IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS. JUAN PONCE ENRILE, PETITIONER, VS. JUDGE JAIME SALAZAR (PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE REGIONAL TRIAL COURT OF QUEZON CITY

Enrile versus Salazar

The Case

This is a petition for habeas corpus filed by Senator Juan Ponce Enrile against Judge Jaime Salazar, the presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City, after the senator was arrested and detained on an information charging rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder. The case matters because it is the Supreme Court's definitive restatement of the doctrine first laid down in People versus Hernandez: rebellion absorbs all other offenses committed in its course, so that an information worded as a complex crime must be read as charging simple rebellion only. It is also a stern lesson on procedure, teaching that habeas corpus is not the proper vehicle to assert a right to bail that belongs in the first instance to the trial court.

Procedural History

Senator Enrile was arrested on the strength of a warrant issued by Judge Salazar of the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City, Branch 103, in a criminal case for rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder. Through counsel, he filed a petition for habeas corpus directly in the Supreme Court, followed by a supplemental petition. Two of his co-accused, the spouses Rebecco and Erlinda Panlilio, filed a separate petition, originally for certiorari and prohibition, which the Court treated as a petition for habeas corpus.

The Court issued the writ and heard the parties in oral argument. It then granted the petitioners provisional liberty upon the filing of cash or surety bonds, expressly without prejudice to a fuller resolution and without passing on the legal issues. The Court thereafter resolved the merits of Senator Enrile's petition, and applied the same principles to the virtually identical petition of the Panlilio spouses.

Facts

In the afternoon of February 27, 1990, Senate Minority Floor Leader Juan Ponce Enrile was arrested by law enforcement officers led by Director Alfredo Lim of the National Bureau of Investigation. The arrest was made on the strength of a warrant issued by Judge Jaime Salazar of the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City, Branch 103. The warrant had issued upon an information filed that same day by a panel of prosecutors, charging Senator Enrile, the spouses Rebecco and Erlinda Panlilio, and Gregorio Honasan with rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder, allegedly committed during a failed coup attempt.

Senator Enrile was taken to and held overnight at the National Bureau of Investigation headquarters without bail, none having been recommended in the information and none fixed in the arrest warrant. The following morning, he was brought to Camp Tomas Karingal in Quezon City and placed in the custody of the Superintendent of the Northern Police District.

On February 28, 1990, Senator Enrile, through counsel, filed the petition for habeas corpus, later followed by a supplemental petition. He alleged that he was deprived of his constitutional rights because he was held to answer for a criminal offense that does not exist in the statute books, because he was charged in an information for which no complaint was initially filed and no preliminary investigation was conducted, because he was denied his right to bail, and because he was arrested on a warrant issued without the judge first personally determining the existence of probable cause.

Issues

• Whether or not the doctrine in People versus Hernandez should be abandoned or limited, so that rebellion may be complexed with other offenses committed on the occasion thereof.
• Whether or not the information filed against the petitioner charges an offense defined and punished by law.
• Whether or not the petitioner was charged without a complaint having been initially filed and without a preliminary investigation having been conducted.
• Whether or not the warrant of arrest was issued without the judge first personally determining the existence of probable cause.
• Whether or not the petitioner was denied his right to bail, and whether a petition for habeas corpus in the Supreme Court was the proper vehicle to assert that right.

Applicable Provisions

Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code, as quoted in the Hernandez ruling, provides:

Las disposiciones del articulo anterior no son aplicables en el caso de que un solo hecho constituya dos o mas delitos, o cuando el uno de ellos sea medio necesario para cometer el otro. En estos casos solo se impondra la pena correspondiente al delito mas grave en su grado maximo, hasta el limite que represente la suma de las que pudieran imponerse, penando separadamente los delitos. Cuando la pena asi computada exceda de este limite, se sancionaran los delitos por separado.

This is the complexing provision whose application to rebellion the Court refused to extend, holding that rebellion absorbs the other offenses committed in its course.

Article 142-A of the Revised Penal Code, introduced by Presidential Decree Number 942 and later repealed, provided:

When by reason, or on the occasion, of any of the crimes penalized in this Chapter acts which constitute offenses upon which graver penalties are imposed by law are committed, the penalty for the most serious offense in its maximum period shall be imposed upon the offender.

