Page 1 of 80

Contents
1. People vs quizon.....................................................1
2. Ivler vs judge san pedro......................................3
3. People vs agliday..................................................12
4. Pangoronom vs people (NF).............................16
5. Carillo vs people....................................................16
6. Reodica vs ca..........................................................26
7. Garcia-rueda vs pascasio...................................33
8. Reyes vs sister of mercy hospital...................36
9. Varquez vs ca.........................................................43
10. Fortich vs ca.........................................................49
11. Flor v people........................................................52
12. Navarette vs ca...................................................57
13. Borjal vs ca...........................................................61
14. People vs velasco (NF).....................................71
15. Ayer productions vs capulong........................71
16.Larobis vs CA.........................................................78

1. People vs quizon FRANCISCO QUIZON, petitioner,

vs.
G.R. No. L-6641 July 28, 1955 THE HON. JUSTICE OF THE PEACE OF
BACOLOR, PAMPANGA, ET AL., respondents.

Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura

Labrador Notes

Moises Sevilla Ocampo and Pedro S. David for
petitioner.
Office of the Solicitor General Juan R. Liwag and
Assistant Solicitor General Francisco Carreon for
respondents.
REYES, J. B. L., J.:
On December 19, 1952, the respondents Chief of
Police of Bacolor, Pampanga, filed a criminal
complaint against the herein petitioner, Francisco
Quizon, with the Justice of the Peace Court of said
municipality charging Quizon with the crime of
damage to property through reckless imprudence,
the value of the damage amounting to P125.00.
Quizon filed a motion to quash on the ground that,
under Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code, the
penalty which might be imposed on the accused
would be a fine or from P125.00 to P375.00, which
is in excess of the fine that may be imposed by the
justice of the peace court. The Justice of the Peace
forwarded the case to the Court of First Instance of
Pampanga, but the latter returned it to him for trial
on the merits, holding that the justice of the peace
court had jurisdiction. The defendant appealed from
this ruling of the Court of First Instance to this
Court on the question of law raised.
Section 44 of the Judiciary Act of 1948 (Republic
Act No. 296) provides in part as follows:
Original jurisdiction.Courts of First
Instance shall have original jurisdiction:
(f) In all criminal cases in which the penalty
provided by law is imprisonment for more
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
than six months, or a fine of more than two
hundred pesos:
Section 87 of said Acts reads as follows:.
Original jurisdiction to try criminal cases.
Justices of the peace and judges of
municipal courts of chartered cities shall
have original jurisdiction over:
(c) All criminal cases arising under the laws
relating to:
(6) Malicious mischief;.
In the cases of People vs. Palmon, 86 Phil.,
350; People vs. Peas Y Ferrer and Rey y
Rochas, 86 Phil., 596; and Natividad, et al. vs.
Robles, 87 Phil.,, 834, it was held that in the cases
provided for in Section 87 (c) of the Judiciary Act of
1948 above quoted, the jurisdiction given to
justices of the peace and judges of the municipal
courts is not exclusive but concurrent with the
courts of first instance, when the penalty to be
imposed is more than six months imprisonment or a
fine of more than P200.00.
The question, therefore , is whether the justice of
the peace court has concurrent jurisdiction with the
court of First Instance when the crime charged is
damage to property through reckless negligence or
imprudence if the amount of the damage is P125.
We believe that the answer should be in the
negative. To hold that the Justice of the Peace
Court has jurisdiction to try cases of damage to
property through reckless negligence, because it
Page 2 of 80
has jurisdiction over cases of malicious mischief, is
to assume that the former offense is but a variant
of the latter. This assumption is not legally
warranted.
Article 327 of the Revised Penal Code is as follows:
ART. 327. Who are liable for malicious
mischief.Any person who shall deliberately
cause to the property of another any
damage not falling within the terms of the
next preceding chapter shall be guilty of
malicious mischief.
It has always been regarded of the essence of this
felony that the offender should have not only the
general intention to carry out the felonious act (a
feature common to all willful crimes) but that he
should act under the impulse of a specific desire to
inflict injury to another; "que en el hecho concurra
animo especifico de daar"(Cuello Calon, Der. Penal
[6th Ed.] Vol. II, p. 869; Sent. of Tribunal Supreme
of Spain, 21 Dec. 1909; 12 Feb. 1921).
El elemento interno de este delito require,
ademas de la voluntad de ejecutar el hecho
daoso y de la conciencia de su ilegitimidad,
el animo de perjudicar, la intencion de
daar. Si no existe semejante animo el
hecho no constituey delito. (II Cuello Calon,
p.870-871).
The necessity of the special malice for the crime of
malicious mischief is contained in the requirement
of Art. 327 of our Revised Penal Code, already
quoted, that the offender "shall deliberately cause
to the property of another any damage not falling

within the terms of the next preceding chapter",
i.e., not punishable as arson. It follows that, in the
very nature of things, malicious mischief can not be
committed through negligence,
since culpa (negligence) and malice ( or
deliberateness) are essentially incompatible. Hence,
the Supreme Court of Spain in its decisions of 12
Feb. 1912, 7 Oct. 1931, 13 Nov. 1934 and 5 Oct.
1942, has expressly recognized that this crime is
one of those that can not be committed by
imprudence or negligence.
The proposition (inferred from Art. 3 of the Revised
Penal Code) that "reckless imprudence" is not a
crime in itself but simply a way of committing it and
merely determines a lower degree of criminal
liability" is too broad to deserve unqualified assent .
There are crimes that by their structure can not be
committed through imprudence: murder, treason,
robbery, malicious mischief, etc. In truth, criminal
negligence in our Revised Penal Code is treated as a
mere quasi offense, and dealt with separately from
willful offenses. It is not a mere question of
classification or terminology. In international
crimes, the act itself is punished; in negligence or
imprudence, what is principally penalized is the
mental attitude or condition behind the act, the
dangerous recklessness, lack of care or foresight,
the imprudencia punible. Much of the confusion has
arisen from the common use of such descriptive
phrases as "homicide through reckless
imprudence," and the like; when the strict technical
offense is, more accurately, "reckless imprudence
resulting in homicide"; or "simple imprudence
causing damages to property".
Were criminal negligence but a modality in the
commission of felonies, operating only to reduce the
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Page 3 of 80
penalty therefor, then it would be absorbed in the both. To this traditional jurisdiction, the Judiciary
mitigating circumstances of Art. 13, specially the Act added eight (8) specific exceptions in the form
lack of intent to commit so grave a wrong as the of felonies triable in said courts without reference to
one actually committed. Furthermore, the theory the penalty imposable; and malicious mischief is
would require that the corresponding penalty should one of these exceptions, while imprudence resulting
be fixed in proportion to the penalty prescribed for in damage to property is not one of them.
each crime when committed willfully. For each
penalty for the willful offense, there would then be For the foregoing reasons, we declare that the
a corresponding penalty for the negligent variety. jurisdiction over the offense in question lies
But instead, our Revised Penal Code (Art. 365) fixes exclusively in the Court of First Instance. Hence,
the penalty for reckless imprudence at arresto the writ of certiorari is granted and the order of
mayor maximum, to prision correccional minimum, remand to the Justice of the Peace Court is
if the willful act would constitute a grave felony, reversed and set aside. Without pronouncement as
notwithstanding that the penalty for the latter could to costs.
range all the way from prision mayor to death,
according to the case. It can be seen that the actual Bengzon, Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Labrador and
penalty for criminal negligence bears no relation to Concepcion, JJ., concur.
the individual willful crime, but is set in relation to a
whole class, or series, of crimes.
It is difficult to believe that the Legislature, in
giving Justices of the Peace jurisdiction to try cases
2. Ivler vs judge san pedro
of malicious mischief, did so in total disregard of the
principles and considerations above outlined. Our
conclusion is that "malicious mischief" as used in G.R. No. 172716 November 17, 2010
Section 87, par. 6, of the Judiciary Act, has
exclusive reference to the willful and deliberate JASON IVLER y AGUILAR, Petitioner,
crimes described in Arts. 327 to 331 of our Revised vs.
Penal Code, and to no other offense. HON. MARIA ROWENA MODESTO-SAN PEDRO,
Judge of the Metropolitan Trial Court, Branch
A further reason for this restrictive interpretation of 71, Pasig City, and EVANGELINE
the term "malicious mischief" used in section 87 of PONCE, Respondents.
the Judiciary Act, is that the same constitutes an
exception to the general jurisdiction of the Justice DECISION
of the Peace Courts in criminal cases, which had
always stood prior to the said Act at offenses CARPIO, J.:
punishable with not more than 6 months'
imprisonment or a fine of not more than P200.00 or The Case

The petition seeks the review1 of the Orders2 of the
Regional Trial Court of Pasig City affirming sub-
silencio a lower courts ruling finding inapplicable
the Double Jeopardy Clause to bar a second
prosecution for Reckless Imprudence Resulting in
Homicide and Damage to Property. This, despite the
accuseds previous conviction for Reckless
Imprudence Resulting in Slight Physical Injuries
arising from the same incident grounding the
second prosecution.
The Facts
Following a vehicular collision in August 2004,
petitioner Jason Ivler (petitioner) was charged
before the Metropolitan Trial Court of Pasig City,
Branch 71 (MeTC), with two separate offenses: (1)
Reckless Imprudence Resulting in Slight Physical
Injuries (Criminal Case No. 82367) for injuries
sustained by respondent Evangeline L. Ponce
(respondent Ponce); and (2) Reckless Imprudence
Resulting in Homicide and Damage to Property
(Criminal Case No. 82366) for the death of
respondent Ponces husband Nestor C. Ponce and
damage to the spouses Ponces vehicle. Petitioner
posted bail for his temporary release in both cases.
On 7 September 2004, petitioner pleaded guilty to
the charge in Criminal Case No. 82367 and was
meted out the penalty of public censure. Invoking
this conviction, petitioner moved to quash the
Information in Criminal Case No. 82366 for placing
him in jeopardy of second punishment for the same
offense of reckless imprudence.
The MeTC refused quashal, finding no identity of
offenses in the two cases.3
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
After unsuccessfully seeking reconsideration,
petitioner elevated the matter to the Regional Trial
Court of Pasig City, Branch 157 (RTC), in a petition
for certiorari (S.C.A. No. 2803). Meanwhile,
petitioner sought from the MeTC the suspension of
proceedings in Criminal Case No. 82366, including
the arraignment on 17 May 2005, invoking S.C.A.
No. 2803 as a prejudicial question. Without acting
on petitioners motion, the MeTC proceeded with
the arraignment and, because of petitioners
absence, cancelled his bail and ordered his
arrest.4 Seven days later, the MeTC issued a
resolution denying petitioners motion to suspend
proceedings and postponing his arraignment until
after his arrest.5 Petitioner sought reconsideration
but as of the filing of this petition, the motion
remained unresolved.
Relying on the arrest order against petitioner,
respondent Ponce sought in the RTC the dismissal
of S.C.A. No. 2803 for petitioners loss of standing
to maintain the suit. Petitioner contested the
motion.
The Ruling of the Trial Court
In an Order dated 2 February 2006, the RTC
dismissed S.C.A. No. 2803, narrowly grounding its
ruling on petitioners forfeiture of standing to
maintain S.C.A. No. 2803 arising from the MeTCs
order to arrest petitioner for his non-appearance at
the arraignment in Criminal Case No. 82366. Thus,
without reaching the merits of S.C.A. No. 2803, the
RTC effectively affirmed the MeTC. Petitioner sought
reconsideration but this proved unavailing.6
Hence, this petition.
Page 4 of 80
Petitioner denies absconding. He explains that his
petition in S.C.A. No. 2803 constrained him to
forego participation in the proceedings in Criminal
Case No. 82366. Petitioner distinguishes his case
from the line of jurisprudence sanctioning dismissal
of appeals for absconding appellants because his
appeal before the RTC was a special civil action
seeking a pre-trial relief, not a post-trial appeal of a
judgment of conviction.7
Petitioner laments the RTCs failure to reach the
merits of his petition in S.C.A. 2803. Invoking
jurisprudence, petitioner argues that his
constitutional right not to be placed twice in
jeopardy of punishment for the same offense bars
his prosecution in Criminal Case No. 82366, having
been previously convicted in Criminal Case No.
82367 for the same offense of reckless imprudence
charged in Criminal Case No. 82366. Petitioner
submits that the multiple consequences of such
crime are material only to determine his penalty.
Respondent Ponce finds no reason for the Court to
disturb the RTCs decision forfeiting petitioners
standing to maintain his petition in S.C.A. 2803. On
the merits, respondent Ponce calls the Courts
attention to jurisprudence holding that light
offenses (e.g. slight physical injuries) cannot be
complexed under Article 48 of the Revised Penal
Code with grave or less grave felonies (e.g.
homicide). Hence, the prosecution was obliged to
separate the charge in Criminal Case No. 82366 for
the slight physical injuries from Criminal Case No.
82367 for the homicide and damage to property.
In the Resolution of 6 June 2007, we granted the
Office of the Solicitor Generals motion not to file a
comment to the petition as the public respondent

judge is merely a nominal party and private
respondent is represented by counsel.
The Issues
Two questions are presented for resolution: (1)
whether petitioner forfeited his standing to seek
relief in S.C.A. 2803 when the MeTC ordered his
arrest following his non-appearance at the
arraignment in Criminal Case No. 82366; and (2) if
in the negative, whether petitioners constitutional
right under the Double Jeopardy Clause bars further
proceedings in Criminal Case No. 82366.
The Ruling of the Court
We hold that (1) petitioners non-appearance at the
arraignment in Criminal Case No. 82366 did not
divest him of personality to maintain the petition in
S.C.A. 2803; and (2) the protection afforded by the
Constitution shielding petitioner from prosecutions
placing him in jeopardy of second punishment for
the same offense bars further proceedings in
Criminal Case No. 82366.
Petitioners Non-appearance at the Arraignment in
Criminal Case No. 82366 did not Divest him of
Standing
to Maintain the Petition in S.C.A. 2803
Dismissals of appeals grounded on the appellants
escape from custody or violation of the terms of his
bail bond are governed by the second paragraph of
Section 8, Rule 124,8 in relation to Section 1, Rule
125, of the Revised Rules on Criminal Procedure
authorizing this Court or the Court of Appeals to
"also, upon motion of the appellee or motu proprio,
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
dismiss the appeal if the appellant escapes from
prison or confinement, jumps bail or flees to a
foreign country during the pendency of the appeal."
The "appeal" contemplated in Section 8 of Rule 124
is a suit to review judgments of convictions.
The RTCs dismissal of petitioners special civil
action for certiorari to review a pre-arraignment
ancillary question on the applicability of the Due
Process Clause to bar proceedings in Criminal Case
No. 82366 finds no basis under procedural rules
and jurisprudence. The RTCs reliance on People v.
Esparas9 undercuts the cogency of its ruling
because Esparas stands for a proposition contrary
to the RTCs ruling. There, the Court granted review
to an appeal by an accused who was sentenced to
death for importing prohibited drugs even though
she jumped bail pending trial and was thus tried
and convicted in absentia. The Court in Esparas
treated the mandatory review of death sentences
under Republic Act No. 7659 as an exception to
Section 8 of Rule 124.10
The mischief in the RTCs treatment of petitioners
non-appearance at his arraignment in Criminal Case
No. 82366 as proof of his loss of standing becomes
more evident when one considers the Rules of
Courts treatment of a defendant who absents
himself from post-arraignment hearings. Under
Section 21, Rule 11411 of the Revised Rules of
Criminal Procedure, the defendants absence merely
renders his bondsman potentially liable on its bond
(subject to cancellation should the bondsman fail to
produce the accused within 30 days); the defendant
retains his standing and, should he fail to
surrender, will be tried in absentia and could be
convicted or acquitted. Indeed, the 30-day period
granted to the bondsman to produce the accused
Page 5 of 80
underscores the fact that mere non-appearance
does not ipso facto convert the accuseds status to
that of a fugitive without standing.
Further, the RTCs observation that petitioner
provided "no explanation why he failed to attend
the scheduled proceeding"12 at the MeTC is belied
by the records. Days before the arraignment,
petitioner sought the suspension of the MeTCs
proceedings in Criminal Case No. 82366 in light of
his petition with the RTC in S.C.A. No. 2803.
Following the MeTCs refusal to defer arraignment
(the order for which was released days after the
MeTC ordered petitioners arrest), petitioner sought
reconsideration. His motion remained unresolved as
of the filing of this petition.
Petitioners Conviction in Criminal Case No. 82367
Bars his Prosecution in Criminal Case No. 82366
The accuseds negative constitutional right not to be
"twice put in jeopardy of punishment for the same
offense"13protects him from, among others, post-
conviction prosecution for the same offense, with
the prior verdict rendered by a court of competent
jurisdiction upon a valid information.14 It is not
disputed that petitioners conviction in Criminal
Case No. 82367 was rendered by a court of
competent jurisdiction upon a valid charge. Thus,
the case turns on the question whether Criminal
Case No. 82366 and Criminal Case No. 82367
involve the "same offense." Petitioner adopts the
affirmative view, submitting that the two cases
concern the same offense of reckless imprudence.
The MeTC ruled otherwise, finding that Reckless
Imprudence Resulting in Slight Physical Injuries is
an entirely separate offense from Reckless
Imprudence Resulting in Homicide and Damage to

Property "as the [latter] requires proof of an
additional fact which the other does not."15
We find for petitioner.
Reckless Imprudence is a Single Crime,
its Consequences on Persons and
Property are Material Only to Determine
the Penalty
The two charges against petitioner, arising from the
same facts, were prosecuted under the same
provision of the Revised Penal Code, as amended,
namely, Article 365 defining and penalizing quasi-
offenses. The text of the provision reads:
Imprudence and negligence. Any person who, by
reckless imprudence, shall commit any act which,
had it been intentional, would constitute a grave
felony, shall suffer the penalty of arresto mayor in
its maximum period to prision correccional in its
medium period; if it would have constituted a less
grave felony, the penalty of arresto mayor in its
minimum and medium periods shall be imposed; if
it would have constituted a light felony, the penalty
of arresto menor in its maximum period shall be
imposed.
Any person who, by simple imprudence or
negligence, shall commit an act which would
otherwise constitute a grave felony, shall suffer the
penalty of arresto mayor in its medium and
maximum periods; if it would have constituted a
less serious felony, the penalty of arresto mayor in
its minimum period shall be imposed.
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
When the execution of the act covered by this
article shall have only resulted in damage to the
property of another, the offender shall be punished
by a fine ranging from an amount equal to the
value of said damages to three times such value,
but which shall in no case be less than twenty-five
pesos.
A fine not exceeding two hundred pesos and
censure shall be imposed upon any person who, by
simple imprudence or negligence, shall cause some
wrong which, if done maliciously, would have
constituted a light felony.
In the imposition of these penalties, the court shall
exercise their sound discretion, without regard to
the rules prescribed in Article sixty-four.
The provisions contained in this article shall not be
applicable:
1. When the penalty provided for the offense
is equal to or lower than those provided in
the first two paragraphs of this article, in
which case the court shall impose the
penalty next lower in degree than that which
should be imposed in the period which they
may deem proper to apply.
2. When, by imprudence or negligence and
with violation of the Automobile Law, to
death of a person shall be caused, in which
case the defendant shall be punished by
prision correccional in its medium and
maximum periods.
Page 6 of 80
Reckless imprudence consists in voluntary, but
without malice, doing or failing to do an act from
which material damage results by reason of
inexcusable lack of precaution on the part of the
person performing or failing to perform such act,
taking into consideration his employment or
occupation, degree of intelligence, physical
condition and other circumstances regarding
persons, time and place.
Simple imprudence consists in the lack of
precaution displayed in those cases in which the
damage impending to be caused is not immediate
nor the danger clearly manifest.
The penalty next higher in degree to those provided
for in this article shall be imposed upon the offender
who fails to lend on the spot to the injured parties
such help as may be in this hand to give.
Structurally, these nine paragraphs are collapsible
into four sub-groupings relating to (1) the penalties
attached to the quasi-offenses of "imprudence" and
"negligence" (paragraphs 1-2); (2) a modified
penalty scheme for either or both quasi-offenses
(paragraphs 3-4, 6 and 9); (3) a generic rule for
trial courts in imposing penalties (paragraph 5);
and (4) the definition of "reckless imprudence" and
"simple imprudence" (paragraphs 7-8).
Conceptually, quasi-offenses penalize "the mental
attitude or condition behind the act, the dangerous
recklessness, lack of care or foresight, the
imprudencia punible,"16 unlike willful offenses which
punish the intentional criminal act. These structural
and conceptual features of quasi-offenses set them
apart from the mass of intentional crimes under the
first 13 Titles of Book II of the Revised Penal Code,
as amended.

Indeed, the notion that quasi-offenses, whether
reckless or simple, are distinct species of crime,
separately defined and penalized under the
framework of our penal laws, is nothing new. As
early as the middle of the last century, we already
sought to bring clarity to this field by rejecting in
Quizon v. Justice of the Peace of Pampanga the
proposition that "reckless imprudence is not a crime
in itself but simply a way of committing it x x
x"17 on three points of analysis: (1) the object of
punishment in quasi-crimes (as opposed to
intentional crimes); (2) the legislative intent to
treat quasi-crimes as distinct offenses (as opposed
to subsuming them under the mitigating
circumstance of minimal intent) and; (3) the
different penalty structures for quasi-crimes and
intentional crimes:
The proposition (inferred from Art. 3 of the Revised
Penal Code) that "reckless imprudence" is not a
crime in itself but simply a way of committing it and
merely determines a lower degree of criminal
liability is too broad to deserve unqualified assent.
There are crimes that by their structure cannot be
committed through imprudence: murder, treason,
robbery, malicious mischief, etc. In truth, criminal
negligence in our Revised Penal Code is treated as a
mere quasi offense, and dealt with separately from
willful offenses. It is not a mere question of
classification or terminology. In intentional crimes,
the act itself is punished; in negligence or
imprudence, what is principally penalized is the
mental attitude or condition behind the act, the
dangerous recklessness, lack of care or foresight,
the imprudencia punible. x x x x
Were criminal negligence but a modality in the
commission of felonies, operating only to reduce the
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
penalty therefor, then it would be absorbed in the
mitigating circumstances of Art. 13, specially the
lack of intent to commit so grave a wrong as the
one actually committed. Furthermore, the theory
would require that the corresponding penalty should
be fixed in proportion to the penalty prescribed for
each crime when committed willfully. For each
penalty for the willful offense, there would then be
a corresponding penalty for the negligent variety.
But instead, our Revised Penal Code (Art. 365) fixes
the penalty for reckless imprudence at arresto
mayor maximum, to prision correccional [medium],
if the willful act would constitute a grave felony,
notwithstanding that the penalty for the latter could
range all the way from prision mayor to death,
according to the case. It can be seen that the actual
penalty for criminal negligence bears no relation to
the individual willful crime, but is set in relation to a
whole class, or series, of crimes.18 (Emphasis
supplied)
This explains why the technically correct way to
allege quasi-crimes is to state that their commission
results in damage, either to person or property.19
Accordingly, we found the Justice of the Peace in
Quizon without jurisdiction to hear a case for
"Damage to Property through Reckless
Imprudence," its jurisdiction being limited to trying
charges for Malicious Mischief, an intentional crime
conceptually incompatible with the element of
imprudence obtaining in quasi-crimes.
Quizon, rooted in Spanish law20 (the normative
ancestry of our present day penal code) and since
repeatedly reiterated,21 stands on solid conceptual
foundation. The contrary doctrinal pronouncement
in People v. Faller22that "[r]eckless impudence is
Page 7 of 80
not a crime in itself x x x [but] simply a way of
committing it x x x,"23 has long been abandoned
when the Court en banc promulgated Quizon in
1955 nearly two decades after the Court decided
Faller in 1939. Quizon rejected Fallers
conceptualization of quasi-crimes by holding that
quasi-crimes under Article 365 are distinct species
of crimes and not merely methods of committing
crimes. Faller found expression in post-Quizon
jurisprudence24 only by dint of lingering doctrinal
confusion arising from an indiscriminate fusion of
criminal law rules defining Article 365 crimes and
the complexing of intentional crimes under Article
48 of the Revised Penal Code which, as will be
shown shortly, rests on erroneous conception of
quasi-crimes. Indeed, the Quizonian conception of
quasi-crimes undergirded a related branch of
jurisprudence applying the Double Jeopardy Clause
to quasi-offenses, barring second prosecutions for a
quasi-offense alleging one resulting act after a prior
conviction or acquittal of a quasi-offense alleging
another resulting act but arising from the same
reckless act or omission upon which the second
prosecution was based.
Prior Conviction or Acquittal of
Reckless Imprudence Bars
Subsequent Prosecution for the Same
Quasi-Offense
The doctrine that reckless imprudence under Article
365 is a single quasi-offense by itself and not
merely a means to commit other crimes such that
conviction or acquittal of such quasi-offense bars
subsequent prosecution for the same quasi-offense,
regardless of its various resulting acts, undergirded
this Courts unbroken chain of jurisprudence on
double jeopardy as applied to Article 365 starting

with People v. Diaz,25 decided in 1954. There, a full
Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Montemayor,
ordered the dismissal of a case for "damage to
property thru reckless imprudence" because a prior
case against the same accused for "reckless
driving," arising from the same act upon which the
first prosecution was based, had been dismissed
earlier. Since then, whenever the same legal
question was brought before the Court, that is,
whether prior conviction or acquittal of reckless
imprudence bars subsequent prosecution for the
same quasi-offense, regardless of the consequences
alleged for both charges, the Court unfailingly and
consistently answered in the affirmative in People v.
Belga26(promulgated in 1957 by the Court en banc,
per Reyes, J.), Yap v. Lutero 27 (promulgated in
1959, unreported, per Concepcion, J.), People v.
Narvas28 (promulgated in 1960 by the Court en
banc, per Bengzon J.), People v.
Silva29 (promulgated in 1962 by the Court en banc,
per Paredes, J.), People v.
Macabuhay30 (promulgated in 1966 by the Court en
banc, per Makalintal, J.), People v.
Buan31 (promulgated in 1968 by the Court en banc,
per Reyes, J.B.L., acting C. J.), Buerano v. Court of
Appeals32 (promulgated in 1982 by the Court en
banc, per Relova, J.), and People v. City Court of
Manila33 (promulgated in 1983 by the First Division,
per Relova, J.). These cases uniformly barred the
second prosecutions as constitutionally
impermissible under the Double Jeopardy Clause.
The reason for this consistent stance of extending
the constitutional protection under the Double
Jeopardy Clause to quasi-offenses was best
articulated by Mr. Justice J.B.L. Reyes in Buan,
where, in barring a subsequent prosecution for
"serious physical injuries and damage to property
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
thru reckless imprudence" because of the accuseds
prior acquittal of "slight physical injuries thru
reckless imprudence," with both charges grounded
on the same act, the Court explained:34
Reason and precedent both coincide in that once
convicted or acquitted of a specific act of reckless
imprudence, the accused may not be prosecuted
again for that same act. For the essence of the
quasi offense of criminal negligence under article
365 of the Revised Penal Code lies in the execution
of an imprudent or negligent act that, if
intentionally done, would be punishable as a felony.
The law penalizes thus the negligent or careless act,
not the result thereof. The gravity of the
consequence is only taken into account to
determine the penalty, it does not qualify the
substance of the offense. And, as the careless act is
single, whether the injurious result should affect
one person or several persons, the offense (criminal
negligence) remains one and the same, and can not
be split into different crimes and prosecutions.35 x x
x (Emphasis supplied)
Evidently, the Diaz line of jurisprudence on double
jeopardy merely extended to its logical conclusion
the reasoning of Quizon.
There is in our jurisprudence only one ruling going
against this unbroken line of authority. Preceding
Diaz by more than a decade, El Pueblo de Filipinas
v. Estipona,36 decided by the pre-war colonial Court
in November 1940, allowed the subsequent
prosecution of an accused for reckless imprudence
resulting in damage to property despite his previous
conviction for multiple physical injuries arising from
the same reckless operation of a motor vehicle
upon which the second prosecution was based.
Page 8 of 80
Estiponas inconsistency with the post-war Diaz
chain of jurisprudence suffices to impliedly overrule
it. At any rate, all doubts on this matter were laid to
rest in 1982 in Buerano.37 There, we reviewed the
Court of Appeals conviction of an accused for
"damage to property for reckless imprudence"
despite his prior conviction for "slight and less
serious physical injuries thru reckless imprudence,"
arising from the same act upon which the second
charge was based. The Court of Appeals had relied
on Estipona. We reversed on the strength of
Buan:38
Th[e] view of the Court of Appeals was inspired by
the ruling of this Court in the pre-war case of
People vs. Estipona decided on November 14, 1940.
However, in the case of People vs. Buan, 22 SCRA
1383 (March 29, 1968), this Court, speaking thru
Justice J. B. L. Reyes, held that
Reason and precedent both coincide in that once
convicted or acquitted of a specific act of reckless
imprudence, the accused may not be prosecuted
again for that same act. For the essence of the
quasi offense of criminal negligence under Article
365 of the Revised Penal Code lies in the execution
of an imprudent or negligent act that, if
intentionally done, would be punishable as a felony.
The law penalizes thus the negligent or careless act,
not the result thereof. The gravity of the
consequence is only taken into account to
determine the penalty, it does not qualify the
substance of the offense. And, as the careless act is
single, whether the injurious result should affect
one person or several persons, the offense (criminal
negligence) remains one and the same, and can not
be split into different crimes and prosecutions.

xxxx
. . . the exoneration of this appellant, Jose Buan, by
the Justice of the Peace (now Municipal) Court of
Guiguinto, Bulacan, of the charge of slight physical
injuries through reckless imprudence, prevents his
being prosecuted for serious physical injuries
through reckless imprudence in the Court of First
Instance of the province, where both charges are
derived from the consequences of one and the
same vehicular accident, because the second
accusation places the appellant in second jeopardy
for the same offense.39 (Emphasis supplied)
Thus, for all intents and purposes, Buerano had
effectively overruled Estipona.
It is noteworthy that the Solicitor General in
Buerano, in a reversal of his earlier stance in Silva,
joined causes with the accused, a fact which did not
escape the Courts attention:
Then Solicitor General, now Justice Felix V.
Makasiar, in his MANIFESTATION dated December
12, 1969 (page 82 of the Rollo) admits that the
Court of Appeals erred in not sustaining petitioners
plea of double jeopardy and submits that "its
affirmatory decision dated January 28, 1969, in
Criminal Case No. 05123-CR finding petitioner
guilty of damage to property through reckless
imprudence should be set aside, without costs." He
stressed that "if double jeopardy exists where the
reckless act resulted into homicide and physical
injuries. then the same consequence must perforce
follow where the same reckless act caused merely
damage to property-not death-and physical injuries.
Verily, the value of a human life lost as a result of a
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
vehicular collision cannot be equated with any
amount of damages caused to a motors vehicle
arising from the same mishap."40 (Emphasis
supplied)
Hence, we find merit in petitioners submission that
the lower courts erred in refusing to extend in his
favor the mantle of protection afforded by the
Double Jeopardy Clause. A more fitting
jurisprudence could not be tailored to petitioners
case than People v. Silva, 41 a Diaz progeny. There,
the accused, who was also involved in a vehicular
collision, was charged in two separate Informations
with "Slight Physical Injuries thru Reckless
Imprudence" and "Homicide with Serious Physical
Injuries thru Reckless Imprudence." Following his
acquittal of the former, the accused sought the
quashal of the latter, invoking the Double Jeopardy
Clause. The trial court initially denied relief, but, on
reconsideration, found merit in the accuseds claim
and dismissed the second case. In affirming the
trial court, we quoted with approval its analysis of
the issue following Diaz and its progeny People v.
Belga:42
On June 26, 1959, the lower court reconsidered its
Order of May 2, 1959 and dismissed the case,
holding:
[T]he Court believes that the case falls squarely
within the doctrine of double jeopardy enunciated in
People v. Belga, x x x In the case cited, Ciriaco
Belga and Jose Belga were charged in the Justice of
the Peace Court of Malilipot, Albay, with the crime
of physical injuries through reckless imprudence
arising from a collision between the two
automobiles driven by them (Crim. Case No. 88).
Without the aforesaid complaint having been
Page 9 of 80
dismissed or otherwise disposed of, two other
criminal complaints were filed in the same justice of
the peace court, in connection with the same
collision one for damage to property through
reckless imprudence (Crim. Case No. 95) signed by
the owner of one of the vehicles involved in the
collision, and another for multiple physical injuries
through reckless imprudence (Crim. Case No. 96)
signed by the passengers injured in the accident.
Both of these two complaints were filed against
Jose Belga only. After trial, both defendants were
acquitted of the charge against them in Crim. Case
No. 88. Following his acquittal, Jose Belga moved to
quash the complaint for multiple physical injuries
through reckless imprudence filed against him by
the injured passengers, contending that the case
was just a duplication of the one filed by the Chief
of Police wherein he had just been acquitted. The
motion to quash was denied and after trial Jose
Belga was convicted, whereupon he appealed to the
Court of First Instance of Albay. In the meantime,
the case for damage to property through reckless
imprudence filed by one of the owners of the
vehicles involved in the collision had been
remanded to the Court of First Instance of Albay
after Jose Belga had waived the second stage of the
preliminary investigation. After such remand, the
Provincial Fiscal filed in the Court of First Instance
two informations against Jose Belga, one for
physical injuries through reckless imprudence, and
another for damage to property through reckless
imprudence. Both cases were dismissed by the
Court of First Instance, upon motion of the
defendant Jose Belga who alleged double jeopardy
in a motion to quash. On appeal by the Prov. Fiscal,
the order of dismissal was affirmed by the Supreme
Court in the following language: .

