[ G.R. No. L-101. December 20, 1945 ] 75 Phil. 634
[ G.R. No. L-101. December 20, 1945 ]
HAYDEE HERRAS TEEHANKEE, PETITIONER, VS. LEOPOLDO ROVIRA, ANTONIO QUIBINO, AND POMPEYO DIAZ, RESPONDENTS. D E C I S I O N
HILADO, J.:
Petitioner Haydee Herras Teehankee is a political detainee delivered by the Counter Intelligence Corps, United States Army, to the Commonwealth Government, pursuant to the Proclamation of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, dated December 29, 1944. She was one of the petitioners in case No. L-44, “Raquiza vs. Bradford,” of this court (p. 50, ante). She is now confined in the Correctional Institution for Women under the custody of the Commonwealth Government since October, 1945, when she was thus delivered to the said government.
Under date of October 2, 1945, petitioner, through her husband, Alberto Teehankee, filed with the People’s Court a petition wherein, invoking the provisions of Executive Order No. 65, promulgated by His Excellency, the President of the Philippines, dated September 3, 1945, she prayed that her immediate release be ordered on the ground that no evidence exists upon which she could be charged with any act punishable by law, or, alternatively, that the People’s Court fix the bail for her provisional liberty, in conformity with the aforesaid executive order, and upon approval of such bail, that an order be forthwith issued directing the officer having official custody of her person to immediately release her.
On October 4, 1945, the Hon. Antonio Quirino, one of the Associate Judges of the People’s Court, upon considering the said petition, required the Solicitor General “to file his comment and recommendation as soon as possible.”
On October 5, 1945, the Solicitor General filed recommendation in compliance with said order, stating: “that on the strength of the evidence at hand, the reasonable bail recommended for the provisional release of the petitioner be fixed at Fifty Thousand Pesos (P50.000).”
On October 9, 1945, the Hon. Leopoldo Rovira, Presiding Judge of the People’s Court, entered an order referring the petition for provisional release above mentioned for consideration by the Fifth Division of said Court, but adding the following statement: “in my opinion, it should be denied notwithstanding the recommendation of the Solicitor General for her provisional release under a bond of Fifty Thousand Pesos (P50,000).”
On the same date, October 9, 1945, the Hon. Pompeyo Diaz, Associate Judge of said Court, entered an order disposing of said petition and denying the same “in view of the gravity of the offense as can be deduced from the fact that the office of the Special Prosecutors recommends as high as Fifty Thousand Pesos (50,000) for her provisional release.” A motion having been filed by petitioner with the People’s Court praying said court to reconsider its order of October 9, 1945, denying her petition for provisional release, the Court, through Associate Judge Pompeyo Diaz, denied said motion.
In her present petition for the writs of certiorari and mandamus originally filed with this Court on October 19, 1945, petitioner avers that the above-mentioned Judges of the People’s Court, in denying her petition for provisional liberty under bail, as well as her motion for reconsideration, acted in excess of jurisdiction and with grave abuse of discretion. Paragraph VII of this petition contains her allegations in support of this charge.
Under date of October 21, 1945, respondent Judge Pompeyo Diaz filed his answer stating that the order denying bail “was issued under express mandate of the law”, citing section 19 of Commonwealth Act No. 682.
Article III, section 1 (16) of the Commonwealth Constitution provides that:
“All persons shall before conviction be bailable by sufficient sureties, except those charged with capital offenses when evidence of guilt is strong. Kxcessive bail shall not be required.” Rule 110 of the Rules of Court provides in the following sections:
“SEC. 3. Offenses less than capital before conviction by the Court of First Instance.—After judgment by a justice of the peace and before conviction by the Court of First Instance, the defendant shall be admitted to bail as of right.
“SEC. 4. Noncapital offenses after conviction by the Court of First Instance.—After conviction by the Court of First Instance, defendant may, upon application, be bailed at the discretion of the court.
“SEC. 5. Capital offenses defined.—A capital offense, as the term is used in this rule, is an offense which, under the law existing at the time of its commission, and at the time of the application to be admitted to bail, may be punished by death.
“SEC. 6. Capital offense not bailable.—No person in custody for the commission of a capital offense shall be admitted to bail if the evidence of his guilt is strong.
“SEC. 7. Capital offenses-burden of proof.—On the hearing of an application for admission to bail made by any person who is in custody for the commission of a capital offense, the burden of showing that evidence of guilt is strong is on the prosecution.
“SEC. 8. Notice of application to fiscal.—When admission to bail is a matter of discretion, the court must require that reasonable notice of the hearing of the application for bail be given to the fiscal.”
Section 66 of General Orders, No. 58 stipulates:
“When admission to bail is a matter of discretion, the court must require that reasonable notice of the hearing of the application for bail be given to the promotor fiscal.”
