ATTY. ALICE ODCHIGUE-BONDOC, PETITIONER, VS. TAN TIONG BIO A.K.A. HENRY TAN, RESPONDENT.

Odchigue-Bondoc versus Tan Tiong Bio

The Case

This is a petition for review on certiorari brought by Atty. Alice Odchigue-Bondoc against Tan Tiong Bio, also known as Henry Tan. The petitioner, the corporate secretary of a real estate developer, had been named in a criminal complaint for estafa filed by the respondent after the developer failed to deliver a title to a lot he had fully paid for. When the petitioner denied in her counter-affidavit any participation in the transaction, the respondent filed a separate complaint for perjury against her. The case matters because it fixes the boundary of a constitutional guarantee: whether the requirement that decisions state clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which they are based reaches the resolutions of the Secretary of Justice acting on a petition for review of a prosecutor's finding of probable cause. It also teaches how the two-step review power of the Secretary of Justice under the National Prosecution Service Rule on Appeal actually works.

Procedural History

The complaint for perjury was filed before the Office of the City Prosecutor of Pasig City, which dismissed it for insufficiency of evidence. The respondent's motion for reconsideration was denied, so he elevated the matter to the Department of Justice by petition for review. The Secretary of Justice, through a resolution signed by the Chief State Prosecutor, dismissed the petition on its own initiative, finding no showing of any reversible error, invoking the provision of the National Prosecution Service Rule on Appeal allowing dismissal for that ground. The respondent's motion for reconsideration was likewise denied.

The respondent then filed a petition for certiorari before the Court of Appeals, which set aside the resolutions of the Secretary of Justice. The appellate court held that the Secretary committed grave abuse of discretion in dismissing the petition for review without clearly and distinctly expressing the facts on which the dismissal was based, in violation of the constitutional requirement on decisions. It further held that an outright dismissal is governed not by the provision on disposition of the appeal but by the provision on action on the petition. The petitioner's motion for reconsideration was denied, so she came to the Supreme Court by petition for review on certiorari.

Facts

Tan Tiong Bio, the respondent, had fully paid the installment payments for a six hundred eighty-three square meter lot in the Manila Southwoods Residential Estates, a project of Fil-Estate Golf and Development, Incorporated, in Carmona, Cavite. Despite repeated demands, Fil-Estate failed to deliver to him the title covering the lot, and it also failed to heed his demand for a refund of the purchase price. He later learned that the lot sold to him was inexistent.

The respondent filed a complaint for estafa against officials and employees of Fil-Estate, including its corporate secretary, Atty. Alice Odchigue-Bondoc, the petitioner. In her counter-affidavit, the petitioner alleged that she had no participation at all in the acts or transactions complained of, that as corporate secretary she had never been involved in the management and day-to-day operations of the company, and that the handwritten approval and endorsement attributed to her were not hers, as she had never transacted with the respondent or with a certain Mrs. Ona.

On the basis of those allegations in the counter-affidavit, the respondent filed a complaint for perjury against the petitioner before the Office of the City Prosecutor of Pasig City. That complaint was dismissed for insufficiency of evidence, and the dismissal was affirmed by the Secretary of Justice on the ground that there was no showing of any reversible error. The Court of Appeals, however, set aside the Secretary's resolutions, prompting the present petition.

Issues

• Whether or not the requirement in Section 14, Article Eight of the Constitution that a decision express clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based extends to resolutions issued by the Secretary of Justice in the exercise of the power to review a prosecutor's resolution.
• Whether or not the Secretary of Justice may dismiss a petition for review on its own initiative under the provision on disposition of the appeal, or whether an outright dismissal is confined to the separate provision on action on the petition.

Applicable Provisions

Section 14, Article Eight of the Constitution provides:

No decision shall be rendered by any court without expressing clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based. No petition for review or motion for reconsideration of a decision of the court shall be refused due course or denied without stating the legal basis therefor.

This is the provision the respondent invoked and the Court of Appeals applied, and the pivotal question is whether the Secretary of Justice is a court within its meaning.

Section 12 of the National Prosecution Service Rule on Appeal provides:

Section 12. Disposition of the appeal. The Secretary may reverse, affirm or modify the appealed resolution. He may, motu proprio or upon motion, dismiss the petition for review on any of the following grounds: (a) That there is no showing of any reversible error.

This is the provision under which the Secretary acted, and the Court holds that it authorizes dismissal on the Secretary's own initiative for want of a showing of reversible error.