The question for determination is whether the
acquittal of Jose Belga in the case filed by the chief
of police constitutes a bar to his subsequent
prosecution for multiple physical injuries and
damage to property through reckless imprudence.
In the case of Peo[ple] v. F. Diaz, G. R. No. L-6518,
prom. March 30, 1954, the accused was charged in
the municipal court of Pasay City with reckless
driving under sec. 52 of the Revised Motor Vehicle
Law, for having driven an automobile in a fast and
reckless manner ... thereby causing an accident.
After the accused had pleaded not guilty the case
was dismissed in that court for failure of the
Government to prosecute. But some time
thereafter the city attorney filed an information in
the Court of First Instance of Rizal, charging the
same accused with damage to property thru
reckless imprudence. The amount of the damage
was alleged to be P249.50. Pleading double
jeopardy, the accused filed a motion, and on appeal
by the Government we affirmed the ruling. Among
other things we there said through Mr. Justice
Montemayor
The next question to determine is the relation
between the first offense of violation of the Motor
Vehicle Law prosecuted before the Pasay City
Municipal Court and the offense of damage to
property thru reckless imprudence charged in the
Rizal Court of First Instance. One of the tests of
double jeopardy is whether or not the second
offense charged necessarily includes or is
necessarily included in the offense charged in the
former complaint or information (Rule 113, Sec. 9).
Another test is whether the evidence which proves
one would prove the other that is to say whether
the facts alleged in the first charge if proven, would
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
have been sufficient to support the second charge
and vice versa; or whether one crime is an
ingredient of the other. x x x
xxxx
The foregoing language of the Supreme Court also
disposes of the contention of the prosecuting
attorney that the charge for slight physical injuries
through reckless imprudence could not have been
joined with the charge for homicide with serious
physical injuries through reckless imprudence in
this case, in view of the provisions of Art. 48 of the
Revised Penal Code, as amended. The prosecutions
contention might be true. But neither was the
prosecution obliged to first prosecute the accused
for slight physical injuries through reckless
imprudence before pressing the more serious
charge of homicide with serious physical injuries
through reckless imprudence. Having first
prosecuted the defendant for the lesser offense in
the Justice of the Peace Court of Meycauayan,
Bulacan, which acquitted the defendant, the
prosecuting attorney is not now in a position to
press in this case the more serious charge of
homicide with serious physical injuries through
reckless imprudence which arose out of the same
alleged reckless imprudence of which the defendant
have been previously cleared by the inferior court.43
Significantly, the Solicitor General had urged us in
Silva to reexamine Belga (and hence, Diaz) "for the
purpose of delimiting or clarifying its
application."44 We declined the invitation, thus:
The State in its appeal claims that the lower court
erred in dismissing the case, on the ground of
Page 10 of 80
double jeopardy, upon the basis of the acquittal of
the accused in the JP court for Slight Physical
Injuries, thru Reckless Imprudence. In the same
breath said State, thru the Solicitor General, admits
that the facts of the case at bar, fall squarely on the
ruling of the Belga case x x x, upon which the order
of dismissal of the lower court was anchored. The
Solicitor General, however, urges a re-examination
of said ruling, upon certain considerations for the
purpose of delimiting or clarifying its application.
We find, nevertheless, that further elucidation or
disquisition on the ruling in the Belga case, the
facts of which are analogous or similar to those in
the present case, will yield no practical advantage
to the government. On one hand, there is nothing
which would warrant a delimitation or clarification
of the applicability of the Belga case. It was clear.
On the other, this Court has reiterated the views
expressed in the Belga case, in the identical case of
Yap v. Hon. Lutero, etc., L-12669, April 30,
1959.45 (Emphasis supplied)
Article 48 Does not Apply to Acts Penalized
Under Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code
The confusion bedeviling the question posed in this
petition, to which the MeTC succumbed, stems from
persistent but awkward attempts to harmonize
conceptually incompatible substantive and
procedural rules in criminal law, namely, Article 365
defining and penalizing quasi-offenses and Article
48 on complexing of crimes, both under the Revised
Penal Code. Article 48 is a procedural device
allowing single prosecution of multiple felonies
falling under either of two categories: (1) when a
single act constitutes two or more grave or less
grave felonies (thus excluding from its operation
light felonies46); and (2) when an offense is a

necessary means for committing the other. The
legislature crafted this procedural tool to benefit the
accused who, in lieu of serving multiple penalties,
will only serve the maximum of the penalty for the
most serious crime.
In contrast, Article 365 is a substantive rule
penalizing not an act defined as a felony but "the
mental attitude x x x behind the act, the dangerous
recklessness, lack of care or foresight x x x,"47 a
single mental attitude regardless of the resulting
consequences. Thus, Article 365 was crafted as one
quasi-crime resulting in one or more consequences.
Ordinarily, these two provisions will operate
smoothly. Article 48 works to combine in a single
prosecution multiple intentional crimes falling under
Titles 1-13, Book II of the Revised Penal Code,
when proper; Article 365 governs the prosecution of
imprudent acts and their consequences. However,
the complexities of human interaction can produce
a hybrid quasi-offense not falling under either
models that of a single criminal negligence
resulting in multiple non-crime damages to persons
and property with varying penalties corresponding
to light, less grave or grave offenses. The ensuing
prosecutorial dilemma is obvious: how should such
a quasi-crime be prosecuted? Should Article 48s
framework apply to "complex" the single quasi-
offense with its multiple (non-criminal)
consequences (excluding those amounting to light
offenses which will be tried separately)? Or should
the prosecution proceed under a single charge,
collectively alleging all the consequences of the
single quasi-crime, to be penalized separately
following the scheme of penalties under Article 365?
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Jurisprudence adopts both approaches. Thus, one
line of rulings (none of which involved the issue of
double jeopardy) applied Article 48 by "complexing"
one quasi-crime with its multiple
consequences48 unless one consequence amounts to
a light felony, in which case charges were split by
grouping, on the one hand, resulting acts
amounting to grave or less grave felonies and filing
the charge with the second level courts and, on the
other hand, resulting acts amounting to light
felonies and filing the charge with the first level
courts.49 Expectedly, this is the approach the MeTC
impliedly sanctioned (and respondent Ponce
invokes), even though under Republic Act No.
7691,50 the MeTC has now exclusive original
jurisdiction to impose the most serious penalty
under Article 365 which is prision correccional in its
medium period.
Under this approach, the issue of double jeopardy
will not arise if the "complexing" of acts penalized
under Article 365 involves only resulting acts
penalized as grave or less grave felonies because
there will be a single prosecution of all the resulting
acts. The issue of double jeopardy arises if one of
the resulting acts is penalized as a light offense and
the other acts are penalized as grave or less grave
offenses, in which case Article 48 is not deemed to
apply and the act penalized as a light offense is
tried separately from the resulting acts penalized as
grave or less grave offenses.
The second jurisprudential path nixes Article 48 and
sanctions a single prosecution of all the effects of
the quasi-crime collectively alleged in one charge,
regardless of their number or severity, 51 penalizing
each consequence separately. Thus, in Angeles v.
Jose,52 we interpreted paragraph three of Article
Page 11 of 80
365, in relation to a charge alleging "reckless
imprudence resulting in damage to property and
less serious physical injuries," as follows:
[T]he third paragraph of said article, x x x reads as
follows:
When the execution of the act covered by this
article shall have only resulted in damage to the
property of another, the offender shall be punished
by a fine ranging from an amount equal to the
value of said damage to three times such value, but
which shall in no case be less than 25 pesos.
The above-quoted provision simply means that if
there is only damage to property the amount fixed
therein shall be imposed, but if there are also
physical injuries there should be an additional
penalty for the latter. The information cannot be
split into two; one for the physical injuries, and
another for the damage to property, x x
x.53(Emphasis supplied)
By "additional penalty," the Court meant, logically,
the penalty scheme under Article 365.
Evidently, these approaches, while parallel, are
irreconcilable. Coherence in this field demands
choosing one framework over the other. Either (1)
we allow the "complexing" of a single quasi-crime
by breaking its resulting acts into separate offenses
(except for light felonies), thus re-conceptualize a
quasi-crime, abandon its present framing under
Article 365, discard its conception under the Quizon
and Diaz lines of cases, and treat the multiple
consequences of a quasi-crime as separate
intentional felonies defined under Titles 1-13, Book

II under the penal code; or (2) we forbid the
application of Article 48 in the prosecution and
sentencing of quasi-crimes, require single
prosecution of all the resulting acts regardless of
their number and severity, separately penalize each
as provided in Article 365, and thus maintain the
distinct concept of quasi-crimes as crafted under
Article 365, articulated in Quizon and applied to
double jeopardy adjudication in the Diaz line of
cases.1avvphi1
A becoming regard of this Courts place in our
scheme of government denying it the power to
make laws constrains us to keep inviolate the
conceptual distinction between quasi-crimes and
intentional felonies under our penal code. Article 48
is incongruent to the notion of quasi-crimes under
Article 365. It is conceptually impossible for
a quasi-offense to stand for (1) a inferior court.
single act constituting two or more grave or less
grave felonies; or (2) an offense which is a
necessary means for committing another. This is
why, way back in 1968 in Buan, we rejected the
Solicitor Generals argument that double jeopardy
does not bar a second prosecution for slight
physical injuries through reckless imprudence
allegedly because the charge for that offense could
not be joined with the other charge for serious
physical injuries through reckless imprudence
following Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code:
The Solicitor General stresses in his brief that the
charge for slight physical injuries through reckless
imprudence could not be joined with the accusation
for serious physical injuries through reckless
imprudence, because Article 48 of the Revised Penal
Code allows only the complexing of grave or less
grave felonies. This same argument was considered
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
and rejected by this Court in the case of People vs.
[Silva] x x x:
[T]he prosecutions contention might be true. But
neither was the prosecution obliged to first
prosecute the accused for slight physical injuries
through reckless imprudence before pressing the
more serious charge of homicide with serious
physical injuries through reckless imprudence.
Having first prosecuted the defendant for the lesser
offense in the Justice of the Peace Court of
Meycauayan, Bulacan, which acquitted the
defendant, the prosecuting attorney is not now in a
position to press in this case the more serious
charge of homicide with serious physical injuries
through reckless imprudence which arose out of the
same alleged reckless imprudence of which the
defendant has been previously cleared by the
[W]e must perforce rule that the exoneration of this
appellant x x x by the Justice of the Peace x x x of
the charge of slight physical injuries through
reckless imprudence, prevents his being prosecuted
for serious physical injuries through reckless
imprudence in the Court of First Instance of the
province, where both charges are derived from the
consequences of one and the same vehicular
accident, because the second accusation places the
appellant in second jeopardy for the same
offense.54 (Emphasis supplied)
Indeed, this is a constitutionally compelled choice.
By prohibiting the splitting of charges under Article
365, irrespective of the number and severity of the
resulting acts, rampant occasions of constitutionally
impermissible second prosecutions are avoided, not
Page 12 of 80
to mention that scarce state resources are
conserved and diverted to proper use.
Hence, we hold that prosecutions under Article 365
should proceed from a single charge regardless of
the number or severity of the consequences. In
imposing penalties, the judge will do no more than
apply the penalties under Article 365 for each
consequence alleged and proven. In short, there
shall be no splitting of charges under Article 365,
and only one information shall be filed in the same
first level court.55
Our ruling today secures for the accused facing an
Article 365 charge a stronger and simpler protection
of their constitutional right under the Double
Jeopardy Clause. True, they are thereby denied the
beneficent effect of the favorable sentencing
formula under Article 48, but any disadvantage thus
caused is more than compensated by the certainty
of non-prosecution for quasi-crime effects qualifying
as "light offenses" (or, as here, for the more serious
consequence prosecuted belatedly). If it is so
minded, Congress can re-craft Article 365 by
extending to quasi-crimes the sentencing formula of
Article 48 so that only the most severe penalty shall
be imposed under a single prosecution of all
resulting acts, whether penalized as grave, less
grave or light offenses. This will still keep intact the
distinct concept of quasi-offenses. Meanwhile, the
lenient schedule of penalties under Article 365,
befitting crimes occupying a lower rung of
culpability, should cushion the effect of this ruling.
WHEREFORE, we GRANT the petition.
We REVERSE the Orders dated 2 February 2006
and 2 May 2006 of the Regional Trial Court of Pasig
City, Branch 157. We DISMISS the Information in

Criminal Case No. 82366 against petitioner Jason Reckless imprudence consists of voluntarily
Ivler y Aguilar pending with the Metropolitan Trial doing or failing to do, without malice, an act from
Court of Pasig City, Branch 71 on the ground of which material damage results by reason of an
double jeopardy. inexcusable lack of precaution on the part of the
person performing or failing to perform such
Let a copy of this ruling be served on the President act. Malice is the antithesis of reckless
of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of imprudence.Once malice is proven, recklessness
Representatives. disappears.
SO ORDERED.
The Case
ANTONIO T. CARPIO
Associate Justice
Before us is an appeal from the September 14,
1997 Decision[1] of the Regional Trial Court of San
WE CONCUR:
Carlos City (Branch 57) in Criminal Case No. SCC
3054. The assailed Decision disposed as follows:
WHEREFORE, in the light of the foregoing
consideration, the court finds the accused Ricardo
T. Agliday guilty beyond reasonable doubt of
parricide and hereby sentences him to suffer the
3. People vs agliday
penalty of reclusion perpetua and to indemnify the
heirs of the victim in the amount of fifty thousand
pesos (50,000.00).
[G.R. No. 140794. October 16, 2001]
The PNP Bayambang[,] Pangasinan is directed to
turn over the shotgun to the Firearm and Explosive
Division, Camp Crame, Quezon City.[2]
PEOPLE OF THE
PHILIPPINES, appellee, vs. RICARDO This case originated from the April 22, 1999
Information,[3] in which Ricardo Agliday y Tolentino
AGLIDAY y TOLENTINO, appellant.
was accused of parricide, allegedly committed as
follows:
DECISION
PANGANIBAN, J.: That on or about February 25, 1999, in the evening,
at [B]arangay Nalsian Sur, [M]unicipality of
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Page 13 of 80
Bayambang, [P]rovince of Pangasinan, Philippines,
and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court,
the above-named accused, with intent to kill, did
then and there, wil[l]fully, unlawfully and
feloniously shoot his son Richard V. Agliday with a
shotgun, unlicensed causing his death shortly
thereafter due to [c]ardio respiratory arrest,
hypovolemic shock, gunshot wound, pt. of entry at
the (L) upper inner quadrant of gluteus, 3 x 3 cm.
(+) contusion collar, as per Certificate of Death
issued by Dr. Rod Alden Tamondong, M.D., medical
officer III, Region I Medical Center, Arellano St.,
Dagupan City, to the damage and prejudice of his
legal heirs.[4]
On arraignment, appellant, assisted by Atty.
Bernardo S. Valdez, pleaded not guilty.[5] After trial
in due course, the lower court rendered the assailed
Decision. Atty. Carlito M. Soriano, counsel for
appellant, filed the Notice of Appeal on September
22, 1999.[6]
The Facts
Version of the Prosecution
In its Brief,[7] the Office of the Solicitor General
summarized the prosecutions version of the facts as
follows:
Prosecution witness Conchita Agliday, wife of
appellant Reynaldo Agliday, testified that about
8:00 oclock on the evening of February 25, 1999
while washing dishes in the kitchen of their house,
her son Richard Agliday was shot with a shotgun by
her husband-appellant Ricardo Agliday (pp. 4-5,
tsn, July 5, 1999). As a result, her son Richard fell

on his belly; her husband-appellant ran
away. Although shocked, Conchita was able to rush
out of her house to call for help. Richard was first
brought to the Sto. Nio Hospital, then to the San
Carlos General Hospital, and finally to the Region I
Hospital in Dagupan City (pp. 5-6, id.).
Before the shooting, Conchita and her husband
quarreled over her working as a laundrywoman (p.
7, id.). Her son, Richard, at the time of his death,
was only nineteen (19) years old and in 4 th year
college (p. 9, id.).
Prosecution witness Rey Agliday, another son of
appellant, testified that he was in their house
resting on a wooden bed at the time of the incident
in question (p. 3, tsn, June 18, 1999). Rey saw his
father-appellant shoot his brother Richard with a
shotgun, as he was about four (4) meters from
them (p. 4, id.).
Before the shooting incident, Rey recounted [that]
his mother and his father-appellant had a quarrel,
but he did not interfere. His brother Richard, on the
other hand, intervened and for that reason
appellant got his shotgun and shot
Richard. Appellant surrendered to the barangay
captain who accompanied him to the police
authorities. Rey executed a sworn statement
(Exhibit A) on the shooting incident (p. 5, id.).
Dr. Rod Alden Tamondong, medical health officer,
Region I Medical Center, Dagupan City declared
that he attended to the medical needs of Richard
Agliday. Richard came in looking very pale, weak,
and semi-conscious (p. 3, tsn, July 13, 1999). He
died at the emergency room.
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Dr. Tamondong found a gunshot wound at the left
buttock of the victim which had no point of exit; he
also found multiple metallic objects therein based
on the contusion color of the wound and the x-ray
result (pp. 4-5, id.). He stated that the cause of the
victims death was cardio-respiratory arrest
secondary to the decrease of the circulating blood
of the victim (pp. 4-5, id.). But he did not issue a
medical certificate as he was then on official leave;
he only issued a death certificate (Exhibit D) (p. 5,
id.).[8]
Version of the Defense
Appellant, in his Brief,[9] submits his own
narration of the events:
Appellant Ricardo T. Agliday is a barangay tanod of
Nalsian Sur, Bayambang, Pangasinan.
Sometime on February 25, 1999, at or about 8:00
oclock in the evening, appellant was at the first
floor of his house. He was cleaning a homemade
shotgun which he intended to bring to [his] night
patrol in their barangay, with fellow barangay
tanods.
While his wife Conchita and his son Richard were
about to go upstairs, and while appellant was
cleaning the homemade shotgun, the gun
accidentally went off and Richards buttock was hit.
Appellant went near his son and embraced
him. Appellant and some relatives brought Richard
to the Sto. Nino Hospital at Bayambang,
Page 14 of 80
Pangasinan. They later transferred him to the San
Carlos General Hospital. Finally, they brought him
to the Region I Medical Center at Dagupan City,
where he expired.
Thereafter, appellant returned to Bayambang,
Pangasinan. He directly went to the house of
Barangay Captain Jose Matabang, Jr. to whom he
voluntarily surrendered. The barangay captain
brought the appellant to [the] police station of
Bayambang, Pangasinan, with the homemade
shotgun which [had] accidentally hit Richard.[10]
Ruling of the Trial Court
Faced with two conflicting versions of the facts,
the trial court gave credence to the prosecution
witnesses who gave straightforward, spontaneous,
sincere and frank accounts of the events that had
unfolded before their very eyes. Because of their
relationship with appellant, there was no reason for
them to testify falsely against him. The first witness
(Rey) was appellants son who was the victims
brother, while the other witness (Conchita) was
appellants wife who was the victims mother.
The defense of appellant that what happened
was an accidental shooting was disbelieved by the
trial court. It viewed such stance as his desperate
attempt to exculpate himself from the
consequences of his acts.
Hence, this appeal.[11]
The Issues

Appellant submits the following issues:
First Assignment of Error
The Honorable Court a quo erred in its findings
of facts which[,] had they been in accordance
with the evidence adduced, will suffice to
support a judgment of acquittal for accused-
appellant.[12]
Second Assignment of Error
The Honorable Court a quo erred in convicting
accused appellant [of] parricide.[13]
This Courts Ruling
The appeal is devoid of merit.
First Issue: Credibility of Witnesses
Appellant contends that the trial court erred in
giving credence to the prosecution witnesses
despite his avowals to the contrary. He claims that
it should have believed him because he had
absolutely no reason or motive to kill, much less
shoot, his own son whom he considered to have
had a very bright future. He further alleges that the
corroborating testimonies of Jose Matabang and
SPO1 Emilio Opina, who were not related to the
parties and had absolutely no motive to testify
falsely against him, were more credible than those
of his wife and other son.
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
We disagree. Long settled is the rule in criminal
jurisprudence that when the issue is one of
credibility of witnesses, an appellate court will
normally not disturb the factual findings of the trial
court.[14] That is, unless the lower court has reached
conclusions that are clearly unsupported by
evidence, or unless it has overlooked some facts or
circumstances of weight and influence which, if
considered, would affect the results.[15]
Matabangs testimony was basically what
appellant had told him and, hence, biased and
limited. The testimony of Opina -- that he had been
told by Conchita that the shooting was accidental --
was contradicted by her own statements in open
court that she was still in shock when the police
officer conducted the preliminary
investigation. Such statements taken ex parte, like
affidavits, are held as inferior to testimonies given
in open court.[16] Thus, we find no ground in the
case at bar to overturn the factual findings of the
trial court.
Second Issue: Accident as an Exempting
Circumstance
Appellant protests the trial courts ruling that his
defense of accidental shooting was
fabricated. According to him, he was cleaning the
shotgun that he would have used for the evening
patrol with other barangay tanods when he
accidentally touched the trigger and hit Richard,
who was going up the stairs into the house with
Conchita.[17] He therefore contends that he should
be acquitted on the basis of the exempting
Page 15 of 80
circumstance of accident under Article 12
(paragraph 4) of the Revised Penal Code.
We are not persuaded. Both the trial court and
the solicitor general rejected this defense on the
basis of the eyewitness testimonies of Conchita and
Rey. Under Article 12 (paragraph 4) of the Code,
criminal liability does not arise in case a crime is
committed by [a]ny person who, while performing a
lawful act with due care, causes an injury by mere
accident without fault or intention of causing it. The
exemption from criminal liability under the
circumstance showing accident is based on the lack
of criminal intent.
The declarations of innocence by appellant are
contradicted by the testimonies of his wife and
son. On the witness stand, Conchita recounts the
incident as follows:
Q: You said that you were at home on February
25, 1999 at about 8:00 oclock in the
evening; what were you doing if you can still
remember?
A: I was washing dishes, sir.
Q: While doing so, do you recall if there was any
unusual incident that happened?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: What was that unusual incident?
A: My son was shot by my husband, sir.
Q: Where did your husband [shoot] your son?
A: In the kitchen, sir.
Q: What weapon did your husband use in
shooting your son?

A: Shotgun, sir.[18]
In her Sworn Statement given to SPO1 Emilio
Opina of the Bayambang Police Station, she
declared:
04. Q: Will you please narrate to me briefly all
you know about the incident you are
referring to?
A: That on or about 8:00 oclock in the evening
o[n] February 25, 1999 while I and my
husband Ricardo Agliday y Tolentino were
quarreling in connection [with] his drinking
(liquor) habit[,] my son Richard V. Agliday
tried to [pacify] us but my husband, instead
of listening, x x x got his gun [from] the bed
where we are sleeping and shot our son
Richard V. Agliday."[19]
Rey corroborated his mothers testimony that
his brother was shot by their father. His testimony
proceeded as follows:
Q: On February 25, 1999 at about 8:00 oclock in
the evening, do you remember where you
were?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Where were you on that day and [at that]
time?
A: I was under the house resting on a wooden
bed, sir.
xxxxxxxxx
Q: While you were under your house resting do
you remember if there was any unusual
incident that happened?
A: Yes, sir.
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Q: What was that unusual incident?
A: My brother was shot by my father, sir.
Q: How far where you when your father shot
your brother?
A: About four (4) meters, sir.
Q: What weapon did your father use in shooting
your brother?
A: A shotgun, sir.
xxxxxxxxx
Q: Where was your mother, Conchita at the time
your father shot your brother Richard?
A: She was there and they were both quarreling,
sir.
Q: They were both quarreling before the incident
happened?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: And while your father and mother were
quarreling what did you do?
A: I did not interfere[;] it was my brother who
intervene[d] between them that is why my
father got his gun and shot my brother, sir.
[20]
Before the accused may be exempted from
criminal liability by reason of Article 12 (paragraph
4), the following elements must concur: (1) a
person is performing a lawful act (2) with due care,
and (3) he causes an injury to another by mere
accident and (4) without any fault or intention of
causing it.[21] For an accident to become an
exempting circumstance, the act has to be lawful.
Page 16 of 80
[22]
The act of firing a shotgun at another is not a
lawful act.
An accident is an occurrence that happens
outside the sway of our will, and although it comes
about through some act of our will, lies beyond the
bounds of humanly foreseeable consequences.[23] It
connotes the absence of criminal intent. Intent is a
mental state, the existence of which is shown by a
persons overt acts.[24] In the case at bar, appellant
got his shotgun and returned to the kitchen to
shoot his son, who had intervened in the quarrel
between the former and Conchita. It must also be
pointed out that the firearm was a shotgun that
would not have fired off without first being
cocked. Undoubtedly, appellant cocked the shotgun
before discharging it, showing a clear intent to fire
it at someone.
The Resolution[25] dated April 22, 1999, filed by
th
4 Asst. Provincial Prosecutor Emilio R. Soriano,
reads thus:
[O]n the evening of February 25, 1999 at about
8:00 oclock, complainant and her husband were
then quarreling in connection with his liquor
drinking habit. While they were quarreling, their son
Richard intervened and tried to pacify his father
who [was] under the influence of liquor.Apparently
angered and not listening to his son, he proceeded
inside their bedroom and took his gun and
thereafter shot his son Richard who was trying to
pacify them. After seeing her son being shot by her
husband, complainant ran outside and called for
help. x x x.
After carefully considering the uncontroverted
evidence adduced by complainant, undersigned
 Page 17 of 80

sufficiently finds a probable cause for [p]arricide
with the use of an unlicensed firearm x x x.[26]
Appellant contends that since he was only
negligent, he should have been convicted, not of
parricide, but only of reckless imprudence resulting
in homicide.[27]
We disagree. Reckless imprudence consists of
voluntarily doing or failing to do, without malice, an
act from which material damage results by reason
of an inexcusable lack of precaution on the part of
the person performing or failing to perform such
act. Past jurisprudential cases of reckless
imprudence resulting in homicide were as follows:
(1) exhibiting a loaded revolver to a friend, who got
killed by the accidental discharge arising from
negligent handling; (2) discharging a firearm from
the window of ones house and killing a neighbor
who, at just that moment, leaned over a balcony
front; and (3) firing a .45 caliber pistol twice in the
air to stop a fist fight; and, as the fight continued,
firing another shot at the ground but, after the
bullet ricocheted, hitting a bystander who died
thereafter.[28]
Intent is not lacking in the instant
case. Appellants external acts prove malice or
criminal intent. A deliberate intent to do an unlawful
act is inconsistent with reckless imprudence.[29]
In People v. Belbes,[30] the Court found no
reckless imprudence in the shooting of a student
who, in the act of destroying the schools bamboo
wall, had been caught by a policeman who was
responding to a report that somebody was causing
trouble in a school affair. The policemans action
cannot be characterized as reckless imprudence,
because the shooting was intentional. The accused
had intended to fire at the victim and in fact hit only his thirteen (13) year old patient
the latter. In this case, resenting his sons meddling Catherine Acosta. The trial court had sentenced him
in his argument with his wife, appellant purposely to suffer the penalty of arresto mayor in its medium
took his gun and shot his son. period (four [4] months' imprisonment), as well as
to pay the heirs of his patient an indemnity of
WHEREFORE, the appeal is P30,000.00 for her death, P10,000.00 as
hereby DENIED and the assailed
reimbursement for actual expenses incurred,
Decision AFFIRMED. Costs against appellant. P50,000.00 as moral damages and to pay the costs
of the suit. 1
SO ORDERED.
The information filed against petitioner and his co-
accused, the surgeon Dr. Emilio Madrid, alleged the
following:
4. Pangoronom vs people (NF)
That on or about the 31st of May
1981, in the municipality of
5. Carillo vs people Paraaque, Metro Manila, Philippines
and within the jurisdiction of this
G.R. No. 86890 January 21, 1994 Honorable Court, the above-named
accused, conspiring and
LEANDRO CARILLO, petitioner, confederating together and mutually
vs. helping and aiding with one another,
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondent. without taking the necessary care
and precaution to avoid injury to
Balane, Tamase, Alampay Law Office for petitioner. person, did then and there willfully,
unlawfully and feloniously operate, in
a reckless, careless and imprudent
The Solicitor General for the people.
manner and neglected to exercise
their respective medical knowhow
and tasks and/or departed from the
recognized standard in their
FELICIANO, J.: treatment, diagnosis of the condition,
and operation of the patient, one
Petitioner Dr. Leandro Carillo, an anesthetist, seeks Catherine Acosta, 13 years old, which
review of the Decision of the Court of Appeals dated negligence caused the death of the
28 November 1988, which affirmed his conviction said Catherine Acosta. 2
by the Regional Trial Court of the crime of simple
negligence resulting in homicide, for the death of

Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura

Labrador Notes

Petitioner and Dr. Emilio Madrid entered pleas of
not guilty at arraignment and the case proceeded to
trail with Judge Job B. Madayag presiding. 3
The prosecution presented as its principal evidence
the testimony of four (4) witnesses, namely: 1)
Yolanda Acosta, Catherine's mother, who was able
to observe the conduct of the accused outside the
operating theater before, during and after the
appendectomy procedure carried out on her
daughter; 4 2) Domingo Acosta, Catherine's father,
who corroborated some parts of his wife's
testimony; 5 3) Dr. Horacio Buendia, an expert
witness who described before the trial court the
relationship between a surgeon and an anesthetist
in the course of a surgical operation, as well as
define the likelihood of cardiac arrest as a post
operative complication; 6 and 4) Dr. Nieto Salvador,
an expert witness who analyzed and explained the
significance of the results of the pathological study
and autopsy conducted on Catherine's body by one
Dr. Alberto Reyes. 7
After the prosecution had rested its case, the
defense was granted leave to file a demurrer to the
evidence. 8 After failing to file the demurrer within
the reglementary period, Judge Manuel Yuzon, who
had in the meantime taken over as presiding judge
of the sala where this case was pending, denied the
defense motion for extension of time to file
demurrer and declared the case submitted for
decision. 9
On 19 September 1985, the trial court promulgated
its decision convicting both the accused of the crime
charged. 10
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed the
judgment of conviction, and specified that the civil
liability of the two (2) accused was solidary in
nature. 11
Petitioner Dr. Carillo alone filed the present Petition
for Review with the Court, seeking reversal of his
conviction, or in the alternative, the grant of a new
trial. Dr. Madrid did not try to appeal further the
Court of Appeals Decision. Accordingly, the
judgment of conviction became final insofar as the
accused surgeon Dr. Madrid is concerned.
The facts of the case as established by the Court of
Appeals are as follows:
The deceased, Catherine Acosta, a 13
year old girl, daughter of spouses
Domingo and Yolanda Acosta,
complained to her father at about
10:30 o'clock in the morning of May
31, 1981 of pains in the lower part of
her abdomen. Catherine was then
brought to Dr. Elva Pea. Dra. Pea
called for Dr. Emilio Madrid and the
latter examined Catherine Acosta.
According to Dr. Madrid, his findings
might be appendicitis. Then Dr. Pea
told Catherine's parents to bring the
child to the hospital in Baclaran so
that the child will be observed.
At the Baclaran General Hospital, a
nurse took blood sample form the
child. The findings became known at
around 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon
and the child was scheduled for
Page 18 of 80
operation at 5:00 o'clock in the
afternoon. The operation took place
at 5:45 p.m. because Dr. Madrid
arrived only at that time.
When brought inside the operating
room, the child was feeling very well
and they did not subject the child to
ECG (electrocardiogram) and
X-ray.
The appellant Dr. Emilio Madrid, a
surgeon, operated on Catherine. He
was assisted by appellant, Dr.
Leandro Carillo, an anesthesiologists.
During the operation, while Yolanda
Acosta, Catherine's mother, was
staying outside the operating room,
she "noticed something very
unfamiliar." The three nurses who
assisted in the operation were going
in and out of the operating room,
they were not carrying anything, but
in going out of the operating room,
they were already holding something.
Yolanda asked one of the nurses if
she could enter the operating room
but she was refused.
At around 6:30 p.m., Dr. Emilio
Madrid went outside the operating
room and Yolanda Acosta was
allowed to enter the first door.
 Page 19 of 80

The appendicitis (sic) was shown to she returned to the hospital are gown is
them by Dr. Madrid, because, reproduced hereunder as follows: rising up
according to Dr. Madrid, they might and
be wondering because he was going Q What down.
to install drainage near the operating happene
(sic) portion of the child. d Q What
afterward transpire
When asked, the doctor told them the ? d after
child was already out of danger but that?
the operation was not yet finished. A When I
arrived in A I asked
It has also been established that the the Dr.
deceased was not weighed before the hospital, Madrid
administration of anesthesia on her. my child why it
was was like
The operation was finished at 7:00 being that, that
o'clock in the evening and when the transferr the
child was brought out from the ed to her heartbea
operating room, she was observed to bed. t of my
be shivering (nanginginig); her heart daughter
beat was not normal; she was asleep Q What is not
and did not wake up; she was pale; else normal.
and as if she had difficulty in happene
breathing and Dr. Emilio Madrid d? Q And
suggested that she placed under did the
oxygen tank; that oxygen was Q I doctor
administered to the child when she noticed make
was already in the room. that the any
heartbea reply?
Witness Yolanda Acosta further t of my
testified that shortly before the child daughter A The
was transferred from the operating was not doctor
room to her room, she (witness) was normal. said
requested by the anesthesiologist to And I because
go home and get a blanket. noticed of the
A portion of Yolanda Acosta's that her lesion of
testimony on what happened when hospital the child.

Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura

Labrador Notes
 Page 20 of 80

Q What Q What you do

else happene anything
happene d later ?
d? on after
Dr. Carill A We
A After o and requeste
they Dr. Madri d the
have d nurse
revived stepped who was
the out of attending
heartbea the to her to
t of the hospital? call for a
child, doctor.
Dr. Carill A After
o and 15 or 30 Q And
Dr. Madri minutes the nurse
d left. has who was
lapsed at attending
Q Now about to the
do you 7:15 or patient
remembe 7:30, the called for
r what child had a doctor?
time was develope
it when d A They
Dr. Carill convulsio called for
o n and Dra.
stepped stiffening Pea,
out? of the their
body. family
A Only a physician
minute Q When .
after you
they observed Q What
have convulsio transpire
transferr n and d
ed the stiffening afterward
child to of the s?
the bed. body, did

Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura

Labrador Notes
 Page 21 of 80

A What the result transpire

Dra. of the d next?
Pea did examinat
was call ion? A
for Dr. Accordin
Madrid A The g to
and the cardiologi them,
cardiologi st was they will
st. the one do their
whom best for
Q Did informed the child
this us after and that
doctor he they will
arrived? stepped call for
out of Dr. Carill
A Yes. the room o.
when we
Q What followed Q Did
transpire him. The Dr. Carill
d after doctor o
the told us arrived?
doctor that she
arrived? suffered A At
severe around
infection 10:30 in
A They
which the
examine
went up evening.
d the
to her
child.
head.
Q Did Dr.
Q After Carillo do
Q After anything
they
you were when he
examine
informed arrived
d the
of the on 31
child, did
result of May
they
his 1981?
inform
examinat
you of
ion, what

Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura

Labrador Notes
 Page 22 of 80

A When Q What sness, I

he happene will
arrived, d after resign
he that? (sic) as a
noticed doctor." 1
2
that A After
there that we
were two talked to (Emphasi
small Dr. Carill s
bottles o and supplied)
and big asked
bottles of him how When Catherine remained unconscious until
dextrose did this noontime the next day, a neurologist examined her
which happen and she was diagnosed as comatose. 13 Three (3)
were to the days later, Catherine died without regaining
hanging child. consciousness. 14
above
the bed Q What The Court of Appeals held that Catherine had
of the did Dr. suffered from an overdose of, or an adverse
child. Carillo reaction to, anesthesia, particularly the arbitrary
Then he reply administration of Nubain, a pain killer, without
said, (sic) to benefit of prior weighing of the patient's body mass,
"What is you? which weight determines the dosage of Nubain
this?
which can safely be given to a patient. 15 The Court
Christma
A He of Appeals held that this condition triggered off a
s tree or
answere heart attack as a post-operative complication,
what?"
d "that is depriving Catherine's brain of oxygen, leading to
He told
nothing, the brain's hemorrhage. 16 The Court of Appeals
us that
the child identified such cardiac arrest as the immediate
one
will cause of Catherine's death. 17
bottle of
regain
dextrose
consciou The Court of Appeals found criminal negligence on
be
sness the part of petitioner Dr. Carillo and his co-accused
removed.
and if Dr. Madrid, holding that both had failed to observe
And the
the child the required standard of diligence in the
big one
will not examination of Catherine prior to the actual
will
regain administration of anesthesia; 18 that it was "a bit
remain.
consciou

Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura

Labrador Notes

rash" on the part of the accused Dr. Carillo "to have
administered Nubain without first weighing
Catherine"; 19 and that it was an act of negligence
on the part of both doctors when, (a) they failed to
monitor Catherine's heartbeat after the operation
and
(b) they left the hospital immediately after reviving
Catherine's heartbeat, depriving the latter
of immediate and expert medical assistance when
she suffered a heart attack approximately fifteen
(15) to thirty (30) minutes later. 20
Since neither petitioner nor his co-accused
presented evidence in their own behalf, the present
Petition seeks to question the soundness of the
factual conclusions drawn by the Court of Appeals,
upon which the affirmance of petitioner's conviction
was based.
Close examination of the instant Petition for Review
shows that petitioner's main arguments are two-
fold: (1) the Court of Appeals "completely brushed
aside" and "misapprehended" Catherine's death
certificate and biopsy report which allegedly showed
that the cause of death was a ruptured appendix,
which led to blood poisoning, 21rather than faulty
anesthetic treatment;
and (2) there was no direct evidence of record
showing that Nubain was administered to Catherine
either during the appendectomy procedure or after
such operation. 22
Two (2) related issues are thus posed for the
Court's consideration. The first is whether the Court
of Appeals so drastically "misapprehended" the
relevant, operative facts in this case as to compel
this Court to examine and resolve question(s) of
fact which would have a decisive significance for the
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
disposition of the case. The rule is too firmly settled
to require much documentation that only questions
of law may be raised before this Court in a petition
for review on certiorari, subject to certain well-
known exceptions. 23 After careful scrutiny of
petitioner's contentions before us and the record of
this case, we do not believe that petitioner has
shown "misapprehension of facts" on the part of the
Court of Appeals which would require this Court to
overturn the judgment reached by the former.
The second issue is whether or not the findings of
fact of the Court of Appeals adequately support the
conclusion that petitioner Dr. Carillo was, along with
Dr. Madrid, guilty of simple negligence which
resulted in homicide. Our review of the record leads
us to an affirmative answer.
Petitioner contends that the Court of Appeals
seriously erred in finding that an overdose of, or an
allergic reaction to, the anesthetic drug Nubain had
led to the death of Catherine Acosta and that the
true cause of Catherine's death was that set out in
the death certificate of Catherine: "Septicemia (or
blood poisoning) due to perforated appendix with
peritonitis." 24 The concept of causation in general,
and the cause of death in human beings in
particular, are complex and difficult notions. What is
fairly clear is that death, understood as a physical
condition involving cessation of vital signs in the
brain and heart, is preceded by a series of
physiological events, any one of which events can,
with equal cogency, be described as a "cause of
death". The Court of Appeals found that an
overdose of, or an adverse reaction to, Nubain, an
anesthetic or
pain-killing drug the appropriate dose of which
depends on the body weight or mass of the patient,
Page 23 of 80
had generated or triggered off cardiac arrest, which
in
turn led to lack of oxygen in Catherine's brain,
which then brought about hemorrhaging in the
brain. Vital activity in the brain thereupon ceased.
The medical evidence presented at the trial was
quite consistent with the findings of the Court of
Appeals which concluded that cardiac arrest was the
cause of Catherine's death. 25
For his part, petitioner insists that cardiac arrest is
not the only cause of oxygen-starvation of the
brain, that septicemia with peritonitis or severe
infection which had "gone up to the head" of
Catherine was an equally efficient cause of
deprivation of the brain of oxygen and hence of
brain hemorrhage. The medical testimony of the
expert witnesses for the prosecution on which
petitioner relies is also consistent with petitioner's
theory that septicemia with peritonitis was, or at
least could have been, the cause of Catherine's
death. 26
Indeed, it appears to the Court that there was no
medical proof submitted to the trial court to show
that one or the other "cause"
was necessarily an exclusive cause of death in the
case of Catherine Acosta; that an overdose or
allergic reaction to Nubain could not have combined
with septicemia and peritonitis in bringing about
Catherine's death.
What is of critical importance for present purposes
is not so much the identification of the "true cause"
or "real cause" of Catherine's death but rather the
set of circumstances which both the trial court and
the Court of Appeals found constituted simple (as
distinguished from reckless) negligence on the part

of the two accused Dr. Madrid and Dr. Carillo
leading to the death of Catherine.
When the patient was wheeled out of the operating
room after completion of surgery, she manifested
signs of medical instability (i.e., shivering, paleness,
irregular breathing and weak heart beat). 27 She
was not brought to a properly equipped recovery
room, or intensive care until which the hospital
lacked. 28 Such facilities and their professional
staffs, of which an anesthetist is commonly a part,
are essential for providing close observation and
patient care while a post-surgery patient is
recovering from the effects of anesthesia and while
the normal protective mechanisms are still dull or
obtunded. 29 Instead, the patient was merely
brought to her assigned hospital bed and was
provided oxygen on the instructions of Dr. Madrid
then "revived" her heartbeat. 30 Both doctors then
left their patient and the hospital; approximately
fifteen minutes later, she suffered convulsions and
cardiac arrest. 31
The conduct of Dr. Madrid and of the petitioner
constituted inadequate care of their patient in view
of her vulnerable condition. Both doctors failed to
appreciate the serious condition of their patient
whose adverse physical signs were quite manifest
right after surgery. And after reviving her
heartbeat, both doctors failed to monitor their
patient closely or extend further medical care to
her; such conduct was especially necessary in view
of the inadequate,
post-operative facilities of the hospital. We do not,
of course, seek to hold petitioner responsible for the
inadequate facilities of the Baclaran General
Hospital. We consider, however, that the
inadequate nature of those facilities did impose a
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
somewhat higher standard of professional diligence
upon the accused surgeon and anesthetist
personally than would have been called for in a
modern fully-equipped hospital.
While Dr. Madrid and a cardiologist were containing
the patient's convulsions, and after the latter had
diagnosed that infection had reached the patient's
head, these two (2) apparently after consultation,
decided to call-in the petitioner. 32 There is here a
strong implication that the patient's post-operative
condition must have been considered by the two (2)
doctors as in some way related to the anesthetic
treatment she had received from the petitioner
either during or after the surgical procedure.
Once summoned, petitioner anesthesiologist could
not be readily found. When he finally appeared at
10:30 in the evening, he was evidently in a bad
temper, commenting critically on the dextrose
bottles before ordering their removal. 33 This
circumstance indicated he was not disposed to
attend to this unexpected call, in violation of the
canons of his profession that as a physician, he
should serve the interest of his patient "with the
greatest of solicitude, giving them always his best
talent and skill." 34 Indeed, when petitioner finally
saw his patient, he offered the unprofessional
bluster to the parents of Catherine that he would
resign if the patient will not regain
consciousness. 35 The canons of medical ethics
require a physician to "attend to his patients
faithfully and conscientiously." He should secure for
them all possible benefits that may depend upon his
professional skill and care. As the sole tribunal to
adjudge the physician's failure to fulfill his
obligation to his patient is, in most cases, his own
Page 24 of 80
conscience, violation of this rule on his part is
"discreditable and inexcusable". 36
Nubain was an experimental drug for anesthesia
and post-operative pain and the medical literature
required that a patient be weighed first before it is
administered and warned that there was no (or
inadequate) experience relating to the
administration thereof to a patient less that
eighteen (18) ears of age. 37 Yet, the doctor's order
sheet (Exhibit "C") did not contain this precaution
but instead directed a reader to apply the drug only
when warranted by the circumstances. 38 During the
offer of Exhibit "C" by the prosecution, Dr. Madrid
admitted that this prescription, which was unsigned,
was made in his own handwriting. 39 It must be
observed that the instruction was open-ended in
that some other individual still had to determine if
circumstances existed warranting administration of
the drug to the patient. The document thus
indicated the abdication of medical responsibility on
an extremely critical matter.
Since petitioner anesthesiologist
entered subsequent prescriptions or orders in the
same order sheet, which were signed by him,
at 7:15 p.m. on the same evening of 31 May 1981,
he was in a position to appreciate the dangers
inherent in the prior prescription, which was within
his (petitioner's) area of specialization, and to order
measures to correct this anomaly and protect his
patient's well-being. So far as the condition of the
evidence shows, he failed to do so. In sum, only a
low level of diligence was exhibited by petitioner
and Dr. Madrid in the prescription of medication for
their patient.
As noted earlier, petitioner relied heavily in this
proceeding on the testimony on cross-examination

of the expert witnesses for the prosecution to show
that blood poisoning resulting from a ruptured
appendix could also be responsible for the patient's
death.
No suggestion has been made that the rupture of
the patient's occurred prior to surgery. After her
blood sample was examined, the patient was
merely diagnosed as a case of appendicitis, without
further elaboration. 40 No intensive preoperative
preparations, like the immediate administration of
antibiotics, was thereafter undertaken on the
patient. This is a standard procedure for patients
who are, after being diagnosed, suspected of
suffering from a perforated appendix and
consequent peritonitis. 41 The mother also testified
that petitioner anesthesiologist merely injected a
drug, "pre-anesthesia" intended to put the patient
to sleep, into the container of fluids being
administered to her daughter intravenously at her
room, prior to surgery. 42 We note further that the
surgeon Dr. Madrid was forty-five minutes late in
arriving at the operating theater. 43 Considering
that delay in treatment of appendicitis increases the
morbidity of the patient, 44 Dr. Madrid's conduct can
only be explained by a pre-operative diagnosis on
his part that the condition of appendicitis
was not yet attended by complications (i.e., a
ruptured appendix and peritonitis).
The above circumstances do strongly indicate that
the rupture of the patient's appendix
occurred during the appendectomy procedure, that
is, at a time and place the operating room
where the two (2) accused were in full control of
the situation and could determine decisively what
needed to be done in respect of the patient. 45This
circumstance must be considered in conjunction
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
with other related circumstances which the
prosecution had proven: that the patient was
ambulatory when brought to the operating
room; 46 that she left the operating room two (2)
hours later in obviously serious condition; and that
an appendectomy accompanied or followed by
sustained antibiotic treatment is a fairly common
and generally accepted medical procedure for
dealing with ruptured appendix and peritonitis, 47 a
fact of which judicial note may be taken.
As early as in People v. Vistan, 48 the Court defined
simple negligence, penalized under what is now
Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code, as "a mere
lack of prevision in a situation where either the
threatened harm is
not immediate or the danger not openly visible."
Put in a slightly different way, the gravamen of the
offense of simple negligence is the failure to
exercise the diligence necessitated or called for the
situation which was not immediately
life-destructive but which culminated, in the present
case, in the death of a human being three (3) days
later. Such failure to exercise the necessary degree
of care and diligence is a negative ingredient of the
offense charged. The rule in such cases is that while
the prosecution must prove the negative ingredient
of the offense, it needs only to present the best
evidence procurable under the circumstances, in
order to shift the burden of disproving or countering
the proof of the negative ingredient to the accused,
provided that such initial evidence establishes at
least on a prima facie basis the guilt of the
accused. 49 This rule is particularly applicable where
the negative ingredient of the offense is of such a
nature or character as, under the circumstances, to
be specially within the knowledge or control of the
accused. 50 In the instant case, the Court is bound
Page 25 of 80
to observe that the events which occurred during
the surgical procedure (including whether or not
Nubain had in fact been administered as an
anesthesia immediately before or during the
surgery) were peculiarly within the knowledge and
control of Dr. Carillo and Dr. Madrid. It was,
therefore, incumbent upon the two (2) accused to
overturn the prima facie case which the prosecution
had established, by reciting the measures which
they had actually taken to prevent or to counter the
obviously serious condition of Catherine Acosta
which was evident right after surgery. This they
failed or refused to do so.
Still another circumstance of which account must be
taken is that both petitioner and Dr. Madrid failed to
inform the parents of their minor patient of the
nature of her illness, or to explain to them either
during the surgery
(if feasible) or at any time after the surgery, the
events which comprised the dramatic deterioration
of her condition immediately after surgery as
compared with her pre-surgery condition. To give a
truthful explanation to the parents was a duty
imposed upon them by the canons of their
profession. 51 Petitioner should have explained to
Catherine's parents the actual circumstances
surrounding Catherine's death, how, in other words,
a simple appendectomy procedure upon an
ambulatory patient could have led to such fatal
consequences.
By way of resume, in the case at bar, we consider
that the chain of circumstances above noted,
namely: (1) the failure of petitioner and Dr. Madrid
to appreciate the serious post-surgery condition of
their patient and to monitor her condition and
provide close patient care to her; (2) the summons

of petitioner by Dr. Madrid and the cardiologist after
the patient's heart attack on the very evening that
the surgery was completed; (3) the low level of
care and diligence exhibited by petitioner in failing
to correct Dr. Madrid's prescription of Nubain for
post-operative pain; (4) the extraordinary failure or
refusal of petitioner and Dr. Madrid to inform the
parents of Catherine Acosta of her true condition
after surgery, in disregard of the requirements of
the Code of Medical Ethics; and (5) the failure of
petitioner and Dr. Madrid to prove that they had in
fact exercised the necessary and appropriate
degree of care and diligence to prevent the sudden
decline in the condition of Catherine Acosta and her
death three (3) days later, leads the Court to the
conclusion, with moral certainty, that petitioner and
Dr. Madrid were guilty of simple negligence
resulting in homicide.
In addition to the main arguments raised by
petitioner earlier, he also raised an ancillary,
constitutional claim of denial of due process. He
contends that he was deprived of his right to have
competent representation at trial, and to have his
cause adequately heard, because his counsel of
record, Atty. Jose B. Puerto, was "incompetent" and
exhibited "gross negligence" by manifesting an
intent to file a demurrer to the evidence, in failing
to present evidence in his behalf and in omitting to
file a defense memorandum for the benefit of
Judge Yuzon, after the latter took over the case at
the end of trial and before the Judge rendered his
decision. 52Petitioner submits he is entitled to a new
trial. 53
These contentions do not persuade. An examination
of the record indicates that Atty. Puerto represented
petitioner during trial with reasonable competence.
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Page 26 of 80
Except for the two hearing sessions when witnesses subject only to the modification that the indemnity
Domingo Acosta was cross-examined and recross- for the death of Catherine Acosta is hereby
examined by Atty. Puerto, petitioner was present increased to P50,000.00, in line with current
during all the sessions when the other prosecution jurisprudence. 58
witnesses were presented and during which Atty.
Puerto extensively cross-examined them in behalf SO ORDERED.
of petitioner and Dr. Madrid. This counsel elicited
from the two (2) expert witnesses for the
prosecution testimony favorable to petitioner and
which was relied upon by the latter in this
proceeding. 54 The record further indicates that if
6. Reodica vs ca
petitioner indeed entertained substantial doubts
about the capability of Atty. Puerto, he could have
easily terminated the services of that counsel and
retained a new one, or sought from the trial court
[G.R. No. 125066. July 8, 1998]
the appointment of counsel
de oficio, during the ample opportunity given from
the time Atty. Puerto manifested his intent to file a
demurrer on 16 October 1985, to the submission of
ISABELITA REODICA, petitioner, vs. COURT OF
the case for decision on 25 June 1986 and before
APPEALS, and PEOPLE OF THE
the promulgation of judgment on 19 September
PHILIPPINES, respondents.
1986. 55 During all this time, petitioner could have
obtained leave of court to present evidence in his
behalf in lieu of a demurrer, or to submit a DECISION
memorandum for the defense. After promulgation DAVIDE, JR., J.:
of the judgment of conviction, petitioner did not
seek a new trial, but permitted Atty. Puerto to
On the evening of 17 October 1987, petitioner
obtain leave from the trial court to continue on bail
Isabelita Reodica was driving a van along Doa
during the pendency of the proceedings before the
Soledad Avenue, Better Living Subdivision,
Court of Appeals. 56 Indeed, petitioner replaced
Paraaque, Metro Manila. Allegedly because of her
Atty. Puerto as counsel only upon institution of the
recklessness, her van hit the car of complainant
present petition. 57
Norberto Bonsol. As a result, complainant sustained
physical injuries, while the damage to his car
Petitioner's constitutional objection is plainly an amounted to P8,542.00.
afterthought.
Three days after the incident, or on 20 October
WHEREFORE, the Decision of the Court of Appeals 1987, the complainant filed an Affidavit of
dated 28 November 1988 is hereby AFFIRMED,

Complaint[1] against petitioner with the Fiscals
Office.
On 13 January 1988, an information [2] was filed
before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Makati
(docketed as Criminal Case No. 33919) charging
petitioner with Reckless Imprudence Resulting in
Damage to Property with Slight Physical Injury. The
information read:
nd
The undersigned 2 Asst. Fiscal accuses
Isabelita Reodica of the crime of Reckless
Imprudence Resulting in Damage to
Property with Slight Physical Injury as
follows:
That on or about the 17th day of October, 1987 in
the Municipality of Paraaque, Metro Manila,
Philippines and within the jurisdiction of this
Honorable Court, the abovementioned accused,
Isabelita Velasco Reodica, being then the driver
and/or person in charge of a Tamaraw bearing plate
no. NJU-306, did then and there willfully, unlawfully
and feloniously drive, manage and operate the
same in a reckless, careless, negligent and
imprudent manner, without regard to traffic laws,
rules and regulations and without taking the
necessary care and precaution to avoid damage to
property and injuries to person, causing by such
negligence, carelessness and imprudence the said
vehicle to bump/collide with a Toyota Corolla
bearing plate no. NIM-919 driven and owned by
Norberto Bonsol, thereby causing damage
amounting to P8,542.00, to the damage and
prejudice of its owner, in the aforementioned
amount of P8,542.00.
That as further consequence due to the strong
impact, said Norberto Bonsol suffered bodily injuries
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
which required medical attendance for a period of
less that nine (9) days and incapacitated him from
performing his customary labor for the same period
of time.
Upon arraignment, petitioner pleaded not guilty
to the charge. Trial then ensued.
On 31 January 1991, the RTC of Makati, Branch
145, rendered a decision[3] convicting petitioner of
the quasi offense of reckless imprudence resulting
in damage to property with slight physical injuries,
and sentencing her:
[t]o suffer imprisonment of six (6) months
of arresto mayor, and to pay the
complainant, Norberto Bonsol y Appeals rendered a decision[7] on 31 January 1996
Atienza, the sum of Thirteen Thousand
Five Hundred Forty-Two (P13,542),
Philippine Currency, without subsidiary
impairment in case of insolvency; and to
pay the costs.[4]
The trial court justified imposing a 6-month
prison term in this wise:
As a result of the reckless imprudence of
the accused, complainant suffered slight
physical injuries (Exhs. D, H and I). In
view of the resulting physical injuries, the
penalty to be imposed is not fine, but
imprisonment (Gregorio, Fundamental of
Criminal Law Review, Eight Edition 1988,
p. 711). Slight physical injuries thru
reckless imprudence is now punished with
penalty of arresto mayor in its maximum
period (People v. Aguiles, L-11302,
October 28, 1960, cited in Gregorios book,
p. 718).[5]
Page 27 of 80
As to the sum of P13,542.00, this represented the
cost of the car repairs (P8,542.00) and medical
expenses (P5,000.00).
Petitioner appealed from the decision to the
Court of Appeals, which docketed the case as CA-
G.R. CR No. 14660. After her motions for extension
of time to file her brief were granted, she filed a
Motion to Withdraw Appeal for Probation Purposes,
and to Suspend, Ex Abundanti Cautela, Period for
Filing Appellants Brief. However, respondent Court
of Appeals denied this motion and directed
petitioner to file her brief.[6]
After passing upon the errors imputed by
petitioner to the trial court, respondent Court of
affirming the appealed decision.
Petitioner subsequently filed a motion for
reconsideration[8] raising new issues, thus:
NOW THAT AN ACQUITTAL SEEMS
IMPOSSIBLE, MAY WE REVISIT THE
PENALTY AND MOVE THAT IT BE
REVIEWED AND SET ASIDE SINCE IT IS
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED TO BE ERROR
TO COMPLEX DAMAGE TO PROPERTY AND
SLIGHT PHYSICAL INJURIES, AS BOTH
ARE LIGHT OFFENSES, OVER WHICH THE
RESPONDENT COURT HAD NO
JURISDICTION AND EVEN ASSUMING
SUCH JURISDICTION, IT CANNOT IMPOSE
A PENALTY IN EXCESS OF WHAT IS
AUTHORIZED BY LAW.[9]
.........
 Page 28 of 80

