Lacson vs. Executive Secretary, 301 SCRA 298, G.R. No. 128096 January 20, 1999

G.R. No. 128096. January 20, 1999.*

PANFILO M. LACSON, petitioner, vs. THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, THE SANDIGANBAYAN, OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR, THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, MYRNA ABALORA, NENITA ALAP-AP, IMELDA PANCHO MONTERO, and THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.

ROMEO M. ACOP and FRANCISCO G. ZUBIA, JR., petitioners-intervenors.

Ponente: MARTINEZ, J.:

Nature of the case:

The constitutionality of Sections 4 and 7 of Republic Act No. 8249 — an act which further defines the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan — is being challenged in this petition for prohibition and mandamus. Petitioner Panfilo Lacson, joined by petitioners-intervenors Romeo Acop and Francisco Zubia, Jr., also seeks to prevent the Sandiganbayan from proceedings with the trial of Criminal Cases Nos. 23047-23057 (for multiple murder) against them on the ground of lack of jurisdiction.

Facts:

In May 1995, eleven members of the Kuratong Baleleng gang were killed by elements of the Anti-Bank Robbery and Intelligence Task Group (ABRITG) in Quezon City. A media expose alleged that it was a summary execution rather than a shoot-out. The Ombudsman formed a panel to investigate the incident, which absolved all police officers involved of criminal liability, stating it was a legitimate police operation. However, a review board recommended the indictment of 26 individuals, including petitioner Panfilo Lacson, for multiple murder. The charges were approved by the Ombudsman, except for Chief Supt. Ricardo de Leon. The accused filed a motion for reconsideration of the Ombudsman's action, and after a reinvestigation, Lacson was charged as an accessory rather than a principal. The accused also questioned the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan, stating that the cases should fall under the jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Court. The Sandiganbayan admitted the amended information and ordered the cases to be transferred to the Quezon City Regional Trial Court. The Office of the Special Prosecutor moved for a reconsideration, but it was opposed by Lacson and some of the other accused.

In May 1996, the Office of the Special Prosecutor moved for a reconsideration of the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan in a case involving the petitioner and some of the accused. While this motion was pending resolution, several bills were introduced in Congress that aimed to expand the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan by deleting the word "principal" from the phrase "principal accused" in a previous law. These bills were later approved as R.A. No. 8249 on February 5, 1997. The Sandiganbayan then denied the motion for reconsideration and retained jurisdiction to try and decide the cases. The petitioner is now questioning the constitutionality of R.A. No. 8249, arguing that the provisions were introduced in bad faith, that the retroactive application of the law is a violation of procedural due process and ex post facto legislation, and that the title of the law is misleading and violates the one-title one-subject requirement for the passage of statutes.

Doctrines:

The established rule is that every law has in its favor the presumption of constitutionality, and to justify its nullification there must be a clear and unequivocal breach of the Constitution, not a doubtful and argumentative one. The burden of proving the invalidity of the law lies with those who challenge it. That burden, we regret to say, was not convincingly discharged in the present case.

A perusal of the aforequoted Section 4 of R.A. 8249 reveals that to fall under the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan, the following requisites must concur:

(1) the offense committed is a violation of

(a) R.A. 3019, as amended (the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act),

(b) R.A. 1379 (the law on ill-gotten wealth),

(c) Chapter II, Section 2, Title VII, Book II of the Revised Penal Code (the law on bribery),

(d) Executive Order Nos. 1, 2, 14, and 14-A, issued in 1986 (sequestration cases), or

(e) other offenses or felonies whether simple or complexed with other crimes;

(2) the offender committing the offenses in items (a), (b), (c) and (e) is a public official or employee holding any of the positions enumerated in paragraph a of Section 4; and

(3) the offense committed is in relation to the office.

Considering that herein petitioner and intervenors are being charged with murder which is a felony punishable under Title VIII of the Revised Penal Code, the governing provision on the jurisdictional offense is not paragraph a but paragraph b, Section 4 of R.A. 8249. This paragraph b pertains to “other offenses or felonies whether simple or complexed with other crimes committed by the public officials and employees mentioned in subsection a of [Section 4, R.A. 8249] in relation to their office.” The phrase “other offenses or felonies” is too broad as to include the crime of murder, provided it was committed in relation to the accused’s official functions. Thus, under said paragraph b, what determines the Sandiganbayan’s jurisdiction is the official position or rank of the offender—that is, whether he is one of those public officers or employees enumerated in paragraph a of Section 4. The offenses mentioned in paragraphs a, b and c of the same Section 4 do not make any reference to the criminal participation of the accused public officer as to whether he is charged as a principal, accomplice or accessory. In enacting R.A. 8249, the Congress simply restored the original provisions of P.D. 1606 which does not mention the criminal participation of the public officer as a requisite to determine the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan.

