SECOND
DIVISION
THE MINOR
FRANCISCO
JUAN LARRANAGA,
represented
in this
suit by his mother,
MARGARITA
G.
LARRANAGA,
Petitioner,
G.
R.
No. 130644
October
27, 1997
-versus-
COURT
OF APPEALS
and PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES,
Respondents.
R
E S O L U
T I O N
PUNO,
J.:
On October 1, 1997,
Petitioner Margarita G. Larranaga filed a petition for certiorari,
prohibition
and mandamus with writs of preliminary prohibitory and mandatory
injunction
seeking to annul the information for kidnapping and serious illegal
detention
against her minor son, Francisco Juan Larranaga alias Paco,
filed
in the RTC[1]
of Cebu City as well as the warrant of arrest issued as a consequence
thereof.
Petitioner as an alternative remedy prays for the annulment of the order[2]
of the Office of the City Prosecutor of Cebu denying Larranaga's motion
for a regular preliminary investigation and that it be conducted by a
panel
of prosecutors from the Office of the State Prosecutor, Department of
Justice.
On October 6, 1997, petitioner filed a Supplemental Petition praying
for
the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus to relieve her son from his
alleged
illegal confinement or to grant him bail.
It appears that on September
15, 1997, some PNP CIG authorities went to the Center for Culinary Arts
located at 287 Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City to arrest
Francisco Juan Larranaga. Larranaga, thru his lawyer, Atty. Raymundo
Armovit
remonstrated against the warrantless arrest. The police did not carry
out
the arrest on the assurance that Larranaga would be brought to Cebu
City
by his lawyer on September 17, 1997 for preliminary investigation.cralaw:red
On September 17, 1997,
Atty. Armovit attended the preliminary investigation conducted by the
Office
of the City State Prosecutor of Cebu. Forthwith, he moved that his
client
be given a regular preliminary investigation. He also requested for
copies
of all affidavits and documents in support of the complaint against his
client and that he be granted a non-extendible period of twenty (20)
days
from their receipt to file the defense affidavit. The motion was denied
by the city prosecutor on the ground that Larranaga should be treated
as
a detention prisoner, hence entitled only to an inquest investigation.
Atty. Armovit was ordered to present Larranaga in person. He was warned
that his failure would be treated as waiver of his client's right to a
preliminary investigation and he would be proceeded against pursuant to
section 7, Rule 112 of the Rules of Court. Atty. Armovit's verbal
motion
for reconsideration was denied by the city prosecutor.cralaw:red
On September 19, 1997,
Larranaga, thru counsel, rushed to the Court of Appeals assailing the
actuations
of the Cebu prosecutors thru a petition for certiorari, prohibition and
mandamus.[3]
However, Larranaga's effort to stop the filing of a criminal
information
against him failed. It turned out that on September 17, 1997 the said
prosecutors
had filed an information with the RTC of Cebu charging Larranaga with
kidnapping
and serious illegal detention. The prosecutors recommended no bail. On
September 22, 1997, counsel filed a Supplemental Petition with the
Court
of Appeals impleading the RTC of Cebu City to prevent petitioner's
arrest.
The move again proved fruitless as Larranaga was arrested on the night
of September 22, 1997 by virtue of a warrant of arrest issued by the
Executive
Judge of the RTC of Cebu City, the Honorable Priscila Agana. A second
Supplemental
Petition was filed by Larranaga's counsel in the Court of Appeals
bringing
to its attention the arrest of Larranaga. On September 25, 1997 the
Court
of Appeals' dismissed Larranaga's petitions, hence, the case at bar.cralaw:red
On October 8, 1997,
We ordered the Solicitor General to file a consolidated comment on the
petition within a non-extendible period of ten (10) days. On October
16,
1997, We temporarily restrained the presiding judge of Branch 7 of the
RTC of Cebu from proceeding with the case to prevent the issues from
becoming
moot.