REVERSAL OF THE DECISION REMAINS IS ARRESTO MENOR AND such quasi offense was arresto menor not arresto
POSSIBLE ON GROUNDS OF NOT ARRESTO MAYOR. IT IS mayor.
PRESCRIPTION OR LACK OF GRAVE ERROR FOR THE
JURISDICTION.[10] RESPONDENT COURT TO As regards the second assigned error,
petitioner avers that the courts below should have
PUNISH PETITIONER MORE
In its Resolution of 24 May 1996, the Court of THAN SHE SHOULD OR pronounced that there were two separate light
Appeals denied petitioners motion for felonies involved, namely: (1) reckless imprudence
COULD BE PUNISHED
reconsideration for lack of merit, as well as her BECAUSE OF A CLERICAL with slight physical injuries; and (2) reckless
supplemental motion for reconsideration. Hence, imprudence with damage to property, instead of
ERROR COPIED FROM A
the present petition for review on certiorari under SECONDARY SOURCE. considering them a complex crime. Two light
Rule 45 of the Rules of Court premised on the felonies, she insists, do not rate a single penalty
following grounds: B. THE RESPONDENT COURT OF of arresto mayor or imprisonment of six months,
APPEALS GRAVELY ABUSED citing Lontok v. Gorgonio,[12] thus:
RESPONDENT COURT OF APPEALS ITS DISCRETION WHEN IT
DECISION DATED JANUARY 31, 1996 AND COMPLEXED THE CRIME OF Where the single act of imprudence
MORE SO ITS RESOLUTION DATED MAY 24, resulted in double less serious physical
RECKLESS IMPRUDENCE
1996, ARE CONTRARY TO LAW AND RESULTING IN DAMAGE TO injuries, damage to property amounting
GROSSLY ERRONEOUS IN THAT THEY to P10,000.00 and slight physical injuries,
PROPERTY AND SLIGHT
IMPOSED A PENALTY IN EXCESS OF WHAT PHYSICAL INJURIES a chief of police did not err in filing a
IS AUTHORIZED BY LAW FOR THE CRIME separate complaint for the slight physical
IMPOSING A SINGLE
OF RECKLESS IMPRUDENCE RESULTING IN EXCESSIVE PENALTY IN ITS injuries and another complaint for
SLIGHT PHYSICAL INJURIES, ON THE the lesiones menos graves and damage to
ELLIPTICAL RESOLUTION OF
BASIS OF A CLERICAL ERROR IN A MAY 24, 1996. property (Arcaya vs. Teleron, L-37446,
SECONDARY SOURCE. May 31, 1974, 57 SCRA 363, 365).
C. THE RESPONDENT COURT OF
A IN THE CASE OF PEOPLE V. APPEALS GRAVELY ERRED .........
AGUILAR,[11] THE SAME CASE WHEN IT AFFIRMED THE
WHERE THE COURT A TRIAL COURTS DECISION
QUO BASED ITS FINDING OF The case of Angeles vs. Jose, 96 Phil. 151,
NOTWITHSTANDING THE cited by investigating fiscal, is different from
A PENALTY WHEN IT DEFENSE OF PRESCRIPTION
AFFIRMED THE DECISION OF the instant case because in that case the
AND LACK OF JURISDICTION. negligent act resulted in the offenses
THE REGIONAL TRIAL
COURT, WHAT WAS STATED Anent the first ground, petitioner claims that of lesiones menos graves and damage to
IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT OF the courts below misquoted not only the title, but property which were both less grave felonies
SAID CASE IS THAT THE likewise the ruling of the case cited as authority and which, therefore, constituted a complex
PENALTY FOR SLIGHT regarding the penalty for slight physical injuries crime.
PHYSICAL through reckless imprudence. Concretely, the title
INJURIES THROUGH of the case was not People v. Aguiles, but People v. In the instant case, following the ruling in
RECKLESS IMPRUDENCE Aguilar; while the ruling was that the penalty for the Turla case, the offense of lesiones

Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura

Labrador Notes

leves through reckless imprudence should have
been charged in a separate information.
She then suggests that at worst, the penalties of
two light offenses, both imposable in their
maximum period and computed or added together,
only sum up to 60 days imprisonment and not six
months as imposed by the lower courts.
On the third assigned error, petitioner insists
that the offense of slight physical injuries through
reckless imprudence, being punishable only
by arresto menor, is a light offense; as such, it
prescribes in two months. Here, since the
information was filed only on 13 January 1988, or
almost three months from the date the vehicular
collision occurred, the offense had already
prescribed, again citing Lontok, thus:
In the instant case, following the ruling in
the Turla case, the offense of lesiones
leves through reckless imprudence should
have been charged in a separate
information. And since, as a light offense,
it prescribes in two months, Lontoks
criminal liability therefor was already
extinguished (Arts. 89[5], 90 and 91,
Revised Penal Code in relation to sec. 2[e]
and [f], Rule 117, Rules of Court). The trial
court committed a grave abuse of
discretion in not sustaining Lontoks motion
to quash that part of the information
charging him with that light offense.
Petitioner further claims that the information was
filed with the wrong court, since Regional Trial
Courts do not deal with arresto menor cases. She
submits that damage to property and slight physical
injuries are light felonies and thus covered by the
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Page 29 of 80
rules on summary procedure; therefore, only the In her Reply to the Comment of the OSG,
filing with the proper Metropolitan Trial Court could petitioner expressed gratitude and appreciation to
have tolled the statute of limitations, this time the OSG in joining cause with her as to the first
invoking Zaldivia v. Reyes.[13] assigned error. However, she considers the OSGs
reliance on Buerano v. Court of Appeals [18] as
In its Comment filed on behalf of public misplaced, for nothing there validates the
respondents, the Office of the Solicitor General
complexing of the crime of reckless imprudence
(OSG) agrees with petitioner that the penalty with physical injuries and damage to property;
should have been arresto menor in its maximum besides, in that case, two separate informations
period, instead of arresto mayor, pursuant to Article were filed -- one for slight and serious physical
365 of the Revised Penal Code. injuries through reckless imprudence and the other
for damage to property through reckless
As to the second assigned error, the OSG
imprudence. She then insists that in this case,
contends that conformably with Buerano v. Court of
following Arcaya v. Teleron[19] and Lontok v.
Appeals,[14] which frowns upon splitting of crimes
Gorgonio, [20]
two informations should have been
and prosecution, it was proper for the trial court to
filed. She likewise submits that Cuyos v.
complex reckless imprudence with slight physical
Garcia[21] would only apply here on the assumption
injuries and damage to property because what the
that it was proper to complex damage to property
law seeks to penalize is the single act of reckless
imprudence, not the results thereof; hence, there through reckless imprudence with slight physical
was no need for two separate informations. injuries through reckless imprudence. Chico v.
Isidro[22] is likewise inapposite, for it deals with
To refute the third assigned error, the OSG attempted homicide, which is not covered by the
submits that although the Municipal Trial Court had Rule on Summary Procedure.
jurisdiction to impose arresto menor for slight
Petitioner finally avers that People v.
physical injuries, the Regional Trial Court properly
Cuaresma[23] should not be given retroactive effect;
took cognizance of this case because it had the
otherwise, it would either unfairly prejudice her or
jurisdiction to impose the higher penalty for the
render nugatory the en banc ruling
damage to property, which was a fine equal to
in Zaldivia[24] favorable to her.
thrice the value of P8,542.00. On this score, the
OSG cites Cuyos v. Garcia.[15]
The pleadings thus raise the following issues:
The OSG then debunks petitioners defense of I. Whether the penalty imposed on
prescription of the crime, arguing that the petitioner is correct.
prescriptive period here was tolled by the filing of
the complaint with the fiscals office three days after II. Whether the quasi offenses of
the incident, pursuant to People v. reckless imprudence resulting in
Cuaresma[16] and Chico v. Isidro.[17] damage to property in the
amount of P8,542.00 and
reckless imprudence resulting in

slight physical injuries are light
felonies.
III. Whether the rule on complex
crimes under Article 48 of the
Revised Penal Code applies to
the quasi offenses in question.
IV. Whether the duplicity of the
information may be questioned
for the first time on appeal.
V. Whether the Regional Trial Court
had jurisdiction over the offenses
in question.
VI. Whether the quasi offenses in
question have already
prescribed.
I. The Proper Penalty.
We agree with both petitioner and the OSG that
the penalty of six months of arresto mayor imposed
by the trial court and affirmed by respondent Court
of Appeals is incorrect. However, we cannot
subscribe to their submission that the penalty
of arresto menor in its maximum period is the
proper penalty.
Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code provides:
Art. 365. Imprudence and negligence. Any
person who, by reckless imprudence, shall
commit any act which, had it been
intentional, would constitute a grave
felony, shall suffer the penalty of arresto
mayor in its maximum period to prision
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
correccional in its medium period; if it
would have constituted a less grave felony,
the penalty of arresto mayor in its
minimum and medium periods shall be
imposed; if it would have constituted a
light felony, the penalty of arresto
menor in its maximum period shall be
imposed.
Any person who, by simple imprudence or
negligence, shall commit an act which
would otherwise constitute a grave felony,
shall suffer the penalty of arresto mayor in
its medium and maximum periods; if it
would have constituted a less serious
felony, the penalty of arresto mayor in its
minimum period shall be imposed.
When the execution of the act covered by
this article shall have only resulted in
damage to the property of another, the
offender shall be punished by a fine
ranging from an amount equal to the value
of said damages to three times such value,
but which shall in no case be less than 25
pesos.
A fine not exceeding 200 pesos and
censure shall be imposed upon any person
who, by simple imprudence or negligence,
shall cause some wrong which, if done
maliciously, would have constituted a light
felony.
In the imposition of these penalties, the
courts shall exercise their sound discretion,
without regard to the rules prescribed in
Article 64.
Page 30 of 80
The provisions contained in this article
shall not be applicable:
1. When the penalty provided for the offense is
equal to or lower than those provided in the first
two paragraphs of this article, in which case the
courts shall impose the penalty next lower in
degree than that which should be imposed in the
period which they may deem proper to apply.
According to the first paragraph of the
aforequoted Article, the penalty for reckless
imprudence resulting in slight physical injuries, a
light felony, is arresto menor in its maximum
period, with a duration of 21 to 30 days. If the
offense of slight physical injuries is, however,
committed deliberately or with malice, it is
penalized with arresto menor under Article 266 of
the Revised Penal Code, with a duration of 1 day to
30 days. Plainly, the penalty then under Article 266
may be either lower than or equal to the penalty
prescribed under the first paragraph of Article
365. This being the case, the exception in the sixth
paragraph of Article 365 applies. Hence, the proper
penalty for reckless imprudence resulting in slight
physical injuries is public censure, this being the
penalty next lower in degree to arresto menor.[25]
As to reckless imprudence resulting in damage
to property in the amount of P8,542.00, the third
paragraph of Article 365, which provides for the
penalty of fine, does not apply since the reckless
imprudence in this case did not result in damage to
property only.What applies is the first paragraph of
Article 365, which provides for arresto mayor in its
minimum and medium periods (1 month and 1 day
to 4 months) for an act committed through reckless
imprudence which, had it been intentional, would

have constituted a less grave felony. Note that if
the damage to the extent of P8,542.00 were caused
deliberately, the crime would have been malicious
mischief under Article 329 of the Revised Penal
Code, and the penalty would then be arresto
mayor in its medium and maximum periods (2
months and 1 day to 6 months which is higher than
that prescribed in the first paragraph of Article
365). If the penalty under Article 329 were equal to
or lower than that provided for in the first
paragraph, then the sixth paragraph of Article 365
would apply, i.e., the penalty next lower in degree,
which is arresto menor in its maximum period
to arresto mayor in its minimum period or
imprisonment from 21 days to 2 be absorbed by the grave felony. Thus, the
months. Accordingly, the imposable penalty for
reckless imprudence resulting in damage to
property to the extent of P8,542.00 would
be arresto mayor in its minimum and medium
periods, which could be anywhere from a minimum
of 1 month and 1 day to a maximum of 4 months,
at the discretion of the court, since the fifth
paragraph of Article 365 provides that in the
imposition of the penalties therein provided the
courts shall exercise their sound discretion without
regard to the rules prescribed in article 64.
II. Classification of the Quasi Offense
Question.
Felonies are committed not only by means of
deceit (dolo), but likewise by means of fault
(culpa). There is deceit when the wrongful act is
performed with deliberate intent; and there is fault
when the wrongful act results from imprudence,
negligence, lack of foresight or lack of skill.[26]
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
As earlier stated, reckless imprudence resulting
in slight physical injuries is punishable by public
censure only. Article 9, paragraph 3, of the Revised
Penal Code defines light felonies as infractions of
law carrying the penalty of arresto menor or a fine
not exceeding P200.00, or both. Since public
censure is classified under Article 25 of the Code as
a light penalty, and is considered under the
graduated scale provided in Article 71 of the same
Code as a penalty lower than arresto menor, it
follows that the offense of reckless imprudence
resulting in slight physical injuries is a light felony.
On the other hand, reckless imprudence also
resulting in damage to property is, as earlier
discussed, penalized with arresto mayor in its
minimum and medium periods. Since arresto
mayor is a correctional penalty under Article 25 of
the Revised Penal Code, the quasi offense in
question is a less grave felony not a light felony as
claimed by petitioner.
III. Applicability of the Rule on Complex
Crimes.
Since criminal negligence may, as here, result
in more than one felony, should Article 48 of the
in Revised Code on complex crimes be applied? Article
48 provides as follows:
ART. 48. Penalty for complex
crimes. -- When a single act constitutes
two or more grave or less grave felonies,
or when an offense is necessary a means
for committing the other, the penalty for
the most serious crime shall be imposed,
Page 31 of 80
the same to be applied in its maximum
period.
Clearly, if a reckless, imprudent or negligent
act results in two or more grave or less grave
felonies, a complex crime is committed. However,
in Lontok v. Gorgonio,[27] this Court declared that
where one of the resulting offenses in criminal
negligence constitutes a light felony, there is no
complex crime, thus:
Applying article 48, it follows that if one
offense is light, there is no complex
crime. The resulting offenses may be
treated as separate or the light felony may
light felonies of damage to property and
slight physical injuries, both resulting from
a single act of imprudence, do not
constitute a complex crime. They cannot
be charged in one information. They are
separate offenses subject to distinct
penalties (People vs. Turla, 50 Phil. 1001;
See People vs. Estipona, 70 Phil. 513).
Where the single act of imprudence
resulted in double less serious physical
injuries, damage to property amounting
to P10,000 and slight physical injuries, a
chief of police did not err in filing a
separate complaint for the slight physical
injuries and another complaint for
the lesiones menos graves and damage to
property [Arcaya vs. Teleron, L-37446,
May 31, 1974, 57 SCRA 363, 365].
Hence, the trial court erred in considering the
following felonies as a complex crime: the less
grave felony of reckless imprudence resulting in
damage to property in the amount of P8,542.00

and the light felony of reckless imprudence
resulting in physical injuries.
IV. The Right to Assail the Duplicity of the
Information.
Following Lontok, the conclusion is inescapable
here, that the quasi offense of reckless imprudence
resulting in slight physical injuries should have been
charged in a separate information because it is not
covered by Article 48 of the Revised Penal
Code.However, petitioner may no longer question,
at this stage, the duplicitous character of the
information, i.e., charging two separate offenses in
one information, to wit: (1) reckless imprudence
resulting in damage to property; and (2) reckless
imprudence resulting in slight physical injuries. This
defect was deemed waived by her failure to raise it
in a motion to quash before she pleaded to the
information.[28] Under Section 3, Rule 120 of the
Rules of Court, when two or more offenses are
charged in a single complaint or information and
the accused fails to object to it before trial, the
court may convict the accused of as many offenses
as are charged and proved and impose on him the
penalty for each of them.[29]
V. Which Court Has Jurisdiction Over the
Quasi Offenses in Question.
The jurisdiction to try a criminal action is to be
determined by the law in force at the time of the
institution of the action, unless the statute
expressly provides, or is construed to the effect that
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
it is intended to operate as to actions pending
before its enactment.[30]
At the time of the filing of the information in
this case, the law in force was Batas Pambansa Blg.
129, otherwise known as The Judiciary
Reorganization Act of 1980. Section 32(2)
[31]
thereof provided that except in cases falling
within the exclusive original jurisdiction of the
Regional Trial Courts and of the Sandiganbayan, the
Metropolitan Trial Courts (MeTCs), Municipal Trial
Courts (MTCs), and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts
(MCTCs) had exclusive original jurisdiction over all
offenses punishable with imprisonment of not
exceeding four years and two months, or a fine of
not more than four thousand pesos, or both fine
and imprisonment, regardless of other imposable
accessory or other penalties, including the civil
liability arising from such offenses or predicated
thereon, irrespective of kind, nature, value or
amount thereof.
The criminal jurisdiction of the lower courts was
then determined by the duration of the
imprisonment and the amount of fine prescribed by
law for the offense charged. The question thus
arises as to which court has jurisdiction over
offenses punishable by censure, such as reckless
imprudence resulting in slight physical injuries.
In Uy Chin Hua v. Dinglasan,[32] this Court
found that a lacuna existed in the law as to which
court had jurisdiction over offenses penalized
with destierro, the duration of which was from 6
months and 1 day to 6 years, which was co-
extensive with prision correccional. We then
interpreted the law in this wise:
Since the legislature has placed offenses
penalized with arresto mayor under the
Page 32 of 80
jurisdiction of justice of the peace and
municipal courts, and since by Article 71 of
the Revised Penal Code, as amended by
Section 3 of Commonwealth Act No. 217, it
has placed destierro below arresto
mayor as a lower penalty than the latter,
in the absence of any express provision of
law to the contrary it is logical and
reasonable to infer from said provisions
that its intention was to place offenses
penalized with destierro also under the
jurisdiction of justice of the peace and
municipal courts and not under that of
courts of first instance.
Similarly, since offenses punishable by
imprisonment of not exceeding 4 years and 2
months were within the jurisdictional ambit of the
MeTCs, MTCs and MCTCs, it follows that those
penalized with censure, which is a penalty lower
than arresto menor under the graduated scale in
Article 71 of the Revised Penal Code and with a
duration of 1 to 30 days, should also fall within the
jurisdiction of said courts. Thus, reckless
imprudence resulting in slight physical injuries was
cognizable by said courts.
As to the reckless imprudence resulting in
damage to property in the amount of P8,542.00,
the same was also under the jurisdiction of MeTCs,
MTCs or MCTCs because the imposable penalty
therefor was arresto mayor in its minimum and
medium periods -- the duration of which was from 1
month and 1 day to 4 months.
Criminal Case No. 33919 should, therefore, be
dismissed for lack of jurisdiction on the part of the
RTC of Makati.
 Page 33 of 80

VI. Prescription of the Quasi Offenses in
Question.
Pursuant to Article 90 of the Revised Penal
Code, reckless imprudence resulting in slight
physical injuries, being a light felony, prescribes in
two months. On the other hand, reckless
imprudence resulting in damage to property in the
amount of P8,542.00, being a less grave felony
whose penalty is arresto mayor in its minimum and
medium periods, prescribes in five years.
To resolve the issue of whether
these quasi offenses have already prescribed, it is
necessary to determine whether the filing of the
complaint with the fiscals office three days after the
incident in question tolled the running of the
prescriptive period.
Article 91 of the Revised Penal Code provides:
ART. 91. Computation of prescription of
offenses. -- The period of prescription shall
commence to run from the day on which
the crime is discovered by the offended
party, the authorities, or their agents,
and shall be interrupted by the filing of the
complaint or information, and shall
commence to run again when such
proceedings terminate without the accused
being convicted or acquitted, or are
unjustifiably stopped by any reason not
imputable to him. (emphasis supplied)
Notably, the aforequoted article, in declaring that
the prescriptive period shall be interrupted by the
filing of the complaint or information, does not
distinguish whether the complaint is filed for
preliminary examination or investigation only or for
an action on the merits.[33] Thus, in Francisco v.
Court of Appeals[34] and People v. Cuaresma,[35] this
Court held that the filing of the complaint even with
the fiscals office suspends the running of the
statute of limitations.
We cannot apply Section 9[36] of the Rule on
Summary Procedure, which provides that in cases
covered thereby, such as offenses punishable by
imprisonment not exceeding 6 months, as in the
instant case, the prosecution commences by the
filing of a complaint or information directly with the
MeTC, RTC or MCTC without need of a prior
preliminary examination or investigation; provided
that in Metropolitan Manila and Chartered Cities,
said cases may be commenced only by
information. However, this Section cannot be taken
to mean that the prescriptive period is interrupted
only by the filing of a complaint or information
directly with said courts.
It must be stressed that prescription in criminal
cases is a matter of substantive law. Pursuant to
Section 5(5), Article VIII of the Constitution, this
Court, in the exercise of its rule-making power, is
not allowed to diminish, increase or modify
substantive rights.[37]Hence, in case of conflict
between the Rule on Summary Procedure
promulgated by this Court and the Revised Penal
Code, the latter prevails.
Neither does Zaldivia control in this instance. It
must be recalled that what was involved therein
was a violation of a municipal ordinance; thus, the
applicable law was not Article 91 of the Revised
Penal Code, but Act. No. 3326, as amended,
entitled An Act to Establish Periods of Prescription
for Violations Penalized by Special Acts and
Municipal Ordinances and to Provide When
Prescription Shall Begin to Run. Under Section 2
thereof, the period of prescription is suspended only
when judicial proceedings are instituted against the
guilty party. Accordingly, this Court held that the
prescriptive period was not interrupted by the filing
of the complaint with the Office of the Provincial
Prosecutor, as such did not constitute a judicial
proceeding; what could have tolled the prescriptive
period there was only the filing of the information in
the proper court.
In the instant case, as the offenses involved are
covered by the Revised Penal Code, Article 91
thereof and the rulings
in Francisco and Cuaresma apply. Thus, the
prescriptive period for the quasi offenses in
question was interrupted by the filing of the
complaint with the fiscals office three days after the
vehicular mishap and remained tolled pending the
termination of this case. We cannot, therefore,
uphold petitioners defense of prescription of the
offenses charged in the information in this case.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition is
GRANTED. The challenged decision of respondent
Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR No. 14660 is SET
ASIDE as the Regional Trial Court, whose decision
was affirmed therein, had no jurisdiction over
Criminal Case No. 33919.
Criminal Case No. 33919 is ordered
DISMISSED.
No pronouncement as to costs.
SO ORDERED.

Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura

Labrador Notes

7. Garcia-rueda vs pascasio
[G.R. No. 118141. September 5, 1997]
LEONILA GARCIA-RUEDA, petitioner,
vs. WILFREDO L. PASCASIO, RAUL R.
ARNAU, ABELARDO L. APORTADERA JR.,
Honorable CONDRADO M. VASQUEZ, all
of the Office of the Ombudsman; JESUS
F. GUERRERO, PORFIRIO MACARAEG,
and GREGORIO A. ARIZALA, all of the
Office of the City Prosecutor,
Manila, respondents.
DECISION
ROMERO, J.:
May this Court review the findings of the Office
of the Ombudsman? The general rule has been
enunciated in Ocampo v. Ombudsman [1] which
states:
In the exercise of its investigative power, this Court
has consistently held that courts will not interfere
with the discretion of the fiscal or the Ombudsman
to determine the specificity and adequacy of the
averments of the offense charged. He may dismiss
the complaint forthwith if he finds it to be
insufficient in form and substance or if he otherwise
finds no ground to continue with the inquiry; or he
may proceed with the investigation of the complaint
if, in his view, it is in due and proper form.
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Does the instant case warrant a departure from
the foregoing general rule? When a patient dies
soon after surgery under circumstances which
indicate that the attending surgeon and
anaesthesiologist may have been guilty of
negligence but upon their being charged, a series
of nine prosecutors toss the responsibility of
conducting a preliminary investigation to each other
with contradictory recommendations, ping-pong
style, perhaps the distraught widow is not to be
blamed if she finally decides to accuse the City
Prosecutors at the end of the line for partiality
under the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. Nor
may she be entirely faulted for finally filing a
petition before this Court against the Ombudsman
for grave abuse of discretion in dismissing her
complaint against said City Prosecutors on the
ground of lack of evidence. Much as we sympathize
with the bereaved widow, however, this Court is of
the opinion that the general rule still finds
application in instant case. In other words, the
respondent Ombudsman did not commit grave
abuse of discretion in deciding against filing the
necessary information against public respondents of
the Office of the City Prosecutor.
The following facts are borne out by the
records.
Florencio V. Rueda, husband of petitioner
Leonila Garcia-Rueda, underwent surgical operation
at the UST hospital for the removal of a stone
blocking his ureter. He was attended by Dr.
Domingo Antonio, Jr. who was the surgeon, while
Dr. Erlinda Balatbat-Reyes was the
anaesthesiologist. Six hours after the surgery,
however, Florencio died of complications of
unknown cause, according to officials of the UST
Hospital.[2]
Page 34 of 80
Not satisfied with the findings of the hospital,
petitioner requested the National Bureau of
Investigation (NBI) to conduct an autopsy on her
husbands body. Consequently, the NBI ruled that
Florencios death was due to lack of care by the
attending physician in administering
anaesthesia. Pursuant to its findings, the NBI
recommended that Dr. Domingo Antonio and Dr.
Erlinda Balatbat-Reyes be charged for Homicide
through Reckless Imprudence before the Office of
the City Prosecutor.
During the preliminary investigation, what
transpired was a confounding series of events which
we shall try to disentangle. The case was initially
assigned to Prosecutor Antonio M. Israel, who had
to inhibit himself because he was related to the
counsel of one of the doctors. As a result, the case
was re-raffled to Prosecutor Norberto G. Leono who
was, however, disqualified on motion of the
petitioner since he disregarded prevailing laws and
jurisprudence regarding preliminary
investigation. The case was then referred to
Prosecutor Ramon O. Carisma, who issued a
resolution recommending that only Dr. Reyes be
held criminally liable and that the complaint against
Dr. Antonio be dismissed.
The case took another perplexing turn when
Assistant City Prosecutor Josefina Santos Sioson, in
the interest of justice and peace of mind of the
parties, recommended that the case be re-raffled
on the ground that Prosecutor Carisma was partial
to the petitioner.Thus, the case was transferred to
Prosecutor Leoncia R. Dimagiba, where a volte
face occurred again with the endorsement that the
complaint against Dr. Reyes be dismissed and
instead, a corresponding information be filed
against Dr. Antonio. Petitioner filed a motion for

reconsideration, questioning the findings
Prosecutor Dimagiba.
Pending the resolution of petitioners motion for
reconsideration regarding Prosecutor Dimagibas
resolution, the investigative pingpong continued
when the case was again assigned to another
prosecutor, Eudoxia T. Gualberto, who
recommended that Dr. Reyes be included in the
criminal information of Homicide through Reckless
Imprudence. While the recommendation of
Prosecutor Gualberto was pending, the case was
transferred to Senior State Prosecutor Gregorio A.
Arizala, who resolved to exonerate Dr. Reyes from
any wrongdoing, a resolution which was approved
by both City Prosecutor Porfirio G. Macaraeg and
City Prosecutor Jesus F. Guerrero.
Aggrieved, petitioner filed graft charges
specifically for violation of Section 3(e) of Republic
Act No. 3019 [3] against Prosecutors Guerrero,
Macaraeg, and Arizala for manifest partiality in
favor of Dr. Reyes before the Office of the
Ombudsman. However, on July 11, 1994, the
Ombudsman issued the assailed resolution
dismissing the complaint for lack of evidence.
In fine, petitioner assails the exercise of the
discretionary power of the Ombudsman to review
the recommendations of the government
prosecutors and to approve and disapprove the
same. Petitioner faults the Ombudsman for,
allegedly in grave abuse of discretion, refusing to
find that there exists probable cause to hold public
respondent City Prosecutors liable for violation of
Section 3(e) of R.A. No. 3019.
Preliminarily, the powers and functions of the
Ombudsman have generally been categorized into
the following: investigatory powers, prosecutory
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
of power, public assistance function, authority to
inquire and obtain information, and function to
adopt, institute and implement preventive
measures. [4]
As protector of the people, the Office of the
Ombudsman has the power, function and duty to
act promptly on complaints filed in any form or
manner against public officials and to investigate
any act or omission of any public official when such
act or omission appears to be illegal, unjust,
improper or inefficient. [5]
While the Ombudsman has the full discretion to
determine whether or not a criminal case should be
filed, this Court is not precluded from reviewing the
Ombudsmans action when there is an abuse of
discretion, in which case Rule 65 of the Rules of
Court may exceptionally be invoked pursuant to
Section I, Article VIII of the 1987 Constitution. [6]
In this regard, grave abuse of discretion has
been defined as where a power is exercised in an
arbitrary or despotic manner by reason of passion
or personal hostility so patent and gross as to
amount to evasion of positive duty or virtual refusal
to perform a duty enjoined by, or in contemplation
of law. [7]
From a procedural standpoint, it is certainly odd
why the successive transfers from one prosecutor to
another were not sufficiently explained in the
Resolution of the Ombudsman. Being the proper
investigating authority with respect to misfeasance,
non-feasance and malfeasance of public officials,
the Ombudsman should have been more vigilant
and assiduous in determining the reasons behind
the buckpassing to ensure that no irregularity took
place.
Page 35 of 80
Whether such transfers were due to any outside
pressure or ulterior motive is a matter of
evidence. One would have expected the
Ombudsman, however, to inquire into what could
hardly qualify as standard operating procedure,
given the surrounding circumstances of the case.
While it is true that a preliminary investigation
is essentially inquisitorial, and is often the only
means to discover who may be charged with a
crime, its function is merely to determine the
existence of probable cause. [8] Probable cause has
been defined as the existence of such fact and
circumstances as would excite the belief, in a
reasonable mind, acting on the facts within the
knowledge of the prosecution, that the person
charged was guilty of the crime for which he was
prosecuted.[9]
Probable cause is a reasonable ground of
presumption that a matter is, or may be, well
founded, such a state of facts in the mind of the
prosecutor as would lead a person of ordinary
caution and prudence to believe, or entertain an
honest or strong suspicion, that a thing is so. The
term does not mean actual and positive cause nor
does it import absolute certainty. It is merely based
on opinion and reasonable belief. Thus, a finding of
probable cause does not require an inquiry into
whether there is sufficient evidence to procure a
conviction. It is enough that it is believed that the
act or omission complained of constitutes the
offense charged. Precisely, there is a trial for the
reception of evidence of the prosecution in support
of the charge.[10]
In the instant case, no less than the NBI
pronounced after conducting an autopsy that there
was indeed negligence on the part of the attending