Petitioner and intervenors’ posture that Sections 4 and 7 of R.A. 8249 violate their right to equal protection of the law because its enactment was particularly directed only to the Kuratong Baleleng cases in the Sandiganbayan, is a contention too shallow to deserve merit. No concrete evidence and convincing argument were presented to warrant a declaration of an act of the entire Congress and signed into law by the highest officer of the co-equal executive department as unconstitutional. Every classification made by law is presumed reasonable. Thus, the party who challenges the law must present proof of arbitrariness.

It is an established precept in constitutional law that the guaranty of the equal protection of the laws is not violated by a legislation based on reasonable classification. The classification is reasonable and not arbitrary when there is concurrence of four elements, namely:

(1) it must rest on substantial distinction;

(2) it must be germane to the purpose of the law;

(3) must not be limited to existing conditions only; and

(4) must apply equally to all members of the same class, all of which are present in this case.

The challengers of Sections 4 and 7 of R.A. 8249 failed to rebut the presumption of constitutionality and reasonableness of the questioned provisions. The classification between those pending cases involving the concerned public officials whose trial has not yet commenced and whose cases could have been affected by the amendments of the Sandiganbayan jurisdiction under R.A. 8249, as against those cases where trial had already started as of the approval of the law, rests on substantial distinction that makes real differences. In the first instance, evidence against them were not yet presented, whereas in the latter the parties had already submitted their respective proofs, examined witnesses and presented documents. Since it is within the power of Congress to define the jurisdiction of courts subject to the constitutional limitations, it can be reasonably anticipated that an alteration of that jurisdiction would necessarily affect pending cases, which is why it has to provide for a remedy in the form of a transitory provision. Thus, petitioner and intervenors cannot now claim that Sections 4 and 7 placed them under a different category from those similarly situated as them.

On the perceived bias that the Sandiganbayan Justices allegedly had against petitioner during the committee hearings, the same would not constitute sufficient justification to nullify an otherwise valid law. Their presence and participation in the legislative hearings was deemed necessary by Congress since the matter before the committee involves the graft court of which one is the head of the Sandiganbayan and the other a member thereof. The Congress, in its plenary legislative powers, is particularly empowered by the Constitution to invite persons to appear before it whenever it decides to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation.

There is nothing ex post facto in R.A. 8249. In Calder v. Bull, an ex post facto law is one—

(a) which makes an act done criminal before the passing of the law and which was innocent when committed, and punishes such action; or

(b) which aggravates a crime or makes it greater than when it was committed; or

(c) which changes the punishment and inflicts a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when it was committed;

(d) which alters the legal rules of evidence and receives less or different testimony than the law required at the time of the commission of the offense in order to convict the defendant;

(e) every law which, in relation to the offense or its consequences, alters the situation of a person to his disadvantage. This Court added two more to the list, namely:

(f) that which assumes to regulate civil rights and remedies only but in effect imposes a penalty or deprivation of a right which when done was lawful;

(g) deprives a person accused of crime of some lawful protection to which he has become entitled, such as the protection of a former conviction or acquittal, or a proclamation of amnesty.

Ex post facto law, generally, prohibits retrospectivity of penal laws. R.A. 8249 is not a penal law. It is a substantive law on jurisdiction which is not penal in character. Penal laws are those acts of the Legislature which prohibit certain acts and establish penalties for their violations; or those that define crimes, treat of their nature, and provide for their punishment. R.A. 7975, which amended P.D. 1606 as regards the Sandiganbayan’s jurisdiction, its mode of appeal and other procedural matters, has been declared by the Court as not a penal law, but clearly a procedural statute, i.e. one which prescribes rules of procedure by which courts applying laws of all kinds can properly administer justice. Not being a penal law, the retroactive application of R.A. 8249 cannot be challenged as unconstitutional.