On October 20, 1997,
the Office of the Solicitor General filed a Manifestation and Motion in
lieu of Consolidated Comment. The Solicitor General submitted that "it
is within petitioner's constitutional and legal rights to demand that a
regular preliminary investigation rather than a mere inquest be
conducted
before resolving the issue of whether or not to file informations
against
him." He asked that "the petition be given due course and petitioner be
accorded his right to preliminary investigation." He further
recommended
that " during the pendency thereof, petitioner be released from
detention."
We agree.cralaw:red
Petitioner is entitled
not to a mere inquest investigation but to a regular preliminary
investigation.
Section 7 of Rule 112 cannot be invoked to justify petitioner's inquest
investigation. Said section clearly provides that "when a person is
lawfully
arrested without a warrant for an offense cognizable by the Regional
Trial
Court, the complaint or information may be filed by the offended party,
peace officer or fiscal without a preliminary investigation having been
first conducted, on the basis of the affidavit of the offended party or
arresting officer or person."
The records do not show
that petitioner was "lawfully arrested." For one the petitioner was not
arrested on September 15, 1997, as his counsel persuaded the arresting
officers that he would instead be presented in the preliminary
investigation
to be conducted in Cebu City on September 17, 1997. For another, the
arresting
officers had no legal authority to make a warrantless arrest of the
petitioner
for a crime committed some two (2) months before. So we held in Go vs.
Court of Appeals, viz:[4]
Secondly, We do not
belie that the warrantless "arrest" or detention of petitioner in the
instant
case falls within the terms of Section 5 of Rule 113 of the 1985 Rules
on Criminal Procedure which provides:
Sec. 5. Arrest
without
warrant; when lawful.- A peace officer or a private person
may,
without a warrant, arrest a person:
(a) When in his
presence,
the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is
attempting to commit an offense;
(b) When an
offense
has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts
indicating that the person to be arrested has committed it; and
(c) When the
person
to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped from a penal establishment
or place where he is serving final judgment or temporarily confined
while
his case is pending, or has escaped while being transferred from one
confinement
to another.
In cases falling
under
paragraphs (a) and (b) hereof, the person arrested without a warrant
shall
be forthwith delivered to the nearest police station or jail, and he
shall
be proceeded against in accordance with Rule 112, Section 7.
Petitioner's "arrest" took
place six (6) days after the shooting of Maguan. The "arresting"
officers
obviously were not present, within the meaning of Section 5(a), at the
time petitioner had allegedly shot Maguan. Neither could the "arrest"
effected
six (6) days after the shooting be reasonably regarded as effected
"when
[the shooting had] in fact just been committed" within the meaning of
Section
5(b). Moreover, none of the "arresting" officers had any "personal
knowledge"
of facts indicating that petitioner was the gunman who had shot Maguan.
The information upon which the police acted had been derived from
statements
made by alleged eyewitnesses to the shooting one stated that
petitioner
was the gunman; another was able to take down the alleged gunman's
car's
plate number which turned out to be registered in petitioner's wife's
name.
That information did not, however, constitute "personal knowledge."
It is thus clear to
the Court that there was no lawful warrantless arrest of petitioner
within
the meaning of Section 5 of Rule 113. It is clear, too, that Section 7
of Rule 112 is not applicable. When the police filed a complaint
for frustrated homicide with the Prosecutor, the latter should have
immediately
scheduled a preliminary investigation to determine whether there was
probable
cause for charging petitioner in court for the killing of Eldon Maguan.