physicians in administering the anaesthesia. [11] The
fact of want of competence or diligence is
evidentiary in nature, the veracity of which can best
be passed upon after a full-blown trial for it is
virtually impossible to ascertain the merits of a
medical negligence case without extensive
investigation, research, evaluation and
consultations with medical experts. Clearly, the City
Prosecutors are not in a competent position to pass
judgment on such a technical matter, especially
when there are conflicting evidence and
findings. The bases of a partys accusation and
defenses are better ventilated at the trial proper
than at the preliminary investigation.
A word on medical malpractice or negligence
cases.
In its simplest terms, the type of lawsuit which has
been called medical malpractice or, more
appropriately, medical negligence, is that type of
claim which a victim has available to him or her to
redress a wrong committed by a medical
professional which has caused bodily harm.
In order to successfully pursue such a claim, a
patient must prove that a health care provider, in
most cases a physician, either failed to do
something which a reasonably prudent health care
provider would have done, or that he or she did
something that a reasonably prudent provider
would not have done; and that that failure or action
caused injury to the patient.[12]
Hence, there are four elements involved in
medical negligence cases: duty, breach, injury and
proximate causation.
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Evidently, when the victim employed the
services of Dr. Antonio and Dr. Reyes, a physician-
patient relationship was created. In accepting the
case, Dr. Antonio and Dr. Reyes in effect
represented that, having the needed training and
skill possessed by physicians and surgeons
practicing in the same field, they will employ such
training, care and skill in the treatment of their
patients.[13] They have a duty to use at least the
same level of care that any other reasonably
competent doctor would use to treat a condition
under the same circumstances. The breach of these
professional duties of skill and care, or their
improper performance, by a physician surgeon
whereby the patient is injured in body or in health,
constitutes actionable malpractice.[14] Consequently,
in the event that any injury results to the patient
from want of due care or skill during the operation,
the surgeons may be held answerable in damages
for negligence.[15]
Moreover, in malpractice or negligence cases
involving the administration of anaesthesia, the
necessity of expert testimony and the availability of
the charge of res ipsa loquitur to the plaintiff, have
been applied in actions against anaesthesiologists
to hold the defendant liable for the death or injury
of a patient under excessive or improper
anaesthesia.[16] Essentially, it requires two-pronged
evidence: evidence as to the recognized standards
of the medical community in the particular kind of
case, and a showing that the physician in question
negligently departed from this standard in his
treatment.[17]
Another element in medical negligence cases is
causation which is divided into two inquiries:
whether the doctors actions in fact caused the harm
to the patient and whether these were the
Page 36 of 80
proximate cause of the patients injury. [18] Indeed
here, a causal connection is discernible from the
occurrence of the victims death after the negligent
act of the anaesthesiologist in administering the
anesthesia, a fact which, if confirmed, should
warrant the filing of the appropriate criminal
case. To be sure, the allegation of negligence is not
entirely baseless. Moreover, the NBI deduced that
the attending surgeons did not conduct the
necessary interview of the patient prior to the
operation. It appears that the cause of the death of
the victim could have been averted had the proper
drug been applied to cope with the symptoms of
malignant hyperthermia. Also, we cannot ignore the
fact that an antidote was readily available to
counteract whatever deleterious effect the
anaesthesia might produce. [19] Why these
precautionary measures were disregarded must be
sufficiently explained.
The City Prosecutors were charged with
violating Section 3(e) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt
Practices Act which requires the following facts:
1. The accused is a public officer discharging
administrative or official functions or private
persons charged in conspiracy with them;
2. The public officer committed the prohibited act
during the performance of his official duty or in
relation to his public position;
3. The public officer acted with manifest partiality,
evident bad faith or gross, inexcusable negligence;
and
4. His action caused undue injury to the
Government or any private party, or gave any party

any unwarranted benefit, advantage or preference
to such parties. [20]
Why did the complainant, petitioner in instant
case, elect to charge respondents under the above
law?
While a party who feels himself aggrieved is at
liberty to choose the appropriate weapon from the
armory, it is with no little surprise that this Court
views the choice made by the complainant widow.
To our mind, the better and more logical
remedy under the circumstances would have been
to appeal the resolution of the City Prosecutors
dismissing the criminal complaint to the Secretary
of Justice under the Department of Justices Order
No. 223, [21] otherwise known as the 1993 Revised
Rules on Appeals From Resolutions In Preliminary
Investigations/Reinvestigations, as amended by
Department Order No. 359, Section 1 of which
provides:
Section 1. What May Be Appealed. - Only
resolutions of the Chief State Prosecutor/Regional
State Prosecutor/Provincial or City Prosecutor
dismissing a criminal complaint may be the
subject of an appeal to the Secretary of Justice
except as otherwise provided in Section 4 hereof.
What action may the Secretary of Justice take
on the appeal? Section 9 of Order No. 223
states: The Secretary of Justice may reverse, affirm
or modify the appealed resolution. On the other
hand, He may motu proprio or on motion of the
appellee, dismiss outright the appeal on specified
grounds. [22]
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
In exercising his discretion under the
circumstances, the Ombudsman acted within his
power and authority in dismissing the complaint
against the Prosecutors and this Court will not
interfere with the same.
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the
instant petition is DISMISSED, without prejudice to
the filing of an appeal by the petitioner with the
Secretary of Justice assailing the dismissal of her
criminal complaint by the respondent City
Prosecutors. No costs.
SO ORDERED.
8. Reyes vs sister of mercy hospital
[G.R. No. 130547. October 3, 2000]
LEAH ALESNA REYES, ROSE NAHDJA, JOHNNY,
and minors LLOYD and KRISTINE, all
surnamed REYES, represented by their
mother, LEAH ALESNA
REYES, petitioners, vs. SISTERS OF
MERCY HOSPITAL, SISTER ROSE
PALACIO, DR. MARVIE BLANES, and DR.
MARLYN RICO, respondents.
DECISION
MENDOZA, J.:
Page 37 of 80
This is a petition for review of the decision [1] of
the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CV No. 36551
affirming the decision of the Regional Trial Court,
Branch IX, Cebu City which dismissed a complaint
for damages filed by petitioners against
respondents.
The facts are as follows:
Petitioner Leah Alesna Reyes is the wife of the
late Jorge Reyes. The other petitioners, namely,
Rose Nahdja, Johnny, Lloyd, and Kristine, all
surnamed Reyes, were their children. Five days
before his death on January 8, 1987, Jorge had
been suffering from a recurring fever with
chills. After he failed to get relief from some home
medication he was taking, which consisted of
analgesic, antipyretic, and antibiotics, he decided to
see the doctor.
On January 8, 1987, he was taken to the Mercy
Community Clinic by his wife. He was attended to
by respondent Dr. Marlyn Rico, resident physician
and admitting physician on duty, who gave Jorge a
physical examination and took his medical
history. She noted that at the time of his admission,
Jorge was conscious, ambulatory, oriented,
coherent, and with respiratory distress.[2] Typhoid
fever was then prevalent in the locality, as the clinic
had been getting from 15 to 20 cases of typhoid per
month.[3] Suspecting that Jorge could be suffering
from this disease, Dr. Rico ordered a Widal Test, a
standard test for typhoid fever, to be performed on
Jorge. Blood count, routine urinalysis, stool
examination, and malarial smear were also made.
[4]
After about an hour, the medical technician
submitted the results of the test from which Dr.
Rico concluded that Jorge was positive for typhoid
fever. As her shift was only up to 5:00 p.m., Dr.

Rico indorsed Jorge to respondent Dr. Marvie
Blanes.
Dr. Marvie Blanes attended to Jorge at around
six in the evening. She also took Jorges history and
gave him a physical examination. Like Dr. Rico, her
impression was that Jorge had typhoid fever.
Antibiotics being the accepted treatment for typhoid
fever, she ordered that a compatibility test with the
antibiotic chloromycetin be done on Jorge. Said test
was administered by nurse Josephine Pagente who
also gave the patient a dose of triglobe. As she did
not observe any adverse reaction by the patient to
chloromycetin, Dr. Blanes ordered the first five
hundred milligrams of said antibiotic to be
administered on Jorge at around 9:00 p.m. A
second dose was administered on Jorge about three
hours later just before midnight.
At around 1:00 a.m. of January 9, 1987, Dr.
Blanes was called as Jorges temperature rose to
41C. The patient also experienced chills and
exhibited respiratory distress, nausea, vomiting,
and convulsions. Dr. Blanes put him under oxygen,
used a suction machine, and administered
hydrocortisone, temporarily easing the patients
convulsions. When he regained consciousness, the
patient was asked by Dr. Blanes whether he had a
previous heart ailment or had suffered from chest
pains in the past. Jorge replied he did not. [5] After
about 15 minutes, however, Jorge again started to
vomit, showed restlessness, and his convulsions
returned. Dr. Blanes re-applied the emergency
measures taken before and, in addition, valium was
administered. Jorge, however, did not respond to
the treatment and slipped into cyanosis, a bluish or
purplish discoloration of the skin or mucous
membrane due to deficient oxygenation of the
blood. At around 2:00 a.m., Jorge died. He was
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
forty years old. The cause of his death was
Ventricular Arrythemia Secondary to Hyperpyrexia
and typhoid fever.
On June 3, 1987, petitioners filed before the
Regional Trial Court of Cebu City a complaint [6]for
damages against respondents Sisters of Mercy,
Sister Rose Palacio, Dr. Marvie Blanes, Dr. Marlyn
Rico, and nurse Josephine Pagente. On September
24, 1987, petitioners amended their complaint to
implead respondent Mercy Community Clinic as
additional defendant and to drop the name of
Josephine Pagente as defendant since she was no
longer connected with respondent hospital. Their
principal contention was that Jorge did not die of
typhoid fever.[7] Instead, his death was due to the
wrongful administration of chloromycetin. They
contended that had respondent doctors
exercised due care and diligence, they would not
have recommended and rushed the performance of
the Widal Test, hastily concluded that Jorge was
suffering from typhoid fever, and administered
chloromycetin without first conducting sufficient
tests on the patients compatibility with said
drug. They charged respondent clinic and its
directress, Sister Rose Palacio, with negligence in
failing to provide adequate facilities and in hiring
negligent doctors and nurses.[8]
Respondents denied the charges. During the
pre-trial conference, the parties agreed to limit the
issues on the following: (1) whether the death of
Jorge Reyes was due to or caused by the
negligence, carelessness, imprudence, and lack of
skill or foresight on the part of defendants; (2)
whether respondent Mercy Community Clinic was
negligent in the hiring of its employees; and (3)
whether either party was entitled to damages. The
case was then heard by the trial court during which,
Page 38 of 80
in addition to the testimonies of the parties, the
testimonies of doctors as expert witnesses were
presented.
Petitioners offered the testimony of Dr. Apolinar
Vacalares, Chief Pathologist at the Northern
Mindanao Training Hospital, Cagayan de Oro
City. On January 9, 1987, Dr. Vacalares performed
an autopsy on Jorge Reyes to determine the cause
of his death.However, he did not open the skull to
examine the brain. His findings[9] showed that the
gastro-intestinal tract was normal and without any
ulceration or enlargement of the nodules. Dr.
Vacalares testified that Jorge did not die of typhoid
fever. He also stated that he had not seen a patient
die of typhoid fever within five days from the onset
of the disease.
For their part, respondents offered the
testimonies of Dr. Peter Gotiong and Dr. Ibarra
Panopio. Dr. Gotiong is a diplomate in internal
medicine whose expertise is microbiology and
infectious diseases. He is also a consultant at the
Cebu City Medical Center and an associate
professor of medicine at the South Western
University College of Medicine in Cebu City. He had
treated over a thousand cases of typhoid
patients. According to Dr. Gotiong, the patients
history and positive Widal Test results ratio of
1:320 would make him suspect that the patient had
typhoid fever. As to Dr. Vacalares observation
regarding the absence of ulceration in Jorges
gastro-intestinal tract, Dr. Gotiong said that such
hyperplasia in the intestines of a typhoid victim may
be microscopic. He noted that since the toxic effect
of typhoid fever may lead to meningitis, Dr.
Vacalares autopsy should have included an
examination of the brain.[10]

The other doctor presented was Dr. Ibarra
Panopio, a member of the American Board of
Pathology, examiner of the Philippine Board of
Pathology from 1978 to 1991, fellow of the
Philippine Society of Pathologist, associate professor
of the Cebu Institute of Medicine, and chief
pathologist of the Andres Soriano Jr. Memorial
Hospital in Toledo City. Dr. Panopio stated that
although he was partial to the use of the culture
test for its greater reliability in the diagnosis of
typhoid fever, the Widal Test may also be
used. Like Dr. Gotiong, he agreed that the 1:320
ratio in Jorges case was already the maximum by
which a conclusion of typhoid fever may be
made. No additional information may be deduced
from a higher dilution. [11] He said that Dr. Vacalares
autopsy on Jorge was incomplete and thus
inconclusive.
On September 12, 1991, the trial court
rendered its decision absolving respondents from
the charges of negligence and dismissing petitioners
action for damages. The trial court likewise
dismissed respondents counterclaim, holding that,
in seeking damages from respondents, petitioners
were impelled by the honest belief that Jorges
death was due to the latters negligence.
Petitioners brought the matter to the Court of
Appeals. On July 31, 1997, the Court of Appeals
affirmed the decision of the trial court.
Hence this petition.
Petitioners raise the following assignment of
errors:
I. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS
COMMITTED A REVERSIBLE ERROR
WHEN IT RULED THAT THE DOCTRINE
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
OF RES IPSA LOQUITUR IS NOT
APPLICABLE IN THE INSTANT CASE.
II. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS
COMMITTED REVERSIBLE ERROR WHEN
IT MADE AN UNFOUNDED ASSUMPTION
THAT THE LEVEL OF MEDICAL PRACTICE
IS LOWER IN ILIGAN CITY.
III. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS
GRAVELY ERRED WHEN IT RULED FOR A
LESSER STANDARD OF CARE AND
DEGREE OF DILIGENCE FOR MEDICAL
PRACTICE IN ILIGAN CITY WHEN IT
APPRECIATE[D] NO DOCTORS
NEGLIGENCE IN THE TREATMENT OF
JORGE REYES.
Petitioners action is for medical
malpractice. This is a particular form of negligence
which consists in the failure of a physician or
surgeon to apply to his practice of medicine that
degree of care and skill which is ordinarily
employed by the profession generally, under similar
conditions, and in like surrounding circumstances.
[12]
In order to successfully pursue such a claim, a
patient must prove that the physician or surgeon
either failed to do something which a reasonably
prudent physician or surgeon would have done, or
that he or she did something that a reasonably
prudent physician or surgeon would not have done,
and that the failure or action caused injury to the
patient.[13] There are thus four elements involved in
medical negligence cases, namely: duty, breach,
injury, and proximate causation.
In the present case, there is no doubt that a
physician-patient relationship existed between
respondent doctors and Jorge Reyes. Respondents
were thus duty-bound to use at least the same level
Page 39 of 80
of care that any reasonably competent doctor would
use to treat a condition under the same
circumstances. It is breach of this duty which
constitutes actionable malpractice.[14] As to this
aspect of medical malpractice, the determination of
the reasonable level of care and the breach thereof,
expert testimony is essential. Inasmuch as the
causes of the injuries involved in malpractice
actions are determinable only in the light of
scientific knowledge, it has been recognized that
expert testimony is usually necessary to support
the conclusion as to causation.[15]
Res Ipsa Loquitur
There is a case when expert testimony may be
dispensed with, and that is under the doctrine
of res ipsa loquitur. As held in Ramos v. Court of
Appeals:[16]
Although generally, expert medical testimony is
relied upon in malpractice suits to prove that a
physician has done a negligent act or that he has
deviated from the standard medical procedure,
when the doctrine of res ipsa loquitor is availed by
the plaintiff, the need for expert medical testimony
is dispensed with because the injury itself provides
the proof of negligence. The reason is that the
general rule on the necessity of expert testimony
applies only to such matters clearly within the
domain of medical science, and not to matters that
are within the common knowledge of mankind
which may be testified to by anyone familiar with
the facts. Ordinarily, only physicians and surgeons
of skill and experience are competent to testify as
to whether a patient has been treated or operated

upon with a reasonable degree of skill and
care. However, testimony as to the statements and
acts of physicians and surgeons, external
appearances, and manifest conditions which are
observable by any one may be given by non-expert
witnesses. Hence, in cases where the res ipsa
loquitur is applicable, the court is permitted to find
a physician negligent upon proper proof of injury to
the patient, without the aid of expert testimony,
where the court from its fund of common
knowledge can determine the proper standard of
care. Where common knowledge and experience
teach that a resulting injury would not have
occurred to the patient if due care had been
exercised, an inference of negligence may be drawn
giving rise to an application of the doctrine of res
ipsa loquitur without medical evidence, which is
ordinarily required to show not only what occurred
but how and why it occurred. When the doctrine is
appropriate, all that the patient must do is prove a
nexus between the particular act or omission
complained of and the injury sustained while under
the custody and management of the defendant
without need to produce expert medical testimony
to establish the standard of care. Resort to res ipsa
loquitor is allowed because there is no other way,
under usual and ordinary conditions, by which the
patient can obtain redress for injury suffered by
him.
Thus, courts of other jurisdictions have applied the
doctrine in the following situations: leaving of a
foreign object in the body of the patient after an
operation, injuries sustained on a healthy part of
the body which was not under, or in the area, of
treatment, removal of the wrong part of the body
when another part was intended, knocking out a
tooth while a patients jaw was under anesthetic for
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
the removal of his tonsils, and loss of an eye while
the patient was under the influence of anesthetic,
during or following an operation for appendicitis,
among others.[17]
Petitioners asserted in the Court of Appeals that
the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur applies to the
present case because Jorge Reyes was merely
experiencing fever and chills for five days and was
fully conscious, coherent, and ambulant when he
went to the hospital. Yet, he died after only ten
hours from the time of his admission.
This contention was rejected by the appellate
court.
Petitioners now contend that all requisites for
the application of res ipsa loquitur were present,
namely: (1) the accident was of a kind which does
not ordinarily occur unless someone is negligent;
(2) the instrumentality or agency which caused the
injury was under the exclusive control of the person
in charge; and (3) the injury suffered must not
have been due to any voluntary action or
contribution of the person injured.[18]
The contention is without merit. We agree with
the ruling of the Court of Appeals. In
the Ramos case, the question was whether a
surgeon, an anesthesiologist, and a hospital should
be made liable for the comatose condition of a
patient scheduled for cholecystectomy.[19] In that
case, the patient was given anesthesia prior to her
operation. Noting that the patient was
neurologically sound at the time of her operation,
the Court applied the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur as
mental brain damage does not normally occur in a
gallblader operation in the absence of negligence of
the anesthesiologist. Taking judicial notice that
Page 40 of 80
anesthesia procedures had become so common that
even an ordinary person could tell if it was
administered properly, we allowed the testimony of
a witness who was not an expert. In this case, while
it is true that the patient died just a few hours after
professional medical assistance was rendered, there
is really nothing unusual or extraordinary about his
death. Prior to his admission, the patient already
had recurring fevers and chills for five days
unrelieved by the analgesic, antipyretic, and
antibiotics given him by his wife. This shows that he
had been suffering from a serious illness and
professional medical help came too late for him.
Respondents alleged failure to observe due care
was not immediately apparent to a layman so as to
justify application of res ipsa loquitur. The question
required expert opinion on the alleged breach by
respondents of the standard of care required by the
circumstances. Furthermore, on the issue of the
correctness of her diagnosis, no presumption of
negligence can be applied to Dr. Marlyn Rico. As
held in Ramos:
. . . . Res ipsa loquitur is not a rigid or ordinary
doctrine to be perfunctorily used but a rule to be
cautiously applied, depending upon the
circumstances of each case. It is generally
restricted to situations in malpractice cases where a
layman is able to say, as a matter of common
knowledge and observation, that the consequences
of professional care were not as such as would
ordinarily have followed if due care had been
exercised. A distinction must be made between the
failure to secure results, and the occurrence of
something more unusual and not ordinarily found if
the service or treatment rendered followed the
usual procedure of those skilled in that particular

practice. It must be conceded that the doctrine
of res ipsa loquitur can have no application in a suit
against a physician or a surgeon which involves the
merits of a diagnosis or of a scientific
treatment. The physician or surgeon is not required
at his peril to explain why any particular diagnosis
was not correct, or why any particular scientific
treatment did not produce the desired result.[20]
Specific Acts of Negligence
We turn to the question whether petitioners
have established specific acts of negligence
allegedly committed by respondent doctors.
Petitioners contend that: (1) Dr. Marlyn Rico
hastily and erroneously relied upon the Widal test,
diagnosed Jorges illness as typhoid fever, and
immediately prescribed the administration of the
antibiotic chloromycetin;[21] and (2) Dr. Marvie
Blanes erred in ordering the administration of the
second dose of 500 milligrams of chloromycetin
barely three hours after the first was given.
[22]
Petitioners presented the testimony of Dr.
Apolinar Vacalares, Chief Pathologist of the
Northern Mindanao Training Hospital, Cagayan de
Oro City, who performed an autopsy on the body of
Jorge Reyes. Dr. Vacalares testified that, based on
his findings during the autopsy, Jorge Reyes did not
die of typhoid fever but of shock undetermined,
which could be due to allergic reaction or
chloromycetin overdose. We are not persuaded.
First. While petitioners presented Dr. Apolinar
Vacalares as an expert witness, we do not find him
to be so as he is not a specialist on infectious
diseases like typhoid fever. Furthermore, although
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
he may have had extensive experience in
performing autopsies, he admitted that he had yet
to do one on the body of a typhoid victim at the
time he conducted the postmortem on Jorge
Reyes. It is also plain from his testimony that he
has treated only about three cases of typhoid fever.
Thus, he testified that:[23]
ATTY. PASCUAL:
Q Why? Have you not testified earlier that you
have never seen a patient who died of
typhoid fever?
A In autopsy. But, that was when I was a
resident physician yet.
Q But you have not performed an autopsy of a
patient who died of typhoid fever?
A I have not seen one.
Q And you testified that you have never seen a
patient who died of typhoid fever within five
days?
A I have not seen one.
Q How many typhoid fever cases had you seen
while you were in the general practice of
medicine?
A In our case we had no widal test that time so
we cannot consider that the typhoid fever is
like this and like that. And the widal test
does not specify the time of the typhoid
fever.
Q The question is: how many typhoid fever cases
had you seen in your general practice
regardless of the cases now you practice?
A I had only seen three cases.
Page 41 of 80
Q And that was way back in 1964?
A Way back after my training in UP.
Q Clinically?
A Way back before my training.
He is thus not qualified to prove that Dr. Marlyn
Rico erred in her diagnosis. Both lower courts were
therefore correct in discarding his testimony, which
is really inadmissible.
In Ramos, the defendants presented the
testimony of a pulmonologist to prove that brain
injury was due to oxygen deprivation after the
patient had bronchospasms[24] triggered by her
allergic response to a drug,[25] and not due to faulty
intubation by the anesthesiologist. As the issue was
whether the intubation was properly performed by
an anesthesiologist, we rejected the opinion of the
pulmonologist on the ground that he was not: (1)
an anesthesiologist who could enlighten the court
about anesthesia practice, procedure, and their
complications; nor (2) an allergologist who could
properly advance expert opinion on allergic
mediated processes; nor (3) a pharmacologist who
could explain the pharmacologic and toxic effects of
the drug allegedly responsible for the
bronchospasms.
Second. On the other hand, the two doctors
presented by respondents clearly were experts on
the subject. They vouched for the correctness of Dr.
Marlyn Ricos diagnosis. Dr. Peter Gotiong, a
diplomate whose specialization is infectious
diseases and microbiology and an associate
professor at the Southwestern University College of
Medicine and the Gullas College of Medicine,
testified that he has already treated over a

thousand cases of typhoid fever.[26] According to
him, when a case of typhoid fever is suspected, the
Widal test is normally used, [27] and if the 1:320
results of the Widal test on Jorge Reyes had been
presented to him along with the patients history,
his impression would also be that the patient was
suffering from typhoid fever. [28] As to the treatment
of the disease, he stated that chloromycetin was
the drug of choice.[29] He also explained that despite
the measures taken by respondent doctors and the
intravenous administration of two doses of
chloromycetin, complications of the disease could
not be discounted.His testimony is as follows:[30]
ATTY. PASCUAL:
Q If with that count with the test of positive for 1
is to 320, what treatment if any would be
given?
A If those are the findings that would be
presented to me, the first thing I would
consider would be typhoid fever.
Q And presently what are the treatments
commonly used?
A Drug of choice of chloramphenical.
Q Doctor, if given the same patient and after you
have administered chloramphenical about 3
1/2 hours later, the patient associated with
chills, temperature - 41oC, what could
possibly come to your mind?
A Well, when it is change in the clinical finding,
you have to think of complication.
Q And what will you consider on the complication
of typhoid?
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
A One must first understand that typhoid fever is
toximia. The problem is complications are
caused by toxins produced by the bacteria . .
. whether you have suffered complications to
think of -- heart toxic myocardities; then you
can consider a toxic meningitis and other
complications and perforations and bleeding
in the ilium.
Q Even that 40-year old married patient who
received medication of chloromycetin of 500
milligrams intravenous, after the skin test,
and received a second dose of chloromycetin
of 500 miligrams, 3 hours later, the patient
developed chills . . . rise in temperature to
41oC, and then about 40 minutes later the
temperature rose to 100oF, cardiac rate of
150 per minute who appeared to be
coherent, restless, nauseating, with
seizures: what significance could you attach
to these clinical changes?
A I would then think of toxemia, which was toxic
meningitis and probably a toxic meningitis
because of the high cardiac rate.
Q Even if the same patient who, after having
given intramuscular valium, became
conscious and coherent about 20 minutes
later, have seizure and cyanosis and rolling
of eyeballs and vomitting . . . and
death: what significance would you attach to
this development?
A We are probably dealing with typhoid to
meningitis.
Q In such case, Doctor, what finding if any could
you expect on the post-mortem
examination?
Page 42 of 80
A No, the finding would be more on the
meninges or covering of the brain.
Q And in order to see those changes would it
require opening the skull?
A Yes.
As regards Dr. Vacalares finding during the autopsy
that the deceaseds gastro-intestinal tract was
normal, Dr. Rico explained that, while
hyperplasia[31] in the payers patches or layers of the
small intestines is present in typhoid fever, the
same may not always be grossly visible and a
microscope was needed to see the texture of the
cells.[32]
Respondents also presented the testimony of
Dr. Ibarra T. Panopio who is a member of the
Philippine and American Board of Pathology, an
examiner of the Philippine Board of Pathology, and
chief pathologist at the MetroCebu Community
Hospital, Perpetual Succor Hospital, and the Andres
Soriano Jr. Memorial Medical Center. He stated that,
as a clinical pathologist, he recognized that the
Widal test is used for typhoid patients, although he
did not encourage its use because a single test
would only give a presumption necessitating that
the test be repeated, becoming more conclusive at
the second and third weeks of the disease.[33] He
corroborated Dr. Gotiongs testimony that the
danger with typhoid fever is really the possible
complications which could develop like perforation,
hemorrhage, as well as liver and cerebral
complications.[34] As regards the 1:320 results of
the Widal test on Jorge Reyes, Dr. Panopio stated
that no additional information could be obtained
from a higher ratio.[35] He also agreed with Dr.
Gotiong that hyperplasia in the payers patches may
be microscopic.[36]

Indeed, the standard contemplated is not what
is actually the average merit among all known
practitioners from the best to the worst and from
the most to the least experienced, but the
reasonable average merit among the ordinarily
good physicians.[37] Here, Dr. Marlyn Rico did not
depart from the reasonable standard recommended
by the experts as she in fact observed the due care
required under the circumstances. Though the
Widal test is not conclusive, it remains a standard
diagnostic test for typhoid fever and, in the present
case, greater accuracy through repeated testing
was rendered unobtainable by the early death of
the patient. The results of the Widal test and the
patients history of fever with chills for five days,
taken with the fact that typhoid fever was then
prevalent as indicated by the fact that the clinic had
been getting about 15 to 20 typhoid cases a month,
were sufficient to give upon any doctor of
reasonable skill the impression that Jorge Reyes
had typhoid fever.
Dr. Rico was also justified in recommending the
administration of the drug chloromycetin, the drug
of choice for typhoid fever. The burden of proving
that Jorge Reyes was suffering from any other
illness rested with the petitioners. As they failed to
present expert opinion on this, preponderant
evidence to support their contention is clearly
absent.
Third. Petitioners contend that respondent Dr.
Marvie Blanes, who took over from Dr. Rico, was
negligent in ordering the intravenous administration
of two doses of 500 milligrams of chloromycetin at
an interval of less than three hours. Petitioners
claim that Jorge Reyes died of anaphylactic
shock[38] or possibly from overdose as the second
dose should have been administered five to six
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Page 43 of 80
hours after the first, per instruction of Dr. Marlyn generally not reliable. Certain drugs cause
Rico. As held by the Court of Appeals, however: nonspecific histamine release, producing a weal-
and-flare reaction in normal
That chloromycetin was likewise a proper individuals. Immunologic activation of mast cells
prescription is best established by medical requires a polyvalent allergen, so a negative skin
authority. Wilson, et. al., in Harrisons Principle of test to a univalent haptenic drug does not rule out
Internal Medicine, 12th ed. write that anaphylactic sensitivity to that drug. (Terr,
chlorampenicol (which is the generic of Anaphylaxis and Urticaria in Basic and Clinical
chloromycetin) is the drug of choice for typhoid Immunology, p. 349) What all this means legally is
fever and that no drug has yet proven better in that even if the deceased suffered from an
promoting a favorable clinical response. anaphylactic shock, this, of itself, would not yet
Chlorampenicol (Chloromycetin) is specifically establish the negligence of the appellee-physicians
indicated for bacterial meningitis, typhoid fever, for all that the law requires of them is that they
rickettsial infections, bacteriodes infections, etc. perform the standard tests and perform standard
(PIMS Annual, 1994, p. 211) The dosage likewise procedures. The law cannot require them to predict
including the first administration of five hundred every possible reaction to all drugs
milligrams (500 mg.) at around nine oclock in the administered. The onus probandi was on the
evening and the second dose at around 11:30 the appellants to establish, before the trial court, that
same night was still within medically acceptable the appellee-physicians ignored standard medical
limits, since the recommended dose of procedure, prescribed and administered medication
chloromycetin is one (1) gram every six (6) with recklessness and exhibited an absence of the
hours. (cf. Pediatric Drug Handbook, 1st Ed., competence and skills expected of general
Philippine Pediatric Society, Committee on practitioners similarly situated.[39]
Therapeutics and Toxicology, 1996). The
intravenous route is likewise correct. (Mansser, Fourth. Petitioners correctly observe that the
ONick, Pharmacology and Therapeutics) Even if the medical profession is one which, like the business of
test was not administered by the physician-on-duty, a common carrier, is affected with public
the evidence introduced that it was Dra. Blanes who interest. Moreover, they assert that since the law
interpreted the results remain uncontroverted. imposes upon common carriers the duty of
(Decision, pp. 16-17) Once more, this Court rejects observing extraordinary diligence in the vigilance
any claim of professional negligence in this regard. over the goods and for the safety of the
passengers,[40] physicians and surgeons should have
.... the same duty toward their patients.[41] They also
contend that the Court of Appeals erred when it
As regards anaphylactic shock, the usual way of allegedly assumed that the level of medical practice
guarding against it prior to the administration of a is lower in Iligan City, thereby reducing the
drug, is the skin test of which, however, it has been standard of care and degree of diligence required
observed: Skin testing with haptenic drugs is from physicians and surgeons in Iligan City.