Section 19 of Commonwealth Act No. 682 contains the following proviso:
“SEC. 19. * * * Provided, however, That existing provisions of law to the contrary notwithstanding, the aforesaid political prisoners may, in the discretion of the People’s Court, after due notice to the office of Special Prosecutors and hearing, be released on bail, even prior to the presentation of the corresponding information, unless the Court finds that there is strong evidence of the commission of a capital offense. * * *.”
Section 22 of Commonwealth Act No. 682 ordains:
“SEC. 22. The prosecution, trial and disposal of cases before the People’s Court shall be governed by existing laws and rules of court, unless otherwise expressly provided herein * * *.”
Against the petitioner herein no information had yet been presented when she filed her petition dated October 2, 1945, containing the alternative prayer for the fixing of bail for her provisional liberty. She there invokes Executive Order No. 65 of the President of the Philippines, dated September 3, 1945. The proviso above quoted from section 19 of the People’s Court Act (Commonwealth Act No. 682) also existed in the statute books at the time.
The able arguments adduced on both sides have received the most careful consideration of the Court as befits the importance of the questions involved. However, in the view we take of the case, a majority of the Court are of opinion that the only questions calling for decision at this time are: (1) whether Article III, section 1(16) of the Commonwealth Constitution is applicable to the instant case; (2) whether a hearing should be held of the application for bail with the attendance of the petitioner and the Solicitor General or the latter’s representative; and (3) if so, what kind of hearing it should be.
As to the first question, we hold that Article III, section 1(16) of the Commonwealth Constitution is applicable to the instant case. This constitutional mandate refers to all persons, not only to persons against whom a complaint or information has already been formally filed. It lays down the rule that all persons shall before conviction be bailable except those charged with capital offenses when evidence of guilt is strong. According to this provision, the general rule is that any person, before being convicted of any criminal offense, shall be bailable, except when he is charged with a capital offense and the evidence of his guilt is strong. Of course, only those persons who have been either arrested, detained or otherwise deprived of their liberty will ever have occasion to seek the benefits of said provision. But in order that a person can invoke this constitutional precept, it is not necessary that he should wait until a formal complaint or information is filed against him. From the moment he is placed under arrest, detention or restraint by the officers of the law, he can claim this guarantee of the Bill of Rights, and this right he retains unless and until he is charged with a capital offense and evidence of his guilt is strong. Indeed if, as admitted on all sides, the precept protects those already charged under a formal complaint or information, there seems to be no legal or just reason for denying its benefits to one as against whom the proper authorities may even yet conclude that there exists no sufficient evidence of guilt. To place the former in a more favored position than the latter would be, to say the least, anomalous and absurd. If there is a presumption of innocence in favor of one already formally charged with criminal offense (Constitution, Article III, section 1 [17], a fortiori, this presumption should be indulged in favor of one not yet so charged, although already arrested or detained.
In Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations, 7th edition, pages 436-438, we read the following:
“Perhaps the most important of the protections to personal liberty consists in the mode of trial which is secured to every person accused of crime. At the common law, accusations of f«lony were made in the form of an indictment by a grand jury; and this process is still retained in many of the States, while others have substituted in its stead an information filed by the prosecuting officer of the State or county. Th§ mode of investigating the facts, however, is the same in all; and this is through a trial by jury, surrounded by certain safeguards which are a well-understood part of the system, and which the government cannot dispense with.
“First, we may mention that the humanity of our law always presumes an accused party innocent until he is proved to be guilty. This is a presumption which attends all the proceedings against him, from their initiation until they result in a verdict, which either finds the party guilty or converts the presumption of innocence into an adjudged fact.
“If there were any mode short of confinement which would, with reasonable certainty, insure the attendance of the accused to answer the accusation, it would not be justifiable to inflict upon him that indignity, when the effect is to subject him, in a greater or less degree, to the punishment of a guilty person, while as yet it is not determined that he has committed any crime. If the punishment on conviction cannot exceed in severity the forfeiture of a large sum of money, then it is reasonable to suppose that such a sum of money, or an agreement by responsible parties to pay it to the government in case the accused should fail to appear, would be sufficient security for his attendance; and therefore, at the common law, it was customary to take security of this character in all cases of misdemeanor • one or more friends of the accused undertaking for his appearance for trial, and agreeing that a certain sum of money should be levied of their goods and chattels, lands and tenements, if he made default. But in the case of felonies, the privilege of giving bail before trial was not a matter of right; and in this country, although tfie criminal code is much more merciful than it formerly was in England, and in some cases the allowance of bail is almost a matter of course, there are others in ¦which it is discretionary with the magistrate to allow it or not, and where it will sometimes be refused if the evidence of guilty is strong or the presumption great. Capital offenses are not generally regarded as bailable; at least, after indictment, or when the party is charged by the finding of a coroner’s jury; * * *.”