Instead, as noted earlier, the Prosecutor proceeded under the erroneous
supposition that Section 7 of Rule 112 was applicable and required
petitioner
to waive the provisions of Article 125 of the Revised Penal Code as a
condition
for carrying out a preliminary investigation. This was substantive
error,
for petitioner was entitled to a preliminary investigation and that
right
should have been accorded him without any conditions. Moreover, since
petitioner
had not been arrested, with or without a warrant, he was also entitled
to be released forthwith subject only to his appearing at the
preliminary
investigation.cralaw:red
It then follows that
the right of petitioner to a regular preliminary investigation pursuant
to Section 3 of Rule 112 cannot stand any diminution. Petitioner, a
minor,
is charged with a capital offense kidnapping and serious illegal
detention. Its filing in court means his arrest and incarceration as in
all probability he would not be allowed bail. His conviction will bring
him face to face with the death penalty. Thus, petitioner's counsel was
far from being unreasonable when he demanded from the city prosecutors
that he be furnished copies of the affidavits supporting the complaint
and that he be given a non-extendible period of twenty (20) days to
submit
defense affidavit. As well pointed out by petitioner's counsel, the
precipitate
denial of his motion " prevented petitioner from preparing and
submitting
the affidavits of some forty (40) classmates, teachers, proctors and
security
guards who had previously made known their willingness to testify that:
during the whole day of July 16 and again on July 17 petitioner and his
classmates were all in their school at Quezon City; in fact in the
afternoon
of July 16 and 17, 1997, petitioner and his classmates took their
mid-term
exams;
following their
exams on July 16 they had partied together first at Petitioner's Quezon
City apartment until about 9 o'clock in the evening, and then repaired
to a Quezon City restaurant at Katipunan Avenue where they stayed on
until
3 o'clock in the morning of July 17; they even had pictures taken of
their
party; indeed petitioner's July 16 examination papers and
that
of a classmate are ready for submission as evidence, along with
petitioner's
grades for the term's end in September 1997; two of their
teachers,
also a proctor, and a security guard actually remember seeing
petitioner
at their Quezon City school on July 16 and 17;
petitioner was
duly registered and attended classes starting June 1997 until term's
end
in September 1997;
petitioner had
also been logged to have been in his Quezon City apartment since June
1997,
particularly including July 16 and 17; petitioner only went to
Cebu
late afternoon of July 17 on board PAL flight No. PR833, as shown by
his
plane ticket and boarding pass.cralaw:red
Fairness dictates that
the request of petitioner for a chance to be heard in a capital offense
case should have been granted by the Cebu City prosecutor. In Webb vs.
de Leon,[5]
we emphasized that "attuned to the times, our Rules have discarded the
pure inquisitorial system of preliminary investigation. Instead, Rule
112
installed a quasi-judicial type of preliminary investigation conducted
by one whose high duty is to be fair and impartial. As this Court
emphasized
in Rolito Go vs. Court of Appeals, 'the right to have a preliminary
investigation
conducted before being bound over for trial for a criminal offense and
hence formally at risk of incarceration or some other penalty, is not a
mere formal or technical right; it is a substantive right.' A
preliminary
investigation should therefore be scrupulously conducted so that the
constitutional
right to liberty of a potential accused can be protected from any
material
damage."
IN VIEW WHEREOF, the
Court resolves:
(1) to set aside the
inquest investigation of petitioner and to order the Office of the City
Prosecutor of Cebu to conduct a regular preliminary investigation of
the
petitioner in accord with section 3, Rule 112;
(2) to annul the Order
for Detention During The Pendency of the Case issued by Executive Judge
Priscila Agana against the petitioner in Crim. Case No. CBU-45303 and
45304;
(3) to order the immediate
release of petitioner pending his preliminary investigation; and
(4) to order the Presiding
Judge of Br. VII, RTC of Cebu City to cease and desist from proceeding
with the arraignment and trial of petitioner in Crim. Case No.
CBU-45303
and 45304, pending the result of petitioner's preliminary investigation.
SO ORDERED.
Regalado, Mendoza and
Torres, Jr., JJ., concur.cralaw:red
_________________________________
Endnotes
[1]
Branch VII.
[2]Dated September 17, 1997.
[3]
The case was docketed as CA-G. R. SP No. 45340.
[4]
206 SCRA 138.
[5]
247 SCRA 652, 687. |