The standard of extraordinary diligence is
peculiar to common carriers. The Civil Code
provides:
Art. 1733. Common carriers, from the nature of
their business and for reasons of public policy, are
bound to observe extraordinary diligence in the
vigilance over the goods and for the safety of the
passengers transported by them, according to the
circumstances of each case. . . .
The practice of medicine is a profession
engaged in only by qualified individuals. It is a right
earned through years of education, training, and by
first obtaining a license from the state through
professional board examinations. Such license may,
at any time and for cause, be revoked by the
government. In addition to state regulation, the
conduct of doctors is also strictly governed by the
Hippocratic Oath, an ancient code of discipline and
ethical rules which doctors have imposed upon
themselves in recognition and acceptance of their
great responsibility to society. Given these
safeguards, there is no need to expressly require of
doctors the observance of extraordinary
diligence. As it is now, the practice of medicine is
already conditioned upon the highest degree of
diligence. And, as we have already noted, the
standard contemplated for doctors is simply the
reasonable average merit among ordinarily good
physicians. That is reasonable diligence for doctors
or, as the Court of Appeals called it, the reasonable
skill and competence . . . that a physician in the
same or similar locality . . . should apply.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition is DENIED
and the decision of the Court of Appeals is
AFFIRMED.
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
SO ORDERED.
9. Varquez vs ca
[G.R. No. 118971. September 15, 1999]
RODOLFO R. VASQUEZ, petitioner, vs. COURT
OF APPEALS, THE REGIONAL TRIAL
COURT OF MANILA, BRANCH 40, and
THE PEOPLE OF THE
PHILIPPINES, respondents.
DECISION
MENDOZA, J.:
The question for determination in this case is
the liability for libel of a citizen who denounces a
barangay official for misconduct in office. The
Regional Trial Court of Manila, Branch 40, found
petitioner guilty and fined him P1,000.00 on the
ground that petitioner failed to prove the truth of
the charges and that he was motivated by
vengeance in uttering the defamatory statement.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals, in a
decision[1] dated February 1, 1995, affirmed. Hence,
this petition for review. The decision appealed from
should be reversed.
The facts are not in dispute. Petitioner Rodolfo
R. Vasquez is a resident of the Tondo Foreshore
Area. Sometime in April 1986, he and some 37
Page 44 of 80
families from the area went to see then National
Housing Authority (NHA) General Manager Lito
Atienza regarding their complaint against their
Barangay Chairman, Jaime Olmedo. After their
meeting with Atienza and other NHA officials,
petitioner and his companions were met and
interviewed by newspaper reporters at the NHA
compound concerning their complaint. The next
day, April 22, 1986, the following news
article[2]appeared in the newspaper Ang Tinig ng
Masa:
Nananawagan kahapon kay pangulong Corazon
Aquino ang 38 mahihirap na pamilya sa Tondo
Foreshore Area na umanoy inagawan ng lupa ng
kanilang barangay chairman sa pakikipagsabwatan
sa ilang pinuno ng National Housing Authority sapul
1980.
Sinabi nila na nakipagsabwatan umano si Chairman
Jaime Olmedo ng barangay 66, Zone 6, Tondo
Foreshore Area, sa mga project manager ng NHA
upang makamkam ang may 14 na lote ng lupa sa
naturang lugar.
Binanggit ni Rodolfo R. Vasquez, 40, Tagapagsalita
ng (mga) pamilyang apektado, na umaabot lang sa
487.87 metro kuwadrado ang kabuuan ng mga lupa
na kinatitirikan ng mga barung-barung ng 38
pamilya.
Naninirahan na kami sa mga lupang nabanggit
sapul 1950 at pinatunayan sa mga survey ng NHA
noong nakalipas na taon na may karapatan kami sa
mga lupang ito ng pamahalaan, ani Vasquez.

Pawang lupa ng gobyerno ang mga lupa at ilegal
man na patituluhan, nagawa ito ni Olmedo sa
pakikipagsabwatan sa mga project manager at legal
officers ng NHA, sabi ni Vasquez.
Sinabi rin ng mga pamilya na protektado ng dating
pinuno ng city hall ng Maynila, MHS Minister
Conrado Benitez, at ilang pinuno ng pulisya ang
barangay chairman kaya nakalusot ang mga ginawa
nitong katiwalian.
Bukod sa pagkamkam ng mga lupaing gobyerno,
kasangkot din umano si Olmedo sa mga ilegal na
pasugalan sa naturang lugar at maging sa mga
nakawan ng manok.
Sapin-sapin na ang mga kaso na idinulog namin
noong nakalipas na mga taon, pero pinawalang
saysay ang lahat ng iyon, kabilang na ang tangkang
pagpatay sa akin kaugnay ng pagrereklamo sa
pangangamkam ng lupa noong 1984, sabi pa ni
Vasquez.
Based on the newspaper article, Olmedo filed a
complaint for libel against petitioner alleging that
the latters statements cast aspersions on him and
damaged his reputation. After conducting
preliminary investigation, the city prosecutor filed
the following information in the Regional Trial Court
of Manila, Branch 40:
The undersigned accuses RODOLFO R. VASQUEZ of
the crime of libel committed as follows:
That on or about April 22, 1986, in the city of
Manila, Philippines, the said accused, with malicious
intent of impeaching the reputation and character of
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
one Jaime Olmedo, chairman of Barangay 66, Zone
6 in Tondo, Manila, and with evident intent of
exposing him to public hatred, contempt, ridicule,
did then and there willfully, unlawfully, feloniously
and maliciously caused the publication of an article
entitled 38 Pamilya Inagawan ng Lupa in Ang Tinig
ng Masa, a daily newspaper sold to the public and
of general circulation in the Philippines in its April
22, 1986 issue, which portion of the said article
reads as follows:
Nananawagan kahapon kay pangulong Corazon
Aquino ang 38 mahihirap na pamilya sa Tondo
Foreshore Area na umanoy inagawan ng lupa ng
kanilang barangay chairman sa pakikipagsabwatan
sa ilang pinuno ng National Housing Authority sapul
1980.
Sinabi nila na nakipagsabwatan umano si Chairman
Jaime Olmedo ng barangay 66, Zone 6, Tondo
Foreshore Area sa mga project manager ng NHA
upang makamkam ang may 14 na lote ng lupa sa
naturang lugar.
x x x Pawang lupa ng gobyerno ang mga lupa at
ilegal man na patituluhan, nagawa ito ni Olmedo sa
pakikipagsabwatan sa mga project manager at legal
officers ng NHA, sabi ni Vasquez.
Sinabi rin ng mga pamilya na protektado ng dating
pinuno ng city hall ng Maynila, MHS Minister
Conrado Benitez, at ilang pinuno ng pulisya ang
barangay chairman kaya nakalusot ang mga ginawa
nitong katiwalian.
Bukod sa pagkamkam ng mga lupaing gobyerno,
kasangkot din umano si Olmedo sa mga ilegal na
Page 45 of 80
pasugalan sa naturang lugar at maging sa mga
nakawan ng manok. x x x
with which statements, the said accused meant and
intended to convey, as in fact he did mean and
convey false and malicious imputations that said
Jaime Olmedo is engaged in landgrabbing and
involved in illegal gambling and stealing of chickens
at the Tondo Foreshore Area, Tondo, Manila, which
statements, as he well knew, were entirely false
and malicious, offensive and derogatory to the good
name, character and reputation of said Jaime
Olmedo, thereby tending to impeach, besmirch and
destroy the honor, character and reputation of
Jaime Olmedo, as in fact, the latter was exposed to
dishonor, discredit, public hatred, contempt and
ridicule.
Contrary to law.
Upon being arraigned, petitioner entered a plea
of not guilty, whereupon the case was tried. The
prosecution presented Barangay Chairman Olmedo
and his neighbor, Florentina Calayag, as
witnesses. On the other hand, the defense
presented Ciriaco Cabuhat, Nicasio Agustin,
Estrelita Felix, Fernando Rodriguez all residents of
the Tondo Foreshore Area and petitioner as its
witnesses.
On May 28, 1992, the trial court rendered
judgment finding petitioner guilty of libel and
sentencing him to pay a fine of P1,000.00. On
appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed in
toto. Hence, this petition for review. Petitioner
contends that

I. THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED IN
AFFIRMING THE DECISION OF THE
TRIAL COURT PINPOINTING PETITIONER
AS THE SOURCE OF THE ALLEGED
LIBELOUS ARTICLE.
II. THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED IN
AFFIRMING THE DECISION OF THE
TRIAL COURT THAT PETITIONER
IMPUTED THE QUESTIONED ACTS TO
COMPLAINANT.
III. THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED IN
AFFIRMING THE DECISION OF THE
TRIAL COURT THAT THE ALLEGED
IMPUTATIONS WERE MADE
MALICIOUSLY.
IV. THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED IN
AFFIRMING THE DECISION OF THE
TRIAL COURT WHICH FAILED TO
APPRECIATE PETITIONERS DEFENSE OF
TRUTH.
V. THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED IN
AFFIRMING THE DECISION OF THE
TRIAL COURT THAT ALL THE ELEMENTS
OF LIBEL WERE PROVEN.
We will deal with these contentions in the order
in which they are made.
First. Petitioner claims he was unfairly singled
out as the source of the statements in the article
when any member of the 38 complainant-families
could have been the source of the alleged libelous
statements.[3] The reference is to the following
portion of the decision of the Court of Appeals:
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
. . . In his sworn statement, appellant admitted he
was the source of the libelous article (Exh. B). He
affirmed this fact when he testified in open court as
follows: That his allegation on the act of
landgrabbing by Olmedo was based on the alleged
report and pronouncements of the NHA
representatives (p. 5, tsn, Oct. 18, 1989); that said
allegations were made by him before the local press
people in the pursuit of fairness and truthfulness
and not in bad faith (pp. 8-9, id.); that the only
inaccurate account in the published article of Ang
Tinig ng Masa is the reference to the 487.87 sq.m.
lot, on which Olmedos residence now stands,
attributed by the reporter as the lot currently
occupied by appellants and his fellow complainants
(pp. 4-5, tsn, Nov. 15, 1989; pp. 4-5, tsn, January
15, 1990); and that after the interview, he never
expected that his statement would be the cause of
the much-publicized libelous article (pp. 4-6, tsn,
Nov. 15, 1989).[4]
It is true petitioner did not directly admit that
he was the source of the statements in the
questioned article. What he said in his sworn
statement[5] was that the contents of the article are
true in almost all respects, thus:
9. Tama ang nakalathala sa pahayagang
Ang Masa maliban na lang sa tinutukoy
na ako at ang mga kasamahang
maralitang taga-lungsod ay nakatira sa
humigit kumulang 487.87 square meters
sapagkat ang nabanggit na 487.87
square meters ay siyang kinatitirikan ng
bahay ni Barangay Chairman Olmedo
kung saan nakaloob ang anim na lote -
isang paglabag sa batas o regulasyon ng
NHA;
Page 46 of 80
10. Ang ginawa kong pahayag na nailathala
sa Ang Masa ay sanhi ng aking nais na
maging mabuting mamamayan at upang
maituwid ang mga katiwaliang
nagaganap sa Tondo Foreshore Area
kung saan ako at sampu ng aking mga
kasamang maralitang taga-lungsod ay
apektado at naaapi.
This was likewise what he stated in his testimony in
court both on direct[6] and on cross-examination.
[7]
However, by claiming that what he had told the
reporter was made by him in the performance of a
civic duty, petitioner in effect admitted authorship
of the article and not only of the statements
attributed to him therein, to wit:
Pawang lupa ng gobyerno ang mga lupa at ilegal
man na patituluhan, nagawa ito ni Olmedo sa
pakikipagsabwatan sa mga project manager at legal
officers ng NHA, sabi ni Vasquez.
....
Sapin-sapin na ang mga kaso na idinulog namin
noong nakalipas na mga taon, pero pinawalang
saysay ang lahat ng iyon, kabilang na ang tangkang
pagpatay sa akin kaugnay ng pagrereklamo sa
pangangamkam ng lupa noong 1984, sabi pa ni
Vasquez.
Petitioner cannot claim to have been the source
of only a few statements in the article in question
and point to the other parties as the source of the
rest, when he admits that he was correctly
identified as the spokesperson of the families during
the interview.

Second. Petitioner points out that the
information did not set out the entire news article
as published. In fact, the second statement
attributed to petitioner was not included in the
information. But, while the general rule is that the
information must set out the particular defamatory
words verbatim and as published and that a
statement of their substance is insufficient,[8] United
States v. Eguia, 38 Phil. 857 (1918).8 a defect in
this regard may be cured by evidence.[9] In this
case, the article was presented in evidence, but
petitioner failed to object to its
introduction. Instead, he engaged in the trial of the
entire article, not only of the portions quoted in the
information, and sought to prove it to be true. In
doing so, he waived objection based on the defect
in the information. Consequently, he cannot raise
this issue at this late stage.[10]
Third. On the main issue whether petitioner is
guilty of libel, petitioner contends that what he said
was true and was made with good motives and for
justifiable ends.
To find a person guilty of libel under Art. 353 of
the Revised Penal Code, the following elements
must be proved: (a) the allegation of a discreditable
act or condition concerning another; (b) publication
of the charge; (c) identity of the person defamed;
and (d) existence of malice.[11]
An allegation is considered defamatory if it
ascribes to a person the commission of a crime, the
possession of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or
any act, omission, condition, status or circumstance
which tends to dishonor or discredit or put him in
contempt, or which tends to blacken the memory of
one who is dead.[12]
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
There is publication if the material is
communicated to a third person.[13] It is not
required that the person defamed has read or heard
about the libelous remark. What is material is that a
third person has read or heard the libelous
statement, for a mans reputation is the estimate in
which others hold him, not the good opinion which
he has of himself.[14]
On the other hand, to satisfy the element of
identifiability, it must be shown that at least a third
person or a stranger was able to identify him as the
object of the defamatory statement.[15]
Finally, malice or ill will must be present. Art.
354 of the Revised Penal Code provides:
Every defamatory imputation is presumed to be
malicious, even if it be true, if no good intention
and justifiable motive for making it is shown, except
in the following cases:
1. A private communication made by any
person to another in the performance of
any legal, moral or security duty; and
2. A fair and true report, made in good
faith, without any comments or
remarks, of any judicial, legislative or
other official proceedings which are not
of confidential nature, or of any
statement, report or speech delivered in
said proceedings, or of any other act
performed by public officers in the
exercise of their functions.
In this case, there is no doubt that the first
three elements are present. The statements that
Olmedo, through connivance with NHA officials, was
Page 47 of 80
able to obtain title to several lots in the area and
that he was involved in a number of illegal activities
(attempted murder, gambling and theft of fighting
cocks) were clearly defamatory. There is no merit in
his contention that landgrabbing, as charged in the
information, has a technical meaning in law.[16] Such
act is so alleged and proven in this case in the
popular sense in which it is understood by ordinary
people. As held in United States v. Sotto:[17]
. . . [F]or the purpose of determining the meaning
of any publication alleged to be libelous that
construction must be adopted which will give to the
matter such a meaning as is natural and obvious in
the plain and ordinary sense in which the public
would naturally understand what was uttered.The
published matter alleged to be libelous must be
construed as a whole. In applying these rules to the
language of an alleged libel, the court will disregard
any subtle or ingenious explanation offered by the
publisher on being called to account. The whole
question being the effect the publication had upon
the minds of the readers, and they not having been
assisted by the offered explanation in reading the
article, it comes too late to have the effect of
removing the sting, if any there be, from the words
used in the publication.
Nor is there any doubt that the defamatory
remarks referred to complainant and were
published. Petitioner caused the publication of the
defamatory remarks when he made the statements
to the reporters who interviewed him.[18]
The question is whether from the fact that the
statements were defamatory, malice can be
presumed so that it was incumbent upon petitioner
to overcome such presumption. Under Art. 361 of

the Revised Penal Code, if the defamatory
statement is made against a public official with
respect to the discharge of his official duties and
functions and the truth of the allegation is shown,
the accused will be entitled to an acquittal even
though he does not prove that the imputation was
published with good motives and for justifiable
ends.[19]
In this case, contrary to the findings of the trial
court, on which the Court of Appeals relied,
petitioner was able to prove the truth of his charges
against the barangay official. His allegation that,
through connivance with NHA officials, complainant
was able to obtain title to several lots at the Tondo
Foreshore Area was based on the letter [20] of NHA
Inspector General Hermogenes Fernandez to
petitioners counsel which reads:
09 August 1983
Atty. Rene V. Sarmiento
Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG)
55 Third Street
New Manila, Quezon City
Dear Atty. Sarmiento:
In connection with your request that you be
furnished with a copy of the results of the
investigation regarding the complaints of some
Tondo residents against Chairman Jaime Olmedo,
we are providing you a summary of the findings
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
based on the investigation conducted by our Office
which are as follows:
1. Based on the subdivision plan of Block 260, SB 8,
Area III, Jaime Olmedos present structure is
constructed on six lots which were awarded before
by the defunct Land Tenure Administration to
different persons as follows:
Lot 4 - Juana Buenaventura - 79.76 sq. m.
Lot 6 - Servando Simbulan - 48.50 sq. m.
Lot 7 - Alfredo Vasquez - 78.07 sq. m.
Lot 8 - Martin Gallardo - 78.13 sq. m.
Lot 9 - Daniel Bayan - 70.87 sq. m.
Lot 1 - Fortunato de Jesus - 85.08 sq. m. (OIT No.
7800)
The above-mentioned lots were not yet titled,
except for Lot 1. Fortunato de Jesus sold the said
lot to a certain Jovita Bercasi, a sister-in-law of
Jaime Olmedo. The other remaining lots were either
sold to Mr. Olmedo and/or to his immediate
relatives.
Lot 14 is also titled in the name of Mariano Bercasi,
father-in-law of Jaime Olmedo, with an area of
47.40 sq. m.
The lot assigned to Chairman Olmedo has a total
area of 487.87 sq. m.
Page 48 of 80
2. Block 261, SB 8, Area III
Lot No. 7 is titled in the name of Jaime Olmedo,
consisting an area of 151.67 sq. m. A four-door
apartment owned by Mr. Olmedo is being rented to
uncensused residents.
3. Block 262, SB 8, Area III
Lot No. 13 is allocated to Delfin Olmedo, nephew of
Jaime Olmedo, but this lot is not yet titled.
4. Block 256, SB 5, Area III
Victoria Olmedo, uncensused, is a daughter of
Jaime Olmedo. Her structure is erected on a non-
titled lot. The adjacent lot is titled in the name of
Victoria. It was issued OCT No. 10217 with an area
of 202.23 sq. m. Inside this compound is another
structure owned and occupied by Amelia Dofredo, a
censused houseowner. The titled lot of Victoria now
has an area of 338.20 sq. m.
For your information.
(s/t) HERMOGENES C. FERNANDEZ
Inspector General
Public Assistance & Action Office
In addition, petitioner acted on the basis of two
memoranda,[21] both dated November 29, 1983, of
then NHA General Manager Gaudencio Tobias
recommending the filing of administrative charges
against the NHA officials responsible for the alleged

irregular consolidation of lots [in Tondo to Jaime
and Victoria Olmedo.]
With regard to the other imputations made by
petitioner against complainant, it must be noted
that what petitioner stated was that various charges
(for attempted murder against petitioner, gambling,
theft of fighting cocks) had been filed by the
residents against their barangay chairman but these
had all been dismissed. Petitioner was able to show
that Olmedos involvement in the theft of fighting
cocks was the subject of an affidavit-complaint,
[22]
dated October 19, 1983, signed by Fernando
Rodriguez and Ben Lareza, former barangay tanods
of Barangay 66, Zone 6, Tondo.Likewise, petitioner
presented a resolution,[23] dated March 10, 1988, of
the Office of the Special Prosecutor in TBP-87-
03694, stating that charges of malversation and
corrupt practices had been filed against Olmedo and
nine (9) other barangay officials but the same were
dismissed. Indeed, the prosecutions own evidence
bears out petitioners statements. The prosecution
presented the resolution[24]in TBP Case No. 84-
01854 dismissing the charge of attempted murder
filed by petitioner against Jaime Olmedo and his
son-in-law, Jaime Reyes. The allegation concerning
this matter is thus true.
It was error for the trial court to hold that
petitioner only tried to prove that the complainant
[barangay chairman] is guilty of the crimes alluded
to; accused, however, has not proven that the
complainant committed the crimes. For that is not
what petitioner said as reported in the Ang Tinig ng
Masa. The fact that charges had been filed against
the barangay official, not the truth of such charges,
was the issue.
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
In denouncing the barangay chairman in this
case, petitioner and the other residents of the
Tondo Foreshore Area were not only acting in their
self-interest but engaging in the performance of a
civic duty to see to it that public duty is discharged
faithfully and well by those on whom such duty is
incumbent. The recognition of this right and duty of
every citizen in a democracy is inconsistent with
any requirement placing on him the burden of
proving that he acted with good motives and for
justifiable ends.
For that matter, even if the defamatory
statement is false, no liability can attach if it relates
to official conduct, unless the public official
concerned proves that the statement was made
with actual malice that is, with knowledge that it
was false or with reckless disregard of whether it
was false or not. This is the gist of the ruling in the
landmark case of New York Times v. Sullivan,
[25]
which this Court has cited with approval in
several of its own decisions.[26] This is the rule of
actual malice. In this case, the prosecution failed to
prove not only that the charges made by petitioner
were false but also that petitioner made them with
knowledge of their falsity or with reckless disregard
of whether they were false or not.
A rule placing on the accused the burden of
showing the truth of allegations of official
misconduct and/or good motives and justifiable
ends for making such allegations would not only be
contrary to Art. 361 of the Revised Penal Code. It
would, above all, infringe on the constitutionally
guaranteed freedom of expression. Such a rule
would deter citizens from performing their duties as
members of a self- governing community. Without
free speech and assembly, discussions of our most
abiding concerns as a nation would be stifled. As
Page 49 of 80
Justice Brandeis has said, public discussion is a
political duty and the greatest menace to freedom is
an inert people.[27]
Complainant contends that petitioner was
actuated by vengeful political motive rather than by
his firm conviction that he and his fellow residents
had been deprived of a property right because of
acts attributable to their barangay chairman. The
Court of Appeals, sustaining complainants
contention, held:
That the said imputations were malicious may be
inferred from the facts that appellant and
complainant are enemies, hence, accused was
motivated by vengeance in uttering said defamatory
statements and that accused is a leader of Ciriaco
Cabuhat who was defeated by complainant when
they ran for the position of barangay captain. . . .[28]
As already stated, however, in accordance with Art.
361, if the defamatory matter either constitutes a
crime or concerns the performance of official duties,
and the accused proves the truth of his charge, he
should be acquitted.[29]
Instead of the claim that petitioner was
politically motivated in making the charges against
complainant, it would appear that complainant filed
this case to harass petitioner. Art. 360 of the
Revised Penal Code provides:
Persons responsible.Any person who shall publish,
exhibit, or cause the publication or exhibition of any
defamation in writing or by similar means, shall be
responsible for the same.

The author or editor of a book or pamphlet, or the
editor or business manager of a daily newspaper,
magazine or serial publication, shall be responsible
for the defamations contained therein to the same
extent as if he were the author thereof. . . .
Yet, in this case, neither the reporter, editor,
nor the publisher of the newspaper was charged in
court. What was said in an analogous case[30] may
be applied mutatis mutandis to the case at bar:
It is curious that the ones most obviously
responsible for the publication of the allegedly
offensive news report, namely, the editorial staff
and the periodical itself, were not at all
impleaded. The charge was leveled against the
petitioner and, curiouser still, his clients who have
nothing to do with the editorial policies of the
newspaper. There is here a manifest effort to
persecute and intimidate the petitioner for his
temerity in accusing the ASAC agents who
apparently enjoyed special privilegesand perhaps
also immunitiesduring those oppressive times. The
non-inclusion of the periodicals was a transparent
hypocrisy, an ostensibly pious if not at all
convincing pretense of respect for freedom of
expression that was in fact one of the most
desecrated liberties during the past despotism.[31]
WHEREFORE, the decision of the Court of
Appeals is REVERSED and the petitioner is
ACQUITTED of the crime charged.
SO ORDERED.
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
10. Fortich vs ca
[G.R. No. 120769. February 12, 1997]
STANLEY J. FORTICH, petitioner, vs. COURT OF
APPEALS and FELIX T.
GALLERON, respondents.
DECISION
KAPUNAN, J.:
For over five years since August 1973,
petitioner Stanley J. Fortich was employed as an
area salesman of the soft drinks division of the San
Miguel Corporation in Dipolog City, a job which
required him to collect various sums of money from
the retailers and buyers of the company along his
designated route.
On June 5, 1979, petitioner received a
Memorandum ordering him to stop plying his route
and collecting the sums owed by customers to the
company for the stated reason of his alleged
"NONISSUANCE (SIC) OF EITHER CHANGE REFUND
NOR OFFICIAL RECEIPT FOR EMPTIES RETRIEVED
FROM OUTLETS WITH TEMPORARY CREDIT
SALES."[1] The order grounding petitioner, signed by
herein respondent Felipe T. Carreon in his capacity
as District Sales Supervisor, likewise directed
petitioner to instead report directly "to the sales
office every working day at the prescribed company
time."[2]
Page 50 of 80
Following up on his first memorandum and
alleging that petitioner misappropriated the amount
of P1,605.00 from his collections (through non-
issuance of invoices to several customers) private
respondent, on June 11, 1975, submitted a second
inter-office memorandum addressed to the Regional
Sales Manager summarizing the findings of an initial
investigation he conducted on the matter, which he
concluded with the following paragraph:
"In addition, I would like to further inform
management that S/M Stanley Fortich is an
avid mahjong player and a cockfighting
enthusiast. In spite of several advices,
there seems to be no change in his
lifestyle. Also, respondent had a similar
case last September 11, 1978."[3]
After further investigation by the company
which found petitioner guilty of misappropriating
company funds, petitioner was preventively
suspended from his job. The order suspending
petitioner also decreed his dismissal "upon receipt
of clearance from the Ministry of Labor."[4]
Claiming that the above-quoted second
memorandum issued by the private respondent was
"willfull, malicious and done in gross bad
faith,"[5] petitioner, on September 28, 1979 filed a
complaint for "Damages Arising from Libel" with the
Court of First Instance (now Regional Trial Court) of
Zamboanga Del Norte. In his complaint, he alleged
that:
xxx
[T]he defendant has pictured the plaintiff in
his report (Annex "B") as a thief, corrupt or
dishonest man and even going to the extent

of exposing in public the alleged vices of the
plaintiff such as mahjong and cockfighting.
[T]he defendant is guilty of gross bad faith
and malice in the highest degree for making
and publishing a false, and libelous report
for the purpose of putting down the good
name and reputation of the plaintiff and his
family.
xxx[6]
Petitioner then prayed that the trial court grant
the total amount of P171,000.00 to him as moral
and exemplary damages, attorney's fees and
expenses of litigation.
On November 5, 1990, the Regional Trial Court
rendered its decision[7] in favor of herein petitioner,
the dispositive portion of which states the following:
PREMISES CONSIDERED, the Court hereby
renders judgment -
1. Ordering the defendant to pay to the
plaintiff the following sums:
(a) P150,000.00 for moral damages;
(b) P50,000.00 for exemplary damages;
(c) P20,000.00 for attorney's fees and
(d) P1,000.00 for litigation expenses;
2. Dismissing the defendant's counterclaim
for lack of merit; and
3. Ordering the defendant to pay the costs.
[8]
Principally contending in his assignment of
errors that no actual malice existed or had been
shown in respect to the questioned (second)
memorandum and that in any case, the assailed
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
letter was protected by the privileged
communication rule, the private respondent
appealed the trial court's decision to the Court of
Appeals.
On February 21, 1995, respondent court
reversed the trial court's decision on the ground
that the memorandum was not libelous being
"within the ambit of privileged
communications." Motion for Reconsideration was
denied by the Court of Appeals on May 31, 1995,
hence, the instant petition for review on certiorari.
The appeal is not impressed with merit.
The provisions of law applicable to the case at
bar are embodied in Articles 353 and 354 of the
Revised Penal Code which state the following:
Art. 353. Definition of Libel. - A libel is a
public and malicious imputation of a crime,
or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or
any act, omission, condition, status, or
circumstance tending to cause the dishonor,
discredit, or contempt of a natural or
juridical person, or to blacken the memory
of one who is dead.
Art. 354. Requirement for publicity. - Every
defamatory imputation is presumed to be
malicious, even if it be true, if no good
intention and justifiable motive for making
it is shown, except in the following cases:
1. A private communication made
by any person to another in the
performance of any legal, moral or
social duty; and
2. A fair and true report, made in
good faith, without any comments
Page 51 of 80
or remarks, of any judicial,
legislative or other official
proceedings which are not of
confidential nature, or of any
statement, report or speech
delivered in said proceedings, or of
any other act performed by public
officers in the exercise of their
functions.
Nothing in the evidence on record would
suggest that the key elements of publicity found in
the definition of libel in Article 353 of the Revised
Penal Code are present in the case before us.
Firstly, the assailed letter was obviously part
and parcel of the initial investigation surrounding
the non-remittance of collections by petitioner. The
right hand caption of the memorandum clearly
shows the phrase "Inter-office
Memorandum,"[9] implying confidentiality. Secondly,
petitioner was unable to prove that the letter was
circulated or publicized, much less read by officers
of the corporation other than those involved in the
investigation or those directly supervising the
petitioner's work. While imputation of a vice or
defect on the petitioner's character might have
been apparent from the second to the last
paragraph of the memorandum, the imputation was
never really made publicly.
More importantly, petitioner in the court below
was not able to establish satisfactorily that the
issuance of the letter and its offending paragraph
was motivated by malice. As respondent Court of
Appeals correctly held:
Neither does this Court find positive proof
that the appellant was motivated by malice
in the issuance of the memorandum

claimed to be libelous, addressed to the
proper officials of San Miguel
Corporation. In other words, the onus of
proving actual malice is placed on the
plaintiff- appellee who must convince the
Court that the offender was prompted by
malice or ill will. Once this is accomplished,
the defense of privilege is
unavailing. (Nanerico D. Santos vs. The
Court of Appeals, et. al., 203 SCRA 110,
114.) Our ruling is buttressed by the fact
that no proof has been adduced to show
that the subject Memorandum was released
to persons other than the officials
concerned. x x x.[10]
Malice exists when there is an intentional doing
of a wrongful act without just cause. An imputation
is legally malicious if done without any reason that
would justify a normally conscientious man in so
making the imputation.[11] While the law presumes
every defamatory imputation to be malicious, there
are exceptions to this rule. The record indicates that
this case falls under the settled exceptions to the
rule: the private respondent's inter-office
memorandum falls within the ambit of privileged
communication rule.
A privileged communication is one made bona
fide upon any subject matter in which the party
communicating has an interest, or in reference to
which he has a duty.[12] Discussing the scope of this
rule, former Chief Justice Fernando, in Mercado v.
CFI of Rizal,[13]explained that:
x x x. Even when the statements are found
to be false, if there is probable cause for
belief in their truthfulness and the charge is
made in good faith, the mantle of privilege
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Page 52 of 80
may still cover the mistake of the good faith, an honest innocent statement arising
individual. But the statements must be from a moral and legal obligation which the private
made under an honest sense of duty; x x x. respondent certainly owed to the company in the
performance of his duties. The opinion which the
In the instant case, it is well-worth stressing
private respondent expressed in the discharge of
that the private respondent was, as the District his duty might have skirted the boundary which
Sales Supervisor of the corporation's Dipolog office,
usually separates innocent opinion from actionable
the immediate supervisor of petitioner. In this defamation. Paradoxically, however, if he did not
capacity, respondent was charged with the duty to
hazard the warning, though it might have
carry out and enforce company rules and policies, subsequently turned out to be a reckless one, he
including the duty to undertake initial investigation
would have been remiss in his responsibilities to the
of possible irregularities in customer accounts in company. The rule on privileged communications
order to suggest further action which could be
allows the latitude of expression embodied in the
taken by the company. In fact, the communications private respondent's second memorandum.
initially submitted by the private respondent to his
superiors prompted the investigation which WHEREFORE, there being no reversible error
eventually led to petitioner's preventive suspension in the decision sought to be reviewed, the petition
and to the decision by the company's proper is hereby DENIED.
officers to terminate the latter's employment. In
SO ORDERED.
making his earlier recommendation, the private
respondent relied on the affidavits submitted by at
least three of the company's clients (all attesting to
irregularities)[14] and his initial though yet-
unsubstantiated findings that respondent was an 11. Flor v people
"avid mahjong player and a cockfight
enthusiast." That the affidavits were subsequently
found to have been gathered by the private
respondent himself did not diminish their
[G.R. No. 139987. March 31, 2005]
quality. Investigation necessarily includes the
gathering and solicitation of information.
Even granting that the questioned
memorandum - particularly the above quoted SALVADOR D. FLOR, petitioner, vs. PEOPLE OF
paragraph - contains statements which could be THE PHILIPPINES, respondent.
slanderous and therefore actionable were they not
protected by the rule on privileged communications, DECISION
still as no malice was shown, we agree with the
CHICO-NAZARIO, J.:
respondent court's conclusion that the assailed
memorandum report was an official act done in