Petitioner’s and intervenors’ contention that their right to a two-tiered appeal which they acquired under R.A. 7975 has been diluted by the enactment of R.A. 8249, is incorrect. The same contention has already been rejected by the court several times considering that the right to appeal is not a natural right but statutory in nature that can be regulated by law. The mode of procedure provided for in the statutory right of appeal is not included in the prohibition against ex post facto laws. R.A. 8249 pertains only to matters of procedure, and being merely an amendatory statute it does not partake the nature of an ex post facto law. It does not mete out a penalty and, therefore, does not come within the prohibition. Moreover, the law did not alter the rules of evidence or the mode of trial. It has been ruled that adjective statutes may be made applicable to actions pending and unresolved at the time of their passage.

The challenged law does not violate the one-title-one-subject provision of the Constitution. Much emphasis is placed on the wording in the title of the law that it “defines” the Sandiganbayan jurisdiction when what it allegedly does is to “expand” its jurisdiction. The expansion in the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan, if it can be considered as such, does not have to be expressly stated in the title of the law because such is the necessary consequence of the amendments. The requirement that every bill must only have one subject expressed in the title is satisfied if the title is comprehensive enough, as in this case, to include subjects related to the general purpose which the statute seeks to achieve. Such rule is liberally interpreted and should be given a practical rather than a technical construction. There is here sufficient compliance with such requirement, since the title of R.A. 8249 expresses the general subject (involving the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan and the amendment of P.D. 1606, as amended) and all the provisions of the law are germane to that general subject. The Congress, in employing the word “define” in the title of the law, acted within its powers since Section 2, Article VIII of the Constitution itself empowers the legislative body to “define, prescribe, and apportion the jurisdiction of various courts.”

The jurisdiction of a court is defined by the Constitution or statute. The elements of that definition must appear in the complaint or information so as to ascertain which court has jurisdiction over a case. Hence the elementary rule that the jurisdiction of a court is determined by the allegations in the complaint or information, and not by the evidence presented by the parties at the trial.

The noble object of written accusations cannot be overemphasized. This was explained in U.S. v. Karelsen: “The object of this written accusations was—First. To furnish the accused with such a description of the charge against him as will enable him to make his defense; and second to avail himself of his conviction or acquittal for protection against a further prosecution for the same cause; and third, to inform the court of the facts alleged, so that it may decide whether they are sufficient in law to support a conviction if one should be had. In order that this requirement may be satisfied, facts must be stated, not conclusions of law. Every crime is made up of certain acts and intent; these must be set forth in the complaint with reasonable particularity of time, place, names (plaintiff and defendant), and circumstances. In short, the complaint must contain a specific allegation of every fact and circumstance necessary to constitute the crime charged.” (Emphasis supplied) It is essential, therefore, that the accused be informed of the facts that are imputed to him, as “he is presumed to have no independent knowledge of the facts that constitute the offense.”

The stringent requirement that the charge be set forth with such particularity as will reasonably indicate the exact offense which the accused is alleged to have committed in relation to his office was, sad to say, not satisfied. We believe that the mere allegation in the amended information that the offense was committed by the accused public officer in relation to his office is not sufficient. That phrase is merely a conclusion of law, not a factual averment that would show the close intimacy between the offense charged and the discharge of the accused’s official duties.

In the aforecited case of People vs. Montejo, it is noteworthy that the phrase “committed in relation to public office” does not appear in the information, which only signifies that the said phrase is not what determines the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan. What is controlling is the specific factual allegations in the information that would indicate the close intimacy between the discharge of the accused’s official duties and the commission of the offense charged, in order to qualify the crime as having been committed in relation to public office.

Consequently, for failure to show in the amended informations that the charge of murder was intimately connected with the discharge of official functions of the accused PNP officers, the offense charged in the subject criminal cases is plain murder and, therefore, within the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Court, not the Sandiganbayan.

Continued incarceration after the twelve year period when such is the maximum length of imprisonment inaccordance with our controlling doctrine, when others similarly convicted have been freed, is fraught with implications at war with equal protection. (Gumabon vs. Director of the Bureau of Prisons, 37 SCRA 420 [1971])

The non-prosecution of another suspect provides no ground for the accused to fault the decision of the trial court convict-ing him. (People vs. Goce, 247 SCRA 780 [1995]) Lacson vs. Executive Secretary, 301 SCRA 298, G.R. No. 128096 January 20, 1999