Its repeal by the President under the 1986 Freedom Constitution reinstated Hernandez as binding doctrine with the effect of law.

Ruling

On the first issue, eleven Members of the Court voted against abandoning Hernandez, and the Court unanimously rejected the theory that Hernandez applies only to offenses committed as a necessary means for the commission of rebellion. The Court held that Hernandez remains binding doctrine operating to prohibit the complexing of rebellion with any other offense committed on the occasion thereof, whether as a means necessary to its commission or as an unintended effect of an activity that constitutes rebellion. The Court found that the repeal of the decree that had sought to nullify Hernandez reinstated it as binding doctrine with the effect of law.

On the second issue, the Court ruled by a vote of eleven to three that the information does in fact charge an offense. Disregarding the objectionable phrasing that would complex rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder, the indictment is to be read as charging simple rebellion. The Court quoted Hernandez:

In conclusion, we hold that, under the allegations of the amended information against defendant-appellant Amado V. Hernandez, the murders, arsons and robberies described therein are mere ingredients of the crime of rebellion allegedly committed by said defendants, as means necessary for the perpetration of said offense of rebellion; that the crime charged in the aforementioned amended information is, therefore, simple rebellion, not the complex crime of rebellion with multiple murder, arsons and robberies; that the maximum penalty imposable under such charge cannot exceed twelve years of prision mayor and a fine of P2H, HHH; and that, in conformity with the policy of this court in dealing with accused persons amenable to a similar punishment, said defendant may be allowed bail.

On the third issue, the Court found that a complaint against the petitioner for simple rebellion was filed by the Director of the National Bureau of Investigation, and that on the strength of that complaint a preliminary investigation was conducted, culminating in the filing of the questioned information. There is nothing irregular in filing an indictment for an offense different from what is charged in the initiatory complaint, if warranted by the evidence developed during the preliminary investigation.

On the fourth issue, the Court held that it is not the unavoidable duty of the judge to make a personal examination of the complainant and his witnesses, it being sufficient that he follows established procedure by personally evaluating the report and the supporting documents submitted by the prosecutor. The brief period within which the respondent judge acted does not overcome the legal presumption that official duty has been regularly performed.

On the fifth issue, the Court held that since the information charges only simple rebellion, which is bailable before conviction, the petitioner is entitled to bail as a matter of right. But the Court held that a petition for habeas corpus in the Supreme Court was not the appropriate vehicle to assert that right. The criminal case before the respondent judge was the normal venue, and the original jurisdiction to grant or deny bail rested with that court. The correct course was to file a petition to be admitted to bail, and only after denial should the review jurisdiction of the Supreme Court be invoked, and even then not without first applying to the Court of Appeals if appropriate relief was available there.

Doctrine

Rebellion absorbs all other offenses committed in its course, whether as a means necessary to its commission or as an unintended effect of an activity that constitutes rebellion. An information that complexes rebellion with murder or other common crimes must be read as charging simple rebellion only, and the accused is entitled to bail before final conviction as a matter of right. The complexing provision of Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code cannot be applied to rebellion, because that provision was enacted to favor the culprit, not to impose a penalty more severe than what would be proper if the acts were punished separately. A judge need not personally examine the complainant and his witnesses to determine probable cause; it is sufficient that he personally evaluates the report and supporting documents submitted by the prosecutor. Finally, habeas corpus is not the proper remedy to assert a right to bail; the accused must first invoke the original jurisdiction of the trial court, then seek review in the Court of Appeals, and only thereafter come to the Supreme Court.

Disposition

The Court held that the information charges simple rebellion only, that the petitioners are entitled to bail as a matter of right, and it remanded the proceedings to the respondent judge to fix the amount of bail, with the bonds filed in the Supreme Court to become functus oficio once bail is fixed.

Remember This

Memorize this line: rebellion absorbs all other offenses committed in its course, so an information that complexes rebellion with murder charges simple rebellion only, and the accused is entitled to bail as a matter of right. Examiners use this case to test the Hernandez doctrine on absorption and the rule that habeas corpus cannot substitute for a petition for bail in the trial court.