Before Us is a petition for review
on certiorari seeking to reverse the Decision of the
Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR Nos. 11577 and
33204[1] which affirmed the joint decision of the
Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 33 of Pili,
Camarines Sur, in Criminal Case No. P-1855
convicting the petitioner and Nick Ramos [2] for libel
and Civil Case No. P-1672 awarding damages in
favor of the private complainant, former Governor
of Camarines Sur and Minister of the Presidential
Commission on Government Reorganization Luis R.
Villafuerte.
The facts are not disputed.
An information for libel was filed before the
RTC, Branch 20, Naga City, against the petitioner
and Ramos who were then the managing editor and
correspondent, respectively, of the Bicol Forum, a
local weekly newspaper circulated in the Bicol
Region. The information reads as follows:
That on or about the 18th day up to the 24th day of
August, 1986, in the Bicol Region comprised by the
Provinces of Albay, Catanduanes, Sorsogon,
Masbate, Camarines Sur, and Camarines Norte, and
the Cities of Iriga and Naga, Philippines, and within
the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court under R.A.
No. 4363, and B.P. Blg. 129, the above-named
accused who are the news correspondent and the
managing editor, respectively, of the local weekly
newspaper Bicol Forum, did then and there willfully,
unlawfully and feloniously, without justifiable
motive and with malicious intent of impeaching,
discrediting and destroying the honor, integrity,
good name and reputation of the complainant as
Minister of the Presidential Commission on
Government Reorganization and concurrently
Governor of the Province of Camarines Sur, and to
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
expose him to public hatred, ridicule and contempt,
write, edit, publish and circulate an issue of the
local weekly newspaper BICOL FORUM throughout
the Bicol Region, with banner headline and front
page news item read by the public throughout the
Bicol Region, pertinent portions of which are quoted
verbatim as follows:
VILLAFUERTES DENIAL CONVINCES NO ONE
NAGA CITY-Gov. Luis Villafuertes denial
that he did not spend government money
for his trips to Japan and Israel two weeks
ago has failed to convince people in
Camarines Sur, reliable sources said.
What the people know, the sources said, is that the
two trips of the governor who is also the minister of
the Government Reorganization Commission was
purely junket.
This was confirmed when capitol sources disclosed
that about P700,000.00 collected by way of cash
advances by ranking provincial officials were
allegedly used for the two trips.
The cash advances, the sources said, were made at
the instance of Villafuerte.
It was learned that the amount was withdrawn
without resolution approving its release.
Villarfuerte however said that he spent his own
money for the two trips.
Page 53 of 80
The governor was accompanied abroad by political
supporters mostly municipal mayors in Camarines
Sur, the report said.
This was contested by several individuals who told
Bicol Forum that the members of Villafuertes
entourage did not have official functions in the
province.
Villafuerte and his companions reportedly attended
the 1986 baseball games in Japan.
When in truth and in fact said allegations are false
and utterly untrue as the complainant has not done
such acts, thus embarrassing, discrediting and
ridiculing him before his friends, followers and other
people.[3]
The information was later amended to include
Jose Burgos, Jr., who was at that time the
publisher-editor of the Bicol Forum.[4] The trial
court, however, never acquired jurisdiction over his
person as he did not surrender nor was he ever
arrested by the authorities.
It appears from the records that prior to the
filing of the criminal complaint, the private
complainant had already instituted a separate civil
action for damages arising out of the questioned
news article before the RTC, Branch 23, Naga City.
Due to this, the criminal suit for libel was ordered
consolidated with the civil case pursuant to Article
360 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended.
[5]
Subsequently, the consolidated actions were
transferred to RTC, Branch 33, Pili, Camarines Sur,
in accordance with Republic Act No. 4363 which
outlines the venue of libel cases in the event that
the offended party is a public official such as in this

case.[6] Thereafter, a joint trial of the cases ensued
with accused Burgos, Jr., being declared as in
default in the civil case due to his failure to attend
its pre-trial conference.
Upon being arraigned, the petitioner and
Ramos both pleaded not guilty.[7]
During the trial, the private complainant
himself took the witness stand to refute the
statements contained in the subject news article.
According to him, there were previous news reports
and broadcasts regarding the cash advances
allegedly made by some provincial government
officials of Camarines Sur and that it was also
reported that he made a trip to Japan which was
branded as a mere junket. [8] The private
complainant, however, explained that after he
clarified over the radio that he never went to Japan,
the issue was never discussed again until the
matter was included in the questioned news item.
[9]
As for the cash advances, the private
complainant stated that the Provincial Auditor and
the Budget Officer had already made a statement to
the effect that he had no pending cash advances.
[10]
Further, the private complainant clarified that he
made his trip to Israel in his capacity as a cabinet
member of former President Corazon C. Aquino and
that he spent his own money for the said official trip
thereby debunking Bicol Forums report that his
travel to Israel was purely a junket.[11] The private
complainant also complained that no one from the
Bicol Forum made any attempt to get his side of the
story nor was he aware of any effort exerted by the
representatives of said publication to confirm the
veracity of the contents of the subject news article
from any source at the provincial capitol.[12] Finally,
the private complainant took exception to the
banner headline which states Villafuertes Denial
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Convinces No One. According to him, the Bicol
Forum seemed to be making a mockery of his
previous explanations regarding the cash advances
and his trips abroad and such a sweeping statement
subjected him to public ridicule and humiliation.[13]
On the other hand, Ramos testified that he
wrote the questioned news item on the basis of a
note given to him by a source whom he refused to
identify.[14] Said source was allegedly connected
with the Provincial Treasurers Office. [15] The note
reads:
Media consultants of Villafuerte specially DWLV
announcers had been announcing the travels of
Villafuerte to Israel and Japan without spending a
single centavo. This is unbelievable as lately the
Gov. said he [spent] his own money for the trips.
No one will believe this. The governor and party
went to Israel and Japan as there were some
P700,000.00 cash advances collected in form of
advances by top provincial officials for the trips. No
[doubt] Villafuerte had a hand on this because he is
the governor approving cash advances. Among
them were Panes and Maceda.
There were no resolution, please publish this that
people concern will react and they be forced to
account for the money. Authenticated papers will
follow. Bulls eye ito.
capr[16]
Ramos likewise alleged that prior to writing the
subject news article, he went to his source to ask
some clarificatory questions and was told that he
would be given authenticated records of the cash
Page 54 of 80
advances. Later, he was given a copy of the
Schedule of Cash Advances of Disbursing Officers
and Other Officers (as of June 30 1987).[17] Among
the provincial government officials listed therein
were the private respondent who had a 1986
balance of P25,000.00 incurred for cultural
activities; Atty. Jose Maceda who also had a 1986
balance of P130,084.00 for sports development,
Operation Smile, NAMCYA Festival, and prisoners
subsistence; and Eulogio Panes, Jr., who had beside
his name a 1986 balance of P250,000 for the
purpose of sports development. Ramos also claimed
that when he went to the Provincial Treasurers
Office to conduct his investigation, he was shown
some vouchers and was told that many of the
members of the baseball delegation to Japan were
not elected provincial officials and, in fact, some
mayors and private individuals were sent as part of
the Philippine group.[18]
During his turn at the witness stand, the
petitioner admitted that the headline was written by
him in his capacity as the managing editor [19] in
accordance with the policy of their paper to print as
headlines matters dealing with public concerns and
public officials.[20] According to him, the banner
headline and the sub-headline truthfully reflect the
substance of the story prepared by Ramos.[21]
After the trial, the court a quo rendered a joint
decision the dispositive portion of which reads:
IN VIEW OF ALL THE FOREGOING
CONSIDERATIONS, judgment is hereby rendered:
In Criminal Case No. P-1855

Finding the accused Nick Ramos and Salvador D.
Flor guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of
Libel defined and punished under Article 353 in
connection with Article 355 of the Revised Penal
Code and they are each sentenced to pay a fine of
Two Thousand Pesos (P2,000.00) with subsidiary
imprisonment in case of insolvency; and to pay the
costs of suit.
In Civil Case No. P-1672
Ordering the defendants Nick Ramos, Salvador D.
Flor and Jose Burgos, Jr. to pay jointly and
severally to the plaintiff the following:
1. The amount of Three Hundred Thousand
Pesos (P300,000.00) as moral
damages;
2. The amount of Five Thousand Pesos
(P5,000.00) as exemplary damages;
3. The amount of Five Thousand Pesos
(P5,000.00) as attorneys fees; and to
pay the costs of suit.[22]
Unsatisfied with the findings of the trial court,
the petitioner and Ramos filed an appeal with the
Court of Appeals which affirmed the judgment of
the trial court through its decision dated 10
December 1996.[23] They thereafter filed a motion
for reconsideration[24]which was denied for lack of
merit by the appellate court in its resolution of 19
August 1999.[25]
In upholding the conclusion reached by the trial
court, the Court of Appeals ratiocinated, thus:
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
The informant of Nick Ramos made a sweeping
conclusion that it was Gov. Villafuerte who made
the trips abroad using government money as there
were cash advances of P700,000.00 made by top
provincial officials, without first having verified the
truth about the matters contained in his report. The
imputation became malicious when they are based
on mere conjectures. The alleged libelous article
must be construed as a whole. The effect of the
news item upon the minds of the readers must be
considered in the prosecution of libel cases. The
words used in the news report tends to impute a
criminal act on the governor which may cause the
readers to hold him up to public ridicule and induce
them to believe that the governor was indeed
guilty. The accused editor admitted that he did not
make any personal investigation as to the truth of
the statements made in the report. When such
communication was sent for publication, the so-
called privilege was destroyed when malice in fact
was present.[26]
In fine, the sole issue brought for the
consideration of this Court is whether the
questioned news item is libelous. We reverse.
Libel is defined as a public and malicious
imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or
imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status,
or circumstance tending to cause the dishonor,
discredit, or contempt of a natural person or
juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one
who is dead.[27] Any of these imputations is
defamatory and under the general rule stated in
Article 354 of the Revised Penal Code, every
defamatory imputation is presumed to be malicious.
[28]
The presumption of malice, however, does not
exist in the following instances:
Page 55 of 80
1. A private communication made by any person to
another in the performance of any legal, moral, or
social duty; and
2. A fair and true report, made in good faith,
without any comments or remarks, of any judicial,
legislative, or other official proceedings which are
not of confidential nature, or of any statement,
report, or speech delivered in said proceedings, or
of any other act performed by public officers in the
exercise of their functions.[29]
The law recognizes two kinds of privileged
matters. First are those which are classified
as absolutely privileged which enjoy immunity from
libel suits regardless of the existence of malice in
fact. Included herein are statements made in official
proceedings of the legislature by the members
thereof.[30] Likewise, statements made in the course
of judicial proceedings are absolutely privileged but
only if pertinent or relevant to the case involved.[31]
The other kind of privileged matters are
the qualifiedly or conditionally
privileged communications which, unlike the first
classification, may be susceptible to a finding of
libel provided the prosecution establishes the
presence of malice in fact. The exceptions provided
for in Article 354 of the Revised Penal Code fall into
this category.
In the case, however, of Borjal v. Court of
Appeals,[32] this Court recognized that the
enumeration stated in Article 354 of the Revised
Penal Code is not exclusive but is rendered more
expansive by the constitutional guarantee of
freedom of the press, thus:

. . . To be sure, the enumeration under Art. 354 is
not an exclusive list of qualifiedly privileged
communications since fair commentaries on matters
of public interest are likewise privileged. The rule on
privileged communications had its genesis not in
the nations penal code but in the Bill of Rights of
the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech
and of the press. As early as 1918, in United States
v. Caete [38 Phil. 253], this Court ruled that
publications which are privileged for reasons of
public policy are protected by the constitutional
guaranty of freedom of speech. This constitutional
right cannot be abolished by the mere failure of the
legislature to give it express recognition in the
statute punishing libels.[33]
Clearly, when confronted with libel cases
involving publications which deal with public officials
and the discharge of their official functions, this
Court is not confined within the wordings of the libel
statute; rather, the case should likewise be
examined under the constitutional precept of
freedom of the press. As enunciated in the seminal
case of United States v. Bustos[34] -
The interest of society and the maintenance of good
government demand a full discussion of public
affairs. Complete liberty to comment on the conduct
of public men is a scalpel in the case of free speech.
The sharp incision of its probe relieves the
abscesses of officialdom. Men in public life may
suffer under a hostile and an unjust accusation; the
wound can be assuaged with the balm of a clear
conscience. A public officer must not be too thin-
skinned with reference to comment upon his official
acts. Only thus can the intelligence and dignity of
the individual be exalted. Of course, criticism does
not authorize defamation. Nevertheless, as the
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
individual is less than the State, so must expected
criticism be born for the common good. Rising
superior to any official, or set of officials, to the
Chief Executive, to the Legislature, to the Judiciary
to any or all the agencies of Government public
opinion should be the constant source of liberty and
democracy.[35]
Of course, this does not mean that a public
official is barred from recovering damages in cases
involving defamations. His entitlement, however, is
limited to instances when the defamatory statement
was made with actual malice that is, with
knowledge that it was false or with reckless
disregard of whether it was false or not. [36] This is
the test laid down in the leading case of New York
Times Co. v. Sullivan.[37]
In the case at bar, the Office of the Solicitor
General (OSG) argues that the purported libelous
news item was designed to malign the integrity and
reputation of the [private complainant] for it
ascribed to the latter corruption and dishonesty in
government service.[38] Moreover, the OSG
maintains that the questioned news article does not
enjoy the mantle of protection afforded a privileged
matter as the petitioner and Ramos published the
news item based on mere speculation and
conjecture.[39] Their decision to publish the
unverified information furnished them by the
unnamed source, who was never presented before
the trial court, and their failure to verify the truth of
statements which appeared under the banner
headline of the 18-24 August 1986 issue of the
Bicol Forum indicates that the news item was
published intemperately and maliciously.[40] The
OSG is therefore of the opinion that the subject
Page 56 of 80
news item satisfied the test pronounced in the New
York Times case. We do not agree.
As the US Supreme Court itself declared,
reckless disregard cannot be fully encompassed in
one infallible definition. Inevitably its outer limits
will be marked out through case-by-case
adjudication.[41] The case of Garrison v. State of
Louisiana[42] stressed that only those false
statements made with the high degree of
awareness of their probable falsity demanded
by New York Times may be the subject of either
civil or criminal sanctions [43] and concluded by
restating the reckless disregard standard in the
following manner:
. . . The test which we laid down in New York Times
is not keyed to ordinary care; defeasance of the
privilege is conditioned, not on mere negligence,
but on reckless disregard for the truth.[44]
Subsequently, in St. Amant v. Thompson[45] it
was stated that
. . . These cases are clear that reckless conduct is
not measured by whether a reasonably prudent
man would have published, or would have
investigated before publishing. There must be
sufficient evidence to permit the conclusion that the
defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to
the truth of his publication. Publishing with such
doubts shows reckless disregard for truth or falsity
and demonstrates actual malice. [46]
Applied to the case at bar, we hold that the
prosecution failed to meet the criterion of reckless
disregard. As the records reveal, the issue of cash
advances against the coffers of the provincial

government of Camarines Sur was a major political
topic in said locality at that time. Even the private
respondent himself admitted during his direct
testimony that he went on radio in order to address
the matter. It was clearly a legitimate topic to be
discussed not only by the members of the media
but by the public as what was involved was the
dispensation of taxpayers money.
Further, it bears emphasis that in this case, the
petitioner and Ramos had in their possession
information relating to the cash advances and the
private respondents travels abroad. The information
was provided by one who worked in the provincial
treasurers office and had access to the pertinent
financial records of the provincial government. Their
informant was familiar with the procedure with
regard to the approval of cash advances. The
inference they drew from the note given by their
source that the private respondent prodded some of
the provincial government officials to take out cash
advances may have been false but the same does
not warrant a conviction for libel nor support a
claim for damages. As discussed by Newell
Slight unintentional errors, however, will be
excused. If a writer in the course of temperate and
legitimate criticism falls into error as to some detail,
or draws an incorrect inference from the facts
before him, and thus goes beyond the limits of
strict truth, such inaccuracies will not cause
judgment to go against him, if the jury are
satisfied, after reading the whole publication, that it
was written honestly, fairly and with regard to what
truth and justice require. It is not to be expected
that a public journalist will always be infallible.[47]
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
During the hearing of these cases, the private
complainant also refuted the material points
contained in the subject news article in an effort to
prove the falsity of the allegations contained
therein. This Court finds such effort inadequate to
adjudge the petitioner guilty of the crime of libel or
to entitle the private respondent to damages. Under
the New York Times test, false statements alone are
not actionable; maliciousness may be shown only
through knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard
of truth or falsity.[48]
Further, both the prosecution and the OSG
make capital of Ramos and the petitioners failure to
confirm the information supplied by the unidentified
source which ultimately became the basis for the
news article under consideration in an obvious
attempt to establish the element of reckless
disregard for truth. The prosecution also
painstakingly tried to establish malice in fact on the
part of the petitioner by harping on the fact that
neither he nor Ramos took the time to give the
private respondent the chance to air his side before
putting the alleged libelous news story to print.
The contention fails to persuade.
While substantiation of the facts supplied is an
important reporting standard, still, a reporter may
rely on information given by a lone source although
it reflects only one side of the story provided the
reporter does not entertain a high degree of
awareness of [its] probable falsity.[49] The
prosecution, in this case, utterly failed to prove that
the petitioner and Ramos entertained such
awareness.
We also hold that the petitioners and Ramoss
failure to present their informant before the court
as well as other evidence that would prove Ramos
Page 57 of 80
claim that he had conducted an investigation to
verify the information passed on to him should not
be taken against them. On this point, we turn to
our pronouncement in the case of Rodolfo R.
Vasquez v. Court of Appeals, et al.,[50] to wit:
A rule placing on the accused the burden of showing
the truth of allegations of official misconduct and/or
good motives and justifiable ends for making such
allegations would not only be contrary to Art. 361 of
the Revised Penal Code. It would, above all, infringe
on the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of
expression. Such a rule would deter citizens from
performing their duties as members of a self-
governing community. Without free speech and
assembly, discussions of our most abiding concerns
as a nation would be stifled. As Justice Brandeis has
said, public discussion is a political duty and the
greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.[51]
Indeed, the difficulty of producing evidence,
both documentary and testimonial, on behalf of the
petitioner was readily apparent when, during his
cross-examination, Ramos testified that he was not
allowed by the custodians of the material provincial
financial records to photocopy the latter particularly
because said documents dealt with the matter of
cash advances.[52]
Further, as their informant was employed in the
provincial treasurers office, it is understandable why
he opted not to expose himself and openly charge
his superior, the private complainant herein, lest he
incur the latters wrath.
Finally, the private respondent claims that the
banner headline ridiculed him before the public
does not merit consideration as the rule in this
jurisdiction is that [t]he headline of a newspaper

story or publication claimed to be libelous must be
read and construed in connection with the language
that follows.[53] A perusal of the entire news story
accompanying the headline in this case readily
establishes the fact that the questioned article dealt
with refutations by the private respondents critics of
his explanation over the radio with regard to the
issues mentioned therein. The wording of the
headline may have contained an exaggeration but
the same nevertheless represents a fair index of the
contents of the news story accompanying it.[54]
WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED. The
Decision of the Court of Appeals of 10 December
1996 which affirmed the Joint Decision dated 18
March 1991 of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 33,
Pili, Camarines Sur, and its Resolution of 19 August
1999 denying reconsideration are REVERSED and
SET ASIDE. No costs.
SO ORDERED.
12. Navarette vs ca
[G.R. No. 124245. February 15, 2000]
ANTONIO F. NAVARRETE, petitioner,
vs. COURT OF APPEALS, and LEONILA E.
GENEROSO, respondents. francis
DECISION
GONZAGA_REYES, J.:
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Before us is a petition for review seeking the
reversal of the Decision[1] of the respondent Court
of Appeals dated March 14, 1996 in CA-G.R. CV No.
33838 insofar as it deleted the award of moral
damages and attorneys fees granted to him by the
Regional Trial Court of Manila in its Decision [2] dated
September 27, 1990 in Civil Case No. 87-41856.
Petitioner is a lawyer and is one of the defendants
in Civil Case No. 87-41856 for annulment of "Deed
of Sale with Right to Repurchase and Damages",
filed with the Regional Trial Court of Manila entitled
"Leonila E. Generoso, et. al. vs. Frederick S.
Pumaren, et. al.". Private respondent filed the civil
case on September 2, 1987 originally against Mr.
Frederick S. Pumaren, Mr. Avelino Profeta and the
Register of Deeds of Metro Manila seeking to annul
a deed of sale executed over her property on the
ground that her purported signature therein was
forged. On December 21, 1987, the complaint was
amended to include petitioner and Atty. Rafael C.
Dinglasan.
The Deed of Sale with Right of Repurchase involved
in the civil case was prepared and notarized by
petitioner. Petitioner claims that the statements
made by private respondent in her Amended
Complaint and her testimonies in the course of the
trial falsely and maliciously slandered him. Hence,
petitioner now assails the denial of his right to
recover moral damages and attorneys fees from
private respondent.
The alleged malicious and false statements made by
private respondent against petitioner were uttered
on December 14 and 21, 1987. On these dates, the
lower court conducted the hearings for the issuance
of a writ of preliminary injunction in Civil Case No.
Page 58 of 80
87-41856. Petitioner claims that private respondent
alluded to him when she said the words "stupid",
"bastards", "swindlers", and "plunderers" while
testifying on the Deed of Sale with Right of
Repurchase. Quoted below are the pertinent
portions of private respondents testimonies:
"Q. Now, there are signatures here as
witnesses appearing on page 2 of the
document, can you tell us, Ms.
Witness, if you can recognize those
signatures?
"A. I do not know any of those
bastards, none of them."[3]
xxx
"Q. One of the defendants in this case
is a certain Avelino Profeta, have you
met him before?
"A. I never met this swindler before. I
never seen him. Never heard of
him."[4]
xxxmarie
"Q. Before this proceedings
commence as it appears that it was
so confirmed thru a petition be
defendant Frederick S. Pumaren on
October 13, 1986, did you receive
from the Court or from the
defendants that there was such
proceedings?

"A. No, sir. I did not receive any
notice from the court or from
these stupid people."[5]
xxx
"A. I do not know this document. I do
not know about the selling. Those
people are really swindlers."[6]
xxx
"A. I still could not understand how
this certificate of title could be
recopied. There must be somebody
who is responsible for it. How was it
possible that this was copied by these
swindlers."[7]
xxx
"A. We came here precisely for this
because I can not let these things go
ahead. My property is
being stolen behind my back. I have
to come here 10,000 miles away to
defend my property so that justice
may be given to punish those
plunderers."[8]
xxx
"DRA. GENEROSO: Before we have
the break, can I make a statement to
Atty. Villanueva? Are you defending
Avelino Profeta, one of the
swindlers in this case? How can you,
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
after examining all those papers,
protect and defend him after they
plundered my property?"[9]
(Emphasis supplied)
Petitioner is also convinced that the following
allegations of private respondent in her Amended
Complaint are actionable:
(a) Accused "private defendants" of
"forging" Leonila Generosos signature
in the Deed of Absolute Sale with
Right of Repurchase" (par. 51);
(b) Claimed that "the same
conspiring defendants falsified the
signatures of Leonila E. Generoso"
(par. 61);
(c) Pointed to private defendants
wanton and malevolent acts to
deceive and defraud plaintiffs" (par.
91); and
(d) Charged the defendants of
"blatant, malicious and
fraudulent acts as aforestated" (par.
10)[10]
(Emphasis supplied) novero
On September 27,1990, the Regional Trial Court of
Manila rendered its Decision in Civil Case No. 87-
41856, the dispositive portion of which reads:
Page 59 of 80
"WHEREFORE, and in view of the
foregoing considerations, judgment is
hereby rendered:
(a) Declaring plaintiff Leonila E.
Generoso as the absolute, exclusie
and paraphernal owner of the subject
property covered by her already
deemed cancelled Transfer Certificate
of Title No. 143351, now Transfer
Certificate of Title No. 154609, of the
Register of Deeds of Manila;
(b) Declaring the Deed of Absolute
Sale with Right of Repurchase, Exhibit
A, and Transfer Certificate of Title
Nos. 143551 and 175354 issued to
Frederick S. Pumaren as null and
void, concelled (sic) without force and
effect;
(c) Declaring Transfer Certificate of
Title No. 154609 issued to plaintiff
Leonila E. Generoso as the lawful and
valid title to the land in question;
(d) Dismissing the complaint with
respect to defendant Antonio
Navarrete and, on his
counterclaim, ordering plaintiffs
to pay him the amount of P
100,000.00 as moral damages
and P 20,000.00 as attorneys
fees.
No pronouncement as to costs."[11]

Both parties appealed, including petitioner who
protested the minimal amount of damages awarded
to him.
On March 14, 1996, the Court of Appeals upheld the
finding that the Deed of Sale with Right of
Repurchase and the Transfer of Certificate of Title
issued to Pumaren were null and void, but deleted
the award of damages in favor of petitioner. It held:
"IN THE LIGHT OF ALL THE
FOREGOING, the assailed Decision is
hereby AFFIRMED with the
modifications that: (a) the award of
moral damages and attorneys
fees in favor of Navarrete are
hereby deleted; (b) Appellant
Pumaren and Dinglasan are hereby
ordered to pay to Appellant Generoso
and Elshawi jointly and severally, the
amount of US $ 2,650.00 or its peso
equivalent by way of actual damages;
to Appellant Generoso, the amount of
P 50,00.00 by way of exemplary
damages; and to Appellants Generoso
and Elshawi, the amount of P
20,000.00 as attorneys fees; and the
costs of suit."[12]
Petitioner believes that this Court should overturn
the decision of the Court of Appeals on the ground
that: nigel
IN HOLDING THAT A PARTY TO A
CASE HAS THE ABSOLUTE PRIVILEGE
OF FALSELY AND MALICIOUSLY
MALIGNING A LAWYER, EVEN WHILE
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
THE LATTER IS NOT YET A PARTY TO
THAT CASE, THE RESPONDENT
COURT OF APPEALS HAS DECIDED A
QUESTION OF SUBSTANCE, NOT
HERETOFORE DETERMINED BY THIS
HONORABLE COURT, OR HAS
DECIDED IT IN A WAY CLEARLY NOT
IN ACCORD WITH LAW, WITH THE
APPLICABLE DECISIONS OF THIS
HONORABLE COURT OR, AT THE
VERY LEAST, WITH FAIRNESS AND
EQUITY.[13]
In questioning the conclusion of the Court of
Appeals that the statements made by private
respondent in the pleadings and in her testimony
are considered absolutely privileged, petitioner
deplores the fact that only American cases were
cited by the Court to justify its conclusion. He
insists that under Philippine law and jurisprudence,
the statements made by private respondent are not
absolutely privileged. The petition underscores the
fact that petitioner is a lawyer whose reputation has
been allegedly besmirched by a "brown American".
[14]
Petitioner now turns to this Court to vindicate his
honor.
In her Answer, private respondent cited
decisions[15] of the Supreme Court to the effect that
no action for libel or for damages may be founded
on utterances made in the course of judicial
proceedings.[16]
This Court finds that the Court of Appeals did not
commit any reversible error in revoking the award
of moral damages and attorneys fees to petitioner.
Page 60 of 80
It is a settled principle in this jurisdiction that
statements made in the course of judicial
proceedings are absolutely privileged.[17] This
absolute privilege remains regardless of the
defamatory tenor and the presence of malice if the
same are relevant, pertinent or material to the
cause in hand or subject of the inquiry.[18] Thus, the
person making these statements such as a judge,
lawyer or witness does not thereby incur the risk of
being found liable thereon in a criminal prosecution
or an action for the recovery of damages.[19] ella
The doctrine that statements made during the
course of judicial proceedings enjoy the shield of
absolute privilege was first categorically
established[20] in the case of Sison vs. David.[21] In
said case, the petition allegedly contained libelous
allegations, implying that the complainant was
incompetent to manage the affairs of a corporation
and that he was converting his wifes paraphernal
properties into conjugal properties.[22] This Court
ruled in that case that the allegations in the
pleadings were absolutely privileged and went
further by saying that:
"Also, sarcastic, pungent and harsh
allegations in a pleading although
tending to detract from the dignity
that should characterize proceedings
in courts of justice, are absolutely
privileged, if relevant to the issues".
[23]
We have adopted the same ruling in several
cases[24] wherein statements made during judicial
proceedings were sued upon for libel or damages.
The lone requirement imposed to maintain the cloak
of absolute privilege is the test of relevancy.[25]

The doctrine of privileged communication has a
practical purpose. As enunciated in the case
of Deles vs. Aragona, Jr.[26]:
"The privilege is not intended so
much for the protection of those
engaged in the public service and in
the enactment and administration of
law, as for the promotion of public
welfare, the purpose being that
members of the legislature, judges of
courts, jurors, lawyers and witnesses
may speak their minds freely and
exercise their respective functions
without incurring the risk of a
criminal prosecution or an action for
damages."[27]
In determining the issue of relevancy of statements
made in judicial proceedings, courts have adopted a
liberal attitude by resolving all doubts in favor of
relevancy.[28] In People vs. Aquino[29], we
emphasized that "it is the rule that what is relevant
or pertinent should be liberally considered to favor
the writer, and the words are not to be scrutinized
with microscopic intensity".[30]
In this case, the allegations made by private
respondent in her Amended Complaint stand the
test of relevancy. The words "forging", "malicious
and fraudulent" and "falsified" are clearly pertinent
to the cause of action of private respondent, which
is to annul the Deed of Sale with Right of
Repurchase wherein private respondents signature
was forged by an impostor, and to recover damages
resulting from such forgery. marinella
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
With respect to the words "swindlers", "plunderers"
"stupid" and "bastards" uttered by private
respondent in the course of her testimony, we are
inclined to agree that such language is too
ignominious and degrading and is out of place in a
courtroom. Understandably, private respondent has
no love lost for the people she accused of illegally
depriving her of her property, but her indignation
does not give her the right to use contumacious
language with impunity in a courtroom. The
judge[31] and commissioner[32] then presiding at the
time private respondent uttered the contemptuous
words should have restrained the latter because
order and proper decorum should always be
maintained in the courtroom.[33] Without question,
the use of blatantly defamatory language like
"stupid", "bastards", "swindlers", and "plunderers"
in describing the adverse parties detract from the
honor and dignity that befits a court proceeding and
should have been stricken out of the records.
The foregoing notwithstanding, the Court finds that
the terms used by the private respondent in her
pleading and in her testimony cannot be the basis
for an award of moral damages and attorneys fees
in favor of petitioner. As stated earlier, the words
"forging", "falsified", "malicious" and "fraudulent" in
the Amended Complaint are unmistakably relevant
to private respondents cause of action which is to
annul the Deed of Sale where her signature was
forged. The words "stupid", "bastards", "swindlers",
and "plunderers" uttered by private respondent did
not specifically pertain to petitioner to sufficiently
identify him as the object of defamation, such
identifiability being an element of a libelous
imputation.[34] We believe that neither petitioners
good name and reputation nor his high standing in
Page 61 of 80
the profession have been damaged by these
utterances.
An examination of the transcript earlier quoted will
show that private respondent did not allude to
petitioner in particular when she used the words
"stupid" and "bastards". The word "bastards" was in
response to this question: "Now, there are
signatures here as witnesses appearing on page 2
of the document, can you tell us, Ms. Witness, if
you can recognize those signatures?" [35] Clearly,
private respondent was alluding to the witnesses to
the deed in question, who are not parties in the
present action. Petitioner was not a witness to the
deed, he prepared and notarized it. Also, the word
"swindler" was used with particular reference to
defendant Avelino Profeta who also is not a party to
the instant case. Used in the plural form in the
other parts of her testimony, the words "those
swindlers", "those plunderers" and "those stupid
people" referred to none of the defendants in
particular. alonzo
As regards the testimony of private respondent on
December 14, 1987, the words complained of were
uttered before the complaint was amended to
include petitioner. It was on December 21, 1987
when private respondent amended her complaint to
include petitioner and Atty. Rafael Dinglasan as
defendants. The petitioner was well aware that the
malicious imputations were made "while (he) is not
yet a party to the case" and could not have been
the object thereof.
We accordingly affirm the ruling of the respondent
court deleting the award of attorneys fees in favor
of petitioner.

