ANTONIO A. CARBONELL, IN HIS CAPACITY AS PRESIDING JUDGE, BRANCH 27, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, SAN FERNANDO CITY, LA UNION AND ENGR. JAIME O. ARZADON, RESP…

AAA versus Carbonell

The Case

This is a special civil action for certiorari brought by a complainant in a rape case against the presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court of San Fernando City, La Union, and against the accused, Jaime Arzadon. The petitioner asks the Supreme Court to annul the trial court's orders dismissing the rape charge for lack of probable cause, and to reinstate the information. The case matters because it draws the precise boundary between the judge's constitutional duty to determine probable cause personally and the prosecutor's function of conducting the preliminary investigation, and because it settles that a judge may not demand a personal examination of the complainant when the record already supplies a sufficient basis for probable cause.

Procedural History

The petitioner first filed a complaint for rape with the Office of the City Prosecutor. The investigating prosecutors, and later a panel of prosecutors, each found probable cause and recommended the filing of an information. The accused appealed the panel's resolution to the Department of Justice, where the Acting Secretary of Justice initially found no probable cause and directed the withdrawal of the information. On the petitioner's motion for reconsideration, the Secretary of Justice reversed that resolution and found that probable cause exists, and a new information was filed before the Regional Trial Court, Branch 27, San Fernando City, La Union.

The accused then moved for a judicial determination of probable cause. The respondent judge granted the motion and directed the petitioner and her witnesses to take the witness stand. Instead of complying, the petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration and, separately, asked the Supreme Court to transfer the venue of the case. The Supreme Court granted the transfer, and the case was raffled to the Regional Trial Court of Manila, Branch 25, with proceedings suspended pending resolution of this petition. The respondent judge then issued the order dismissing the case for lack of probable cause, and denied reconsideration. The petitioner came directly to the Supreme Court by petition, which the Court treated as a petition for certiorari under Rule 65.

Facts

The petitioner worked as a secretary at the Arzadon Automotive and Car Service Center from February 28, 2001 to August 16, 2001. On May 27, 2001, at about 6:30 in the evening, Arzadon asked her to deliver a book to an office in another building. When she returned, the lights had been turned off and the gate was closed, but she went inside to get her handbag.

On her way out, she saw Arzadon standing beside a parked van holding a pipe. He told her to come near him, threatened her with the pipe, and forced her to lie on the pavement. He removed her pants and underwear and inserted his penis into her vagina. She wept and cried out for help, but no one else was on the premises. She did not report the incident because Arzadon threatened to kill her and her family. When she discovered that she was pregnant as a consequence of the rape, she told her parents, and on July 24, 2002, she filed a complaint for rape.

In her sworn statement and complaint-affidavit she narrated the incident in detail, attended several clarificatory hearings, positively identified Arzadon as her assailant, and presented her child and the child's birth certificate as evidence. Arzadon relied on the defense of alibi. Despite the prosecutors' findings of probable cause, the respondent judge dismissed the case after the petitioner and her witnesses failed to appear at the hearings he had scheduled for the judicial determination of probable cause.

Issues

• Whether or not the petition should be dismissed for being the wrong mode of appeal.
• Whether or not the respondent judge acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in dismissing the rape case for lack of probable cause.

Applicable Provisions

Section 2, Article III of the 1987 Constitution provides:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever nature and for any purpose shall be inviolable, and no search warrant or warrant of arrest shall issue except upon probable cause to be determined personally by the judge after examination under oath or affirmation of the complainant and the witnesses he may produce, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

This is the provision the respondent judge invoked in insisting on a personal examination of the complainant and her witnesses, and the provision the Court construes in defining the limits of that duty.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that although the petitioner labeled her remedy as a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45, the grounds she raised alleged grave abuse of discretion on the part of the respondent judge. Grave abuse of discretion is not an allowable ground under Rule 45, but a petition for review on certiorari may be treated as a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 where the respondents are alleged to have abused their discretion in their questioned actions. The Court therefore treated the petition as one under Rule 65. It noted the procedural error of filing directly with the Supreme Court instead of the Court of Appeals, in violation of the principle of judicial hierarchy of courts, but chose to resolve the case because of the gravity of the offense charged and the length of time that had passed since the complaint was filed.

On the second issue, the Court ruled that the respondent judge gravely abused his discretion. Quoting its earlier ruling in Soliven versus Makasiar, the Court explained what the Constitution actually requires:

What the Constitution underscores is the exclusive and personal responsibility of the issuing judge to satisfy himself of the existence of probable cause. In satisfying himself of the existence of probable cause for the issuance of a warrant of arrest, the judge is not required to personally examine the complainant and his witnesses.

The Court stressed that the judge may personally evaluate the report and supporting documents submitted by the prosecutor, or, if he finds no probable cause on that basis, he may disregard the report and require the submission of supporting affidavits of witnesses. A personal examination of the complainant and her witnesses is not mandatory and indispensable; the necessity for it arises only when there is an utter failure of the evidence to show the existence of probable cause. What the law requires is that the judge not rely solely on the prosecutor's report, but also consider the affidavits and documentary evidence of the parties, the counter-affidavit of the accused, and the transcript of the stenographic notes taken during the preliminary investigation.

Here, the respondent judge dismissed the case without considering the resolutions of the investigating prosecutor, the panel of prosecutors, and the Department of Justice, all of which found probable cause, and without evaluating the evidence in support thereof. His finding of lack of probable cause rested only on the complainant's and her witnesses' absence from the hearings he had scheduled. The Court found sufficient evidence of probable cause in the petitioner's detailed narration, her positive identification of Arzadon, and her presentation of the child and birth certificate, against an alibi, which is the weakest of all defenses. Probable cause, the Court reminded, does not require evidence sufficient to justify conviction. The Court also rejected the judge's inference that the petitioner had lost interest in the case, since the records showed she had relentlessly pursued it, and held that a full-blown trial is to be preferred to ferret out the truth.

Doctrine

A judge determining probable cause for the issuance of a warrant of arrest is not required to personally examine the complainant and the witnesses. He may personally evaluate the prosecutor's report and supporting documents, or disregard the report and require supporting affidavits. A personal examination becomes necessary only when there is an utter failure of the evidence to show probable cause. What the Constitution demands is the judge's exclusive and personal responsibility to satisfy himself of probable cause, which means he must not rely solely on the prosecutor's report but must also consider the affidavits, the documentary evidence, the accused's counter-affidavit, and the transcript of the preliminary investigation. Probable cause is that which engenders a well-founded belief that a crime has been committed and that the respondent is probably guilty thereof and should be held for trial; it does not require evidence sufficient to justify conviction. A judge who dismisses a criminal case for lack of probable cause solely because the complainant failed to appear at a scheduled hearing, ignoring the prosecutors' findings and the supporting evidence, commits grave abuse of discretion.

Disposition

The petition was granted; the orders dismissing the rape case were reversed and set aside, the information was reinstated, and the Regional Trial Court of Manila, Branch 25, was directed to take cognizance of the case and proceed with it.

Remember This

The line worth memorizing is that the judge's duty is personal determination, not personal examination, of probable cause. Examiners use this case to test the distinction between the judge's preliminary inquiry for the arrest warrant and the prosecutor's preliminary investigation, and to test the treatment of a Rule 45 petition as a Rule 65 petition where grave abuse of discretion is alleged.