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CONCURRING OPINION

VITUG, J.:

The pivotal issue proferred in the Petition for Prohibition - seeking (a) the dismissal of Criminal Case No. 22018 against petitioner pending with the Sandiganbayan and (b) to prevent the latter from further proceeding with case - is the claim made by petitioner of an impairment of his constitutional right to the speedy disposition of his case. I share the view reached by Mr. Justice Leonardo A. Quisumbing that the petition should be denied. A breach of the right of an accused to the speedy disposition of his case may truly have consequential effects but it is not enough that there be some procrastination in the proceedings. In order to justify the dismissal of the criminal case, foreclosing thereby even a rectification of its handling, it must be established that the proceedings unquestionably have been marred by vexatious, capricious and oppressive delays.¹ Hence, this Court has stressed in one case:

"It must be here emphasized that the right to a speedy disposition of a case, like the right to speedy trial, is deemed violated only when the proceeding is attended by vexatious, capricious, and oppressive delays; or when unjustified postponements of the trial are asked for and secured, or when without cause or justifiable motive a long period of time is allowed to elapse without the party having his case tried. Equally applicable is the balancing test used to determine whether a defendant has been denied his right to a speedy trial, or a speedy disposition of a case for that matter, in which the conduct of both the prosecution and the defendant are weighed, and such factors as length of the delay, reason for the delay, the defendant's assertion or non-assertion of his right, and prejudice to the defendant resulting from the delay, are considered."²cräläwvirtualibräry

Petitioner additionally scores on the fact that respondent Sandiganbayan issued the warrant for his arrest based solely on the 2nd June 1992 Resolution of the Office of the Ombudsman and the 16th January 1995 Memorandum of the Office of the Special Prosecutor. He has a point. The issuance of a warrant of arrest is one of grave responsibility on the part of the issuing judge. While the judge need not himself examine the complainant and his witnesses, he, however, must personally evaluate the report and supporting documents submitted by the prosecutor regarding the existence of probable cause and, only on the basis thereof can he validly and correspondingly issue a warrant of arrest. The judge may, if he finds it needful, require the submission of additional affidavits of witnesses or papers to aid him in arriving at a conclusion on the existence or absence of probable cause.³ In Ho vs.People,⁴ the Court, positing that the issuing judge must have sufficient supporting documents, besides the bare report of the prosecutor, upon which to make an independent judgment, has said:

"x x x (T)he judge cannot rely solely on the report of the prosecutor in finding probable cause to justify the issuance of a warrant of arrest. Obviously and understandably, the contents of the prosecutor's report will support his own conclusion that there is reason to charge the accused of an offense and hold him for trial. However, the judge must decide independently. Hence, he must have supporting evidence, other than the prosecutor's bare report, upon which to legally sustain his own findings on the existence (or nonexistence) of probable cause to issue an arrest order. This responsibility of determining personally and independently the existence or nonexistence of probable cause is lodged in him by no less than the most basic law of the land. Parenthetically, the prosecutor could ease the burden of the judge and speed up the litigation process by forwarding to the latter not only the information and his bare resolution finding probable cause, but also so much of the records and the evidence on hand as to enable His Honor to make his personal and separate judicial finding on whether to issue a warrant of arrest."

"Lastly, it is not required that the complete or entire records of the case during the preliminary investigation be submitted to and examined by the judge. We do not intend to unduly burden trial courts by obliging them to examine the complete records of every case all the time simply for the purpose of ordering the arrest of an accused. What is required, rather, is that the judge must have sufficient supporting documents (such as the complaint, affidavits, counter-affidavits, sworn statements of witnesses or transcripts of stenographic notes, if any) upon which to make his independent judgment or, at the very least, upon which to verify the findings of the prosecutor as to the existence of probable cause. The point is: he cannot rely solely and entirely on the prosecutor's recommendation, as Respondent Court did in this case. Although the prosecutor enjoys the legal presumption of regularity in the performance of his official duties and functions, which in turn gives his report the presumption of accuracy, the Constitution, we repeat, commands the judge to personally determine probable cause in the issuance of warrants of arrest. This Court has consistently held that a judge fails in his bounden duty if he relies merely on the certification or the report of the investigating officer."

The foregoing dictum would, however, be inconsequential in a case when the person on whom the warrant is served has, in some other way, effectively submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the court. One such case is by the posting of bail.⁵ The fact that the issuance of the warrant of arrest is assailed for its procedural flaws before the posting of bail is of little moment since the arrest relates merely to the jurisdiction of the court which posting would, of course, only be feasible if the court allowing it would have first acquired lawful jurisdiction over person at the time.⁶cräläwvirtualibräry

In Callanta vs. Villanueva⁷ the Court had occasion to state:

" With the express admission by petitioner that she had posted the required bail to obtain her provisional liberty, it becomes futile to assail the validity of the issuance of the warrants of arrest. This excerpt from the opinion of Justice Sanchez in Zacarias vs. Cruz [30 SCRA 728] finds pertinence: 'Posting of a bail bond constitutes waiver of any irregularity attending the arrest of a person, estops him from discussing the validity of his arrest. In the recent case of Luna vs. Plaza* * *, our ruling is that where petitioner has filed an application for bail and waived the preliminary investigation proper, 'he waived his objection to whatever defect, if any, in the preliminary examination conducted * * * prior to the issuance of the warrant of arrest. '[26 SCRA 310] As a matter of fact, such a doctrine goes back to People vs. Olandag [92 Phil. 286], the opinion being rendered by former Chief Justice Paras. After Zacarias, mention may be made of three other decisions, Bermejo vs. Barrios [31 SCRA 764; People vs. La Caste [37 SCRA 767], and Manzano vs. Villa [46 SCRA 711]. The latest case in point is People vs. Obngayan [55 SCRA 465] where this Court, through Justice Antonio, after referring to Luna vs. Plaza, again reiterated the ruling 'that where the accused has filed bail and waived the preliminary investigation proper, he has waived whatever defect, if any, in the preliminary examination conducted prior to the issuance of the warrant of arrest [Ibid., 471]."