Section 7 of the same Rule provides:

Section 7. Action on the petition. The Secretary of Justice may dismiss the petition outright if he finds the same to be patently without merit or manifestly intended for delay, or when the issues raised therein are too unsubstantial to require consideration. If an information has been filed in court pursuant to the appealed resolution, the petition shall not be given due course if the accused has already been arraigned. Any arraignment made after the filing of the petition shall not bar the Secretary of Justice from exercising his power of review.

This provision supplies the separate and distinct grounds for an outright dismissal, and the Court holds that it is not the provision the Secretary invoked.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled in favor of the petitioner. A preliminary investigation is not a quasi-judicial proceeding, because the prosecutor does not determine the guilt or innocence of the accused. The prosecutor does not exercise adjudication nor rule-making functions. Preliminary investigation is merely inquisitorial, and is often the only means of discovering the persons who may be reasonably charged of a crime and to enable the prosecutor to prepare the complaint or information. It is not a trial of the case on the merits, and its only purpose is to determine whether a crime has been committed and whether there is probable cause to believe that the accused is guilty of it. While the prosecutor makes that determination, he cannot be said to be acting as a quasi-court, for it is the courts, ultimately, that pass judgment on the accused. Even the action of the Secretary of Justice in reviewing a prosecutor's resolution by appeal or petition for review cannot be considered a quasi-judicial proceeding, since the Department of Justice is not a quasi-judicial body. Section 14, Article Eight of the Constitution therefore does not extend to resolutions issued by the Secretary of Justice.

The Court rejected the respondent's attempt to distinguish the earlier case in which this was settled on the ground that the Secretary there had issued a lengthier resolution on reconsideration. Whether an extended resolution was issued is immaterial, for it does not detract from the holding that the Department of Justice is not a quasi-judicial body. The respondent's reliance on the Ombudsman case also failed, because there the Ombudsman had dismissed the complaint before any preliminary investigation, merely evaluating it under the Rules of Procedure of the Office of the Ombudsman.

On the second issue, the Court also ruled in favor of the petitioner. The use of the word outright in dismissing the petition for review under Section 12 does not dent the Secretary's action, for the word was merely used in conjunction with the motu proprio action. Section 7 has an altogether different set of grounds for outright dismissal: when the petition is patently without merit, when it is manifestly intended for delay, when the issues raised are too unsubstantial to require consideration, and when the accused has already been arraigned in court. When the Secretary of Justice is convinced that a petition for review does not suffer any of the infirmities laid down in Section 7, the Secretary can decide what action to take, whether to reverse, modify, affirm or dismiss the appeal altogether, conformably with Section 12. In other words, Sections 7 and 12 are part of a two-step approach in the Secretary's review power. The respondent's reliance on the earlier case involving an arraignment likewise failed, because the petitioner here had not been arraigned, as in fact no information had been filed against her.

The Court closed by stressing that in the absence of grave abuse of discretion on the part of a public prosecutor, who alone determines the sufficiency of evidence that will establish probable cause in filing a criminal information, courts will not interfere with his findings; otherwise, courts would be swamped with petitions to review the exercise of discretion each time a criminal complaint is dismissed or given due course.

Doctrine

A preliminary investigation is merely inquisitorial and is not a quasi-judicial proceeding, because the prosecutor does not adjudicate guilt or innocence and exercises neither adjudication nor rule-making functions. It follows that the constitutional command in Section 14, Article Eight, that no decision shall be rendered by any court without expressing clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based, binds courts alone and does not extend to resolutions of the Secretary of Justice reviewing a prosecutor's action, since the Department of Justice is not a quasi-judicial body.

The review power of the Secretary of Justice proceeds in two steps. Under Section 7, the Secretary may dismiss a petition outright only on the grounds of patent lack of merit, manifest intent to delay, unsubstantial issues, or prior arraignment of the accused. Absent any of those infirmities, the Secretary moves to Section 12 and may reverse, affirm, modify, or dismiss the appeal altogether, motu proprio or upon motion, including on the ground that there is no showing of any reversible error. Courts will not interfere with the prosecutor's determination of probable cause absent grave abuse of discretion.

Disposition

The petition was granted; the decision of the Court of Appeals was reversed and set aside, and the resolutions of the Secretary of Justice dismissing the perjury complaint were reinstated. The petitioner won.

Remember This

The one line to memorize: the Department of Justice is not a quasi-judicial body, so Section 14, Article Eight does not reach its resolutions, and Sections 7 and 12 of the National Prosecution Service Rule on Appeal form a two-step review power. Examiners use this case to test the scope of the constitutional duty to state the facts and the law, and to test whether a candidate can separate an outright dismissal under Section 7 from a dismissal on the merits under Section 12.