[ G.R. No. L-1217. September 22, 1947 ] 79 Phil. 297
[ G.R. No. L-1217. September 22, 1947 ]
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. GERARDO NAZARIO Y ENRIQUEZ, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT. D E C I S I O N
PARAS, J.:
The appellant, Gerardo Nazario y Enriquez, was accused in the Municipal Court of Manila of qualified theft and, after trial, convicted of only simple theft for which he was sentenced to four months and one day of arresto mayor and to pay the costs. An appeal was taken to the Court of First Instance of Manila wherein a plea of not guilty was entered by the appellant who, however, subsequently withdrew the same and pleaded guilty to simple theft. Whereupon, he was sentenced to the same penalty imposed by the Municipal Court. After a notice of appeal had been filed, the appellant presented a motion praying that the judgment be set aside, that he be allowed to withdraw his plea of guilty and substitute it with his former plea of not guilty, and that a new trial be held. No action on this motion appears to have been taken by the Court of First Instance; and in the appeal now before us, the appellant contends that said motion should have been granted.
Section 6 of Rule of Court No. 114 provides that if judgment of conviction has been entered on a plea of guilty and the same has not become final, “the court may set aside such judgment, and allow a plea of not guilty, or, with the consent of the fiscal, allow a plea of guilty of a lesser offense which is necessarily included in the charge.” Consequently, in not allowing the withdrawal of appellant’s plea of guilty, the Court of First Instance of Manila merely exercised a clearly discretionary power in a way warranted by the circumstances of this case. The appellant cannot be said to have acted ignorantly and hastily in the matter, not only because he was assisted by an attorney de oficio, but because, after his trial and conviction in the Municipal Court, he must have been more than sufficiently conversant with his case at the time he was arraigned, on appeal, in the Court of First Instance. The withdrawal was made after a notice of appeal had been filed and was based on an allegation that the principal witnesses for the prosecution had already gone to the United States, from which the implication is plain that said withdrawal was a colorable afterthought. As hinted in the brief for the Government, the affidavit of one Cayetano Suarez attached to the motion for withdrawal and claimed to be newly discovered evidence, contains gratuitous conclusions regarding appellant’s innocence that “cannot be given greater weight than the very admission of appellant.”
The appellant also argues that the lower court should have considered his plea of guilty as a mitigating circumstance. This argument raises a question already well settled by the rule that the appellant’s plea of guilty entered upon appeal in the Court of First Instance cannot be considered a mitigating circumstance. (People vs. Hermino, 64 Phil., 403; People vs. Bawasanta, 64 Phil., 409; People vs. Javier, 64 Phil., 413; People vs. Cariaga, G. R. No. 46245, October 18, 1938; People vs. Jose, 68 Phil., 396.)
Even so, we are constrained to restate, for the benefit of those who would seek to re-examine the rule, the following considerations in support of our adherence: (1) The reason for the existence of the mitigating circumstance of the plea of guilty is that it reveals to a certain extent an act of repentance, a moral disposition favorable to the defendant’s reform and submission to the law (People vs. De la Cruz (63 Phil., 874), cited in People vs. Hermino (supra), the evident purpose of the statute being to encourage such repentance which not only ennobles the soul and tends to avoid recidivism but also saves the Government from the expenses of a trial and the judicial and executive officials from much trouble (People vs. Javier, supra). Such repentance cannot be attributed to the herein appellant who not only did not plead guilty in the competent court of origin (Municipal Court) but appealed, first, to the Court of First Instance and, then, to this Court. (2) The contrary rule will open the door to cases wherein the defendant intentionally abstains from pleading guilty in the justice of the peace or municipal court in the hope of being acquitted and, upon conviction and on appeal to the Court of First Instance, pleads guilty merely for the purpose of enjoying the benefit of such mitigating circumstance. In such cases the spontaneous willingness on the part of the defendant to admit the commission of the offense charged, the very thing rewarded by the mitigating circumstance, in question, is certainly absent. (3) While a trial de novo in the Court of First Instance technically means a trial in the same manner, with the same effect, and upon the same issues as when the case was tried in the Municipal Court, in accordance with the rules of practice in the appellate court (Crisostomo vs. Director of Prisons, 41 Phil., 468), it does not follow that all the proceedings in the lower court have thereby been wiped out so as to preclude the ascertainment of whether the defendant voluntarily pleaded guilty for the purpose of determining the presence of said mitigating circumstance (People vs. Bawasanta, supra). (4) Inasmuch as an accused will not plead guilty unless he in fact committed the offense which he is charged, there is neither sense nor reason for allowing him, upon a plea of not guilty, to be tried and convicted in a municipal or justice of the peace court before he can be said to have discovered for the first time, in the Court of First Instance, that he is the author of said offense.
Being in accordance with law, the appealed judgment is hereby affirmed with costs against the appellant. So ordered.
Feria, Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, and Tuason, JJ., concur.