All that Justice Cooley says in the foregoing quotations regarding the humanity of the law in his jurisdiction and its presumption that an accused party is innocent until he is proved to be guilty, is distinctly true also in ours where the constitutional, statutory, and reglementary provisions on the point have been borrowed from America. The same should be said of what he says regarding the granting of bail for provisional liberty before conviction, and even after, in exceptional cases, of course, always subject to the limitations established by our own Constitution, laws, and rules of court. From the last part of said quotation it follows, firstly, that before indictment or charge by the coroner’s jury, in trie jurisdiction to which the author refers, there may be cases in which even a capital offense is bailable, and, secondly, that even after indictment or the finding of a coroner’s jury in these jurisdictions, there may be exceptional cases where a capital offense is still bailable. Under our Constitution, as we have seen, all offenses are bailable before conviction except capital offenses when evidence of guilt is strong. In consonance with this constitutional provision, section 3 of Rule HO of the Rules of Court stipulates that non-capital offenses before conviction by the Court of First Instance shall be bailable as of right; section 4 of the same Rule provides that after conviction by the Court of First Instance such offenses may, upon application, be bailable at the discretion of the court; and section 6 of the said Rule provides that “no person in custody for the commission of a capital offense shall be admitted to bail if the evidence of his guilt is strong.”
“By the common law, all offenses including treason, murder, and other felonies, were bailable before indictment found, although the granting or refusing of such bail in case of capital offenses was a matter within the discretion of the court.” (6 C. J., 958; italics supplied.)
As to the second question, we hold that upon application by a political prisoner or detainee to the People’s Court for provisional release under bail, a hearing, summary or otherwise, should be held with due notice to the Office of Special Prosecutors, as well as to the prisoner or detainee. It will be remembered that section 22 of the People’s Court Act subjects the prosecution, trial, and disposal of cases before the People’s Court to “existing laws and rules of court,” unless otherwise expressly provided in said act. Consequently, the hearing and disposal of application for bail for provisional release before the People’s Court should be governed by existing laws and rules of court, the hearing and disposal of such applications being a mere part of the “prosecution, trial, and disposal” of the corresponding cases before said court. If attention should be directed to the clause “unless otherwise expressly provided herein” in said section 22, in connection with the first proviso of section 19 of the same act, it should be borne in mind that the provisions of said act should be construed in harmony with those of the Constitution, under the well-settled rule of statutory construction that legislative enactments should be construed, wherever possible, in a manner that would avoid their conflicting with the fundamental law.
As to the third question. While it is true that the Solicitor General on October 3, 1945, recommended Fifty Thousand Pesos (P50,000) as a reasonable bail “on the strength of the evidence at hand,” it may happen that thereafter his office may have secured additional evidence which, in addition to or in connection with that he already possessed, in his opinion is sufficiently strong to prove petitioner’s guilt for a capital offense, in which case, he may yet decide to oppose the application for bail heretofore filed by the petitioner at the hearing thereof hereinafter ordered. It will be remembered that petitioner, while under the custody of the Counter Intelligence Corps, United States Army, was charged with (a) “Active collaboration with the Japanese” and (b) “Previous association with the enemy” (Raquiza vs. Bradford, p. 50, ante). Under the definition of treason in the Revised Penal Code, active collaboration with the Japanese and association with them during the war in the Philippines may constitute treason, a capital offense.
“ART. 114. Any person who, owing allegiance to the United States or the Government of the Philippine Islands, not being a foreigner, * * * adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort within the Philippine Islands or elsewhere, shall be punished by reclusion temporal to death and shall pay a fine not to exceed 20,000 pesos.” (Revised Penal Code.)
Of course, it may also happen that, either because no such further evidence has come into his possession or because, in his judgment, the public interest would be better served by his withholding the evidence that he has until the trial in the merits, he would prefer not to oppose the application for bail. At the hearing of the application the Solicitor General will be free to adopt one course or the other. If he opposes, the burden of proof will be on him to show that petitioner is not entitled to bail. Petitioner will have the right to offer evidence to prove her right thereto. In fine, the hearing is for the purpose of enabling the People’s Court to exercise its sound discretion as to whether or not under the Constitution and laws in force petitioner is entitled to provisional release under bail.
Wherefore, it is the judgment of this Court that: (a) the order of the People’s Court, dated October 9, 1945, denying petitioner’s petition for provisional release under bail, and the order of said Court, dated October 13, 1945, denying petitioner’s motion for reconsideration of said order of October 9, 1945, which we declare to have been entered with grave abuse of discretion, be set aside; and (b) that for the proper application of the pertinent constitutional, statutory, and reglementary provisions alluded to in the body of this decision, a hearing of petitioner’s application for bail be held before the People’s Court with due notice to the Solicitor General, as well as to the petitioner, as hereinabove outlined, said hearing, whether summary or otherwise, to be such as would enable the People’s Court to exercise its sound discretion in the disposal of the aforesaid petition. Without costs. So ordered.
Moran, C. J., and Briones, J., concur. Jaranilla, Feria, Pablo, and Bengzon, JJ., concur only in the result.