WHEREFORE, this petition is hereby DENIED.
SO ORDERED.
13. Borjal vs ca
[G.R. No. 126466. January 14, 1999]
ARTURO BORJAL a.k.a. ART BORJAL and
MAXIMO SOLIVEN, petitioners, vs.
COURT OF APPEALS and FRANCISCO
WENCESLAO, respondents.
DECISION
"The question is not so much as who was aimed
at as who was hit." (Pound, J., in Corrigan v.
Bobbs-Merill Co., 228 N.Y. 58 [1920]).
BELLOSILLO, J.:
PERPETUALLY HAGRIDDEN as the public is
about losing one of the most basic yet oft hotly
contested freedoms of man, the issue of the right of
free expression bestirs and presents itself time and
again, in cyclic occurrence, to inveigle, nay,
challenge the courts to re-survey its ever shifting
terrain, explore and furrow its heretofore uncharted
moors and valleys and finally redefine the metes
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
and bounds of its controversial domain. This,
prominently, is one such case.
Perhaps, never in jurisprudential history has
any freedom of man undergone radical doctrinal
metamorphoses than his right to freely and openly
express his views. Blackstone's pontifical comment
that "where blasphemous, immoral, treasonable,
schismatical, seditious, or scandalous libels are
punished by English law . . . the liberty of the press,
properly understood, is by no means infringed or
violated," found kindred expression in the landmark
opinion of England's Star Chamber in the Libelis
Famosis case in 1603.[1] That case established two
major propositions in the prosecution of defamatory
remarks: first, that libel against a public person is a
greater offense than one directed against an
ordinary man, and second, that it is immaterial that
the libel be true.
Until republicanism caught fire in early America,
the view from the top on libel was no less
dismal. Even the venerable Justice Holmes
appeared to waffle as he swayed from the concept
of criminal libel liability under the clear and present
danger rule, to the other end of the spectrum in
defense of the constitutionally protected status of
unpopular opinion in free society.
Viewed in modern times and the current
revolution in information and communication
technology, libel principles formulated at one time
or another have waxed and waned through the
years in the constant ebb and flow of judicial
review. At the very least, these principles have lost
much of their flavor, drowned and swamped as they
have been by the ceaseless cacophony and din of
thought and discourse emanating from just about
every source and direction, aided no less by an
Page 62 of 80
increasingly powerful and irrepressible mass
media. Public discourse, laments Knight, has been
devalued by its utter commonality; and we agree,
for its logical effect is to benumb thought and
sensibility on what may be considered as criminal
illegitimate encroachments on the right of persons
to enjoy a good, honorable and reputable
name. This may explain the imperceptible demise of
criminal prosecutions for libel and the trend to rely
instead on indemnity suits to repair any damage on
one's reputation.
In this petition for review, we are asked to
reverse the Court of Appeals in "Francisco
Wenceslao v. Arturo Borjal and Maximo Soliven,"
CA-G.R. No. 40496, holding on 25 March 1996 that
petitioners Arturo Borjal and Maximo Soliven are
solidarily liable for damages for writing and
publishing certain articles claimed to be derogatory
and offensive to private respondent Francisco
Wenceslao.
Petitioners Arturo Borjal and Maximo Soliven
are among the incorporators of Philippines Today,
Inc. (PTI), now PhilSTAR Daily, Inc., owner of The
Philippine Star, a daily newspaper. At the time the
complaint was filed, petitioner Borjal was its
President while Soliven was (and still is) Publisher
and Chairman of its Editorial Board. Among the
regular writers of The Philippine Star is Borjal who
runs the column Jaywalker.
Private respondent Francisco Wenceslao, on the
other hand, is a civil engineer, businessman,
business consultant and journalist by profession. In
1988 he served as a technical adviser of
Congressman Fabian Sison, then Chairman of the
House of Representatives Sub-Committee on
Industrial Policy.

During the congressional hearings on the
transport crisis sometime in September 1988
undertaken by the House Sub-Committee on
Industrial Policy, those who attended agreed to
organize the First National Conference on Land
Transportation (FNCLT) to be participated in by the
private sector in the transport industry and
government agencies concerned in order to find
ways and means to solve the transportation
crisis. More importantly, the objective of the FNCLT
was to draft an omnibus bill that would embody a
long-term land transportation policy for
presentation to Congress. The conference which,
according to private respondent, was estimated to
cost around P1,815,000.00 would be funded
through solicitations from various sponsors such as
government agencies, private organizations,
transport firms, and individual delegates or
participants.[2]
On 28 February 1989, at the organizational
meeting of the FNCLT, private respondent Francisco
Wenceslao was elected Executive Director. As such,
he wrote numerous solicitation letters to the
business community for the support of the
conference.
Between May and July 1989 a series of articles
written by petitioner Borjal was published on
different dates in his column Jaywalker. The articles
dealt with the alleged anomalous activities of an
"organizer of a conference" without naming or
identifying private respondent. Neither did it refer
to the FNCLT as the conference therein
mentioned. Quoted hereunder are excerpts from
the articles of petitioner together with the dates
they were published[3] -
31 May 1989
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Another self-proclaimed hero of the EDSA
Revolution goes around organizing seminars and
conferences for a huge fee. This is a simple ploy
coated in jazzy letterheads and slick prose. The
hero has the gall to solicit fees from anybody with
bucks to spare. Recently, in his usual
straightforward style, Transportation Secretary
Rainerio Ray Reyes, asked that his name be
stricken off from the letterheads the hero has been
using to implement one of his pet seminars. Reyes
said: I would like to reiterate my request that you
delete my name. Note that Ray Reyes is an honest
man who would confront anybody eyeball to eyeball
without blinking.
9 June 1989
Another questionable portion of the so-called
conference is its unauthorized use of the names of
President Aquino and Secretary Ray Reyes. The
conference program being circulated claims that
President Aquino and Reyes will be main speakers
in the conference. Yet, the word is that Cory and
Reyes have not accepted the invitation to appear in
this confab. Ray Reyes even says that the
conference should be unmasked as a moneymaking
gimmick.
19 June 1989
x x x some 3,000 fund solicitation letters were sent
by the organizer to every Tom, Dick and Harry and
to almost all government agencies. And the
letterheads carried the names of Reyes and
Periquet. Agrarian Reform Secretary on leave Philip
Juico received one, but he decided to find out from
Reyes himself what the project was all about. Ray
Page 63 of 80
Reyes, in effect, advised Juico to put the fund
solicitation letter in the waste basket. Now, if the
3,000 persons and agencies approached by the
organizer shelled out 1,000 each, thats easily P3
million to a project that seems so
unsophisticated.But note that one garment
company gave P100,000, after which the Garments
Regulatory Board headed by Trade and Industry
Undersecretary Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was
approached by the organizer to expedite the
garment license application of the P100,000 donor.
21 June 1989
A 'conference organizer' associated with shady
deals seems to have a lot of trash tucked inside his
closet. The Jaywalker continues to receive
information about the mans dubious deals. His
notoriety, according to reliable sources, has
reached the Premier Guest House where his name
is spoken like dung.
xxx
The first information says that the 'organizer' tried
to mulct half a million pesos from a garment
producer and exporter who was being investigated
for violation of the rules of the Garments, Textile,
Embroidery and Apparel Board. The 'organizer' told
the garment exporter that the case could be fixed
for a sum of P500,000.00. The organizer got the
shock of his life when the exporter told him: 'If I
have that amount, I will hire the best lawyers, not
you.' The organizer left in a huff, his thick face very
pale.
xxx

Friends in government and the private sector have
promised the Jaywalker more 'dope' on the
'organizer.' It seems that he was not only
indiscreet; he even failed to cover his tracks. You
will be hearing more of the 'organizers' exploits
from this corner soon.
22 June 1989
The scheming 'organizer' we have been writing
about seems to have been spreading his wings too
far. A congressional source has informed the
Jaywalker that the schemer once worked for a
congressman from the North as some sort of a
consultant on economic affairs. The first thing the
organizer did was to initiate hearings and round-
the-table discussions with people from the
business, export and -- his favorite -- the garments
sector.
xxx
The 'organizers' principal gamely went along,
thinking that his 'consultant' had nothing but the
good of these sectors in mind. It was only later that
he realized that the 'consultant' was acting with a
burst of energy 'in aid of extortion.' The
'consultant' was fired.
xxx
There seems to be no end to what a man could do
to pursue his dubious ways. He has tried to operate
under a guise of a well-meaning reformist. He has
intellectual pretensions - and sometimes he
succeeds in getting his thoughts in the inside pages
of some newspapers, with the aid of some naive
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
newspaper people. He has been turning out a lot of
funny-looking advice on investments, export
growth, and the like.
xxx
A cabinet secretary has one big wish. He is hoping
for a broad power to ban crooks and influence-
peddlers from entering the premises of his
department. But the Cabinet man might not get his
wish. There is one 'organizer' who, even if
physically banned, can still concoct ways of doing
his thing. Without a tinge of remorse, the
'organizer' could fill up his letterheads with names
of Cabinet members, congressmen, and reputable
people from the private sector to shore up his
shady reputation and cover up his notoriety.
3 July 1989
A supposed conference on transportation was a big
failure. The attendance was very poor and the few
who participated in the affair were mostly leaders
of jeepney drivers groups. None of the government
officials involved in regulating public transportation
was there. The big names in the industry also did
not participate. With such a poor attendance, one
wonders why the conference organizers went ahead
with the affair and tried so hard to convince 3,000
companies and individuals to contribute to the
affair.
xxx
The conference was doomed from the start. It was
bound to fail. The personalities who count in the
field of transportation refused to attend the affair or
Page 64 of 80
withdrew their support after finding out the
background of the organizer of the conference. How
could a conference on transportation succeed
without the participation of the big names in the
industry and government policy-makers?
Private respondent reacted to the articles. He
sent a letter to The Philippine Star insisting that he
was the organizer alluded to in petitioner Borjals
columns.[4] In a subsequent letter to The Philippine
Star, private respondent refuted the matters
contained in petitioner Borjals columns and openly
challenged him in this manner -
To test if Borjal has the guts to back up his
holier than thou attitude, I am prepared to
relinquish this position in case it is found that I
have misappropriated even one peso of FNCLT
money. On the other hand, if I can prove that Borjal
has used his column as a hammer to get clients for
his PR Firm, AA Borjal Associates, he should resign
from the STAR and never again write a column. Is it
a deal?[5]
Thereafter, private respondent filed a complaint
with the National Press Club (NPC) against
petitioner Borjal for unethical conduct. He accused
petitioner Borjal of using his column as a form of
leverage to obtain contracts for his public relations
firm, AA Borjal Associates.[6] In turn, petitioner
Borjal published a rejoinder to the challenge of
private respondent not only to protect his name and
honor but also to refute the claim that he was using
his column for character assassination.[7]
Apparently not satisfied with his complaint with
the NPC, private respondent filed a criminal case for
libel against petitioners Borjal and Soliven, among

others. However, in a Resolution dated 7 August
1990, the Assistant Prosecutor handling the case
dismissed the complaint for insufficiency of
evidence. The dismissal was sustained by the
Department of Justice and later by the Office of the
President.
On 31 October 1990 private respondent
instituted against petitioners a civil action for
damages based on libel subject of the instant case.
[8]
In their answer, petitioners interposed
compulsory counterclaims for actual, moral and
exemplary damages, plus attorneys fees and
costs. After due consideration, the trial court
decided in favor of private respondent Wenceslao
and ordered petitioners Borjal and Soliven to
indemnify private respondent P1,000,000.00 for
actual and compensatory damages, in addition
to P200,000.00 for moral damages, P100,000.00
for exemplary damages, P200,000.00 for attorneys
fees, and to pay the costs of suit.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of
the court a quo but reduced the amount of the
monetary award to P110,000.00 actual
damages, P200,000.00 moral damages
and P75,000.00 attorney's fees plus costs. In a 20-
page Decision promulgated 25 March 1996, the
appellate court ruledinter alia that private
respondent was sufficiently identifiable, although
not named, in the questioned articles; that private
respondent was in fact defamed by petitioner Borjal
by describing him variously as a "self-proclaimed
hero," "a conference organizer associated with
shady deals who has a lot of trash tucked inside his
closet," "thick face," and "a person with dubious
ways;" that petitioners claim of privilege
communication was unavailing since the privileged
character of the articles was lost by their
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
publication in a newspaper of general circulation;
that petitioner could have performed his office as a
newspaperman without necessarily transgressing
the rights of Wenceslao by calling the attention of
the government offices concerned to examine the
authority by which Wenceslao acted, warning the
public against contributing to a conference that,
according to his perception, lacked the univocal
indorsement of the responsible government
officials, or simply informing the public of the letters
Wenceslao wrote and the favors he requested or
demanded; and, that when he imputed dishonesty,
falsehood and misrepresentation, shamelessness
and intellectual pretentions to Wenceslao, petitioner
Borjal crossed the thin but clear line that separated
fair comment from actionable defamation.
Private respondent manifested his desire to
appeal that portion of the appellate courts decision
which reduced the amount of damages awarded
him by filing with this Court a Petition for
Extension of Time to File Petition and a Motion
for Suspension of Time to File Petition. [9] However,
in a Resolution dated 27 May 1996, the Second
Division denied both motions: the first, for being
premature, and the second, for being a wrong
remedy.
On 20 November 1996 when the First Division
consolidated and transferred the present case to
the Second Division, there was no longer any case
thereat with which to consolidate this case since
G.R. No. 124396 had already been disposed of by
the Second Division almost six (6) months earlier.
On their part, petitioners filed a motion for
reconsideration but the Court of Appeals denied the
motion in its Resolution of 12 September
1996. Hence the instant petition for review. The
Page 65 of 80
petitioners contend that the Court of Appeals erred:
(a) in ruling that private respondent Wenceslao was
sufficiently identified by petitioner Borjal in the
questioned articles; (b) in refusing to accord serious
consideration to the findings of the Department of
Justice and the Office of the President that private
respondent Wenceslao was not sufficiently identified
in the questioned articles, this notwithstanding that
the degree of proof required in a preliminary
investigation is merely prima facie evidence which
is significantly less than the preponderance of
evidence required in civil cases; (c) in ruling that
the subject articles do not constitute qualifiedly
privileged communication; (d) in refusing to apply
the "public official doctrine" laid down in New York
Times v. Sullivan; (e) in ruling that the questioned
articles lost their privileged character because of
their publication in a newspaper of general
circulation; (f) in ruling that private respondent has
a valid cause of action for libel against petitioners
although he failed to prove actual malice on their
part, and that the prosecutors of the City of Manila,
the Department of Justice, and eventually, the
Office of the President, had already resolved that
there was no sufficient evidence to prove the
existence of libel; and, (g) assuming arguendo that
Borjal should be held liable, in adjudging petitioner
Soliven solidarily liable with him. Thus, petitioners
pray for the reversal of the appellate courts ruling,
the dismissal of the complaint against them for lack
of merit, and the award of damages on their
counterclaim.
The petition is impressed with merit. In order
to maintain a libel suit, it is essential that the victim
be identifiable although it is not necessary that he
be named. It is also not sufficient that the offended
party recognized himself as the person attacked or

defamed, but it must be shown that at least a third
person could identify him as the object of the
libelous publication.[10] Regrettably, these requisites
have not been complied with in the case at bar.
In ruling for private respondent, the Court of
Appeals found that Borjal's column writings
sufficiently identified Wenceslao as the "conference
organizer." It cited the First National Conference on
Land Transportation, the letterheads used listing
different telephone numbers, the donation
of P100,000.00 from Juliano Lim and the reference
to the "organizer of the conference" - the very
same appellation employed in all the column items -
as having sufficiently established the identity of
private respondent Wenceslao for those who knew
about the FNCLT who were present at its inception,
and who had pledged their assistance to it.
We hold otherwise. These conclusions are at
variance with the evidence at hand. The questioned
articles written by Borjal do not identify private
respondent Wenceslao as the organizer of the
conference. The first of the Jaywalker articles which
appeared in the 31 May 1989 issue of The
Philippine Star yielded nothing to indicate that
private respondent was the person referred to
therein. Surely, as observed by petitioners, there
were millions of "heroes" of the EDSA Revolution
and anyone of them could be "self-proclaimed" or
an "organizer of seminars and conferences." As a
matter of fact, in his 9 June 1989 column petitioner
Borjal wrote about the "so-called First National
Conference on Land Transportation whose principal
organizers are not specified" (italics supplied).
[11]
Neither did the FNCLT letterheads[12] disclose the
identity of the conference organizer since these
contained only an enumeration of names where
private respondent Francisco Wenceslao was
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
described as Executive Director and Spokesman and
not as a conference organizer.[13] The
printout [14]
and tentative program[15] of the
conference were devoid of any indication of
Wenceslao as organizer. The printout which
contained an article entitled "Who Organized the
NCLT?" did not even mention private respondent's
name, while the tentative program only
denominated private respondent as "Vice Chairman
and Executive Director," and not as organizer.
No less than private respondent himself
admitted that the FNCLT had several organizers and
that he was only a part of the organization, thus -
I would like to clarify for the record that I was only
a part of the organization. I was invited then
because I was the head of the technical panel of the
House of Representatives Sub-Committee on
Industrial Policy that took care of congressional
hearings.[16]
Significantly, private respondent himself
entertained doubt that he was the person spoken of
in Borjal's columns. The former even called up
columnist Borjal to inquire if he (Wenceslao) was
the one referred to in the subject articles. [17] His
letter to the editor published in the 4 June 1989
issue of The Philippine Star even showed private
respondent Wenceslao's uncertainty -
Although he used a subterfuge, I was almost
certain that Art Borjal referred to the First National
Conference on Land Transportation (June 29-30)
and me in the second paragraph of his May 31
column x x x[18]
Page 66 of 80
Identification is grossly inadequate when even
the alleged offended party is himself unsure that he
was the object of the verbal attack. It is well to
note that the revelation of the identity of the person
alluded to came not from petitioner Borjal but from
private respondent himself when he supplied the
information through his 4 June 1989 letter to the
editor. Had private respondent not revealed that he
was the "organizer" of the FNCLT referred to in the
Borjal articles, the public would have remained in
blissful ignorance of his identity. It is therefore clear
that on the element of identifiability alone the case
falls.
The above disquisitions notwithstanding, and
on the assumption arguendo that private
respondent has been sufficiently identified as the
subject of Borjal's disputed comments, we now
proceed to resolve the other issues and pass upon
the pertinent findings of the courts a quo.
The third, fourth, fifth and sixth assigned errors
all revolve around the primary question of whether
the disputed articles constitute privileged
communications as to exempt the author from
liability.
The trial court ruled that petitioner Borjal
cannot hide behind the proposition that his articles
are privileged in character under the provisions of
Art. 354 of The Revised Penal Code which state -
Art. 354. Requirement for publicity. - Every
defamatory imputation is presumed to be malicious,
even if it be true, if no good intention and
justifiable motive for making it is shown, except in
the following cases:

1) A private communication made by any
person to another in the performance of
any legal, moral or social duty; and,
2) A fair and true report, made in good
faith, without any comments or
remarks, of any judicial, legislative or
other official proceedings which are not
of confidential nature, or of any
statement, report or speech delivered in
said proceedings, or of any other act
performed by public officers in the
exercise of their functions.
Respondent court explained that the writings in
question did not fall under any of the exceptions
described in the above-quoted article since these
were neither "private communications" nor "fair and
true report x x x without any comments or
remarks." But this is incorrect.
A privileged communication may be either
absolutely privileged or qualifiedly
privileged. Absolutely privileged communications
are those which are not actionable even if the
author has acted in bad faith. An example is found
in Sec. 11, Art. VI, of the 1987 Constitution which
exempts a member of Congress from liability for
any speech or debate in the Congress or in any
Committee thereof. Upon the other hand, qualifiedly
privileged communications containing defamatory
imputations are not actionable unless found to have
been made without good intention or justifiable
motive. To this genre belong "private
communications" and "fair and true report without
any comments or remarks."
Indisputably, petitioner Borjals questioned
writings are not within the exceptions of Art. 354
of The Revised Penal Code for, as correctly
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
observed by the appellate court, they are
neither private communications nor fair and true
report without any comments or remarks. However
this does not necessarily mean that they are not
privileged. To be sure, the enumeration under Art.
354 is not an exclusive list of qualifiedly privileged
communications since fair commentaries on
matters of public interest are likewise
privileged. The rule on privileged communications
had its genesis not in the nation's penal code but in
the Bill of Rights of the Constitution guaranteeing
freedom of speech and of the press.[19] As early as
1918, in United States v. Caete,[20] this Court ruled
that publications which are privileged for reasons of
public policy are protected by the constitutional
guaranty of freedom of speech. This constitutional
right cannot be abolished by the mere failure of the
legislature to give it express recognition in the
statute punishing libels.
The concept of privileged communications is
implicit in the freedom of the press. As held
in Elizalde v. Gutierrez[21] and reiterated in Santos v.
Court of Appeals[22] -
To be more specific, no culpability could be
imputed to petitioners for the alleged offending
publication without doing violence to the concept of
privileged communications implicit in the freedom
of the press. As was so well put by Justice Malcolm
in Bustos: Public policy, the welfare of society, and
the orderly administration of government have
demanded protection of public opinion. The
inevitable and incontestable result has been the
development and adoption of the doctrine of
privilege.
The doctrine formulated in these two (2) cases
resonates the rule that privileged communications
Page 67 of 80
must, sui generis, be protective of public
opinion. This closely adheres to the democratic
theory of free speech as essential to collective self-
determination and eschews the strictly libertarian
view that it is protective solely of self- expression
which, in the words of Yale Sterling Professor Owen
Fiss,[23] makes its appeal to the individualistic ethos
that so dominates our popular and political
culture. It is therefore clear that the restrictive
interpretation vested by the Court of Appeals on the
penal provision exempting from liability only private
communications and fair and true report without
comments or remarks defeats, rather than
promotes, the objective of the rule on privileged
communications, sadly contriving as it does, to
suppress the healthy effloresence of public debate
and opinion as shining linchpins of truly democratic
societies.
To reiterate, fair commentaries on matters of
public interest are privileged and constitute a valid
defense in an action for libel or slander. The
doctrine of fair comment means that while in
general every discreditable imputation publicly
made is deemed false, because every man is
presumed innocent until his guilt is judicially
proved, and every false imputation is deemed
malicious, nevertheless, when the discreditable
imputation is directed against a public person in his
public capacity, it is not necessarily actionable. In
order that such discreditable imputation to a public
official may be actionable, it must either be a false
allegation of fact or a comment based on a false
supposition. If the comment is an expression of
opinion, based on established facts, then it is
immaterial that the opinion happens to be
mistaken, as long as it might reasonably be inferred
from the facts.[24]

There is no denying that the questioned articles
dealt with matters of public interest. In his
testimony, private respondent spelled out the
objectives of the conference thus -
x x x x The principal conference objective is to
come up with a draft of an Omnibus Bill that will
embody a long term land transportation policy for
presentation to Congress in its next regular session
in July. Since last January, the National Conference
on Land Transportation (NCLT), the conference
secretariat, has been enlisting support from all
sectors to ensure the success of the project.[25]
Private respondent likewise testified that the
FNCLT was raising funds through solicitation from
the public -
Q: Now, in this first letter, you have attached a
budget and it says here that in this seminar
of the First National Conference
on Land Transportation, you will need aroun
d One million eight hundred fifteen thousand
pesos, is that right?
A: That was the budget estimate, sir.
Q: How do you intend as executive officer, to
raise this fund of your seminar?
A: Well, from sponsors such as government
agencies and private sectors or organizations
as well as individual transport firms and
from individual delegates/participants.[26]
The declared objective of the conference, the
composition of its members and participants, and
the manner by which it was intended to be funded
no doubt lend to its activities as being genuinely
imbued with public interest. An organization such as
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
the FNCLT aiming to reinvent and reshape the
transportation laws of the country and seeking to
source its funds for the project from the public at
large cannot dissociate itself from the public
character of its mission. As such, it cannot but
invite close scrutiny by the media obliged to inform
the public of the legitimacy of the purpose of the
activity and of the qualifications and integrity of the
personalities behind it.
This in effect is the strong message in New
York Times v. Sullivan[27] which the appellate court
failed to consider or, for that matter, to heed. It
insisted that private respondent was not, properly
speaking, a "public offical" nor a "public figure,"
which is why the defamatory imputations against
him had nothing to do with his task of organizing
the FNCLT.
New York Times v. Sullivan was decided by the
U. S. Supreme Court in the 1960s at the height of
the bloody rioting in the American South over racial
segregation. The then City Commissioner L. B.
Sullivan of Montgomery, Alabama, sued New York
Times for publishing a paid political advertisement
espousing racial equality and describing police
atrocities committed against students inside a
college campus. As commissioner having charge
over police actions Sullivan felt that he was
sufficiently identified in the ad as the perpetrator of
the outrage; consequently, he sued New York
Times on the basis of what he believed were
libelous utterances against him.
The U. S. Supreme Court speaking through Mr.
Justice William J. Brennan Jr. ruled against Sullivan
holding that honest criticisms on the conduct of
public officials and public figures are insulated from
libel judgments. The guarantees of freedom of
Page 68 of 80
speech and press prohibit a public official or public
figure from recovering damages for a defamatory
falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he
proves that the statement was made with actual
malice, i.e., with knowledge that it was false or with
reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.
The raison d'etre for the New York
Times doctrine was that to require critics of official
conduct to guarantee the truth of all their factual
assertions on pain of libel judgments would lead to
self-censorship, since would-be critics would be
deterred from voicing out their criticisms even if
such were believed to be true, or were in fact true,
because of doubt whether it could be proved or
because of fear of the expense of having to prove
it.[28]
In the present case, we deem private
respondent a public figure within the purview of
the New York Times ruling. At any rate, we have
also defined "public figure" in Ayers Production Pty.,
Ltd. v. Capulong[29] as -
x x x x a person who, by his accomplishments,
fame, mode of living, or by adopting a profession or
calling which gives the public a legitimate interest in
his doings, his affairs and his character, has
become a public personage. He is, in other words, a
celebrity. Obviously, to be included in this category
are those who have achieved some degree of
reputation by appearing before the public, as in the
case of an actor, a professional baseball player, a
pugilist, or any other entertainer. The list is,
however, broader than this. It includes public
officers, famous inventors and explorers, war
heroes and even ordinary soldiers, infant prodigy,
and no less a personage than the Great Exalted
Ruler of the lodge. It includes, in short, anyone who

has arrived at a position where the public attention
is focused upon him as a person.
The FNCLT was an undertaking infused with
public interest. It was promoted as a joint project of
the government and the private sector, and
organized by top government officials and
prominent businessmen. For this reason, it
attracted media mileage and drew public attention
not only to the conference itself but to the
personalities behind as well. As its Executive
Director and spokesman, private respondent
consequently assumed the status of a public figure.
But even assuming ex-gratia argumenti that
private respondent, despite the position he
occupied in the FNCLT, would not qualify as a public
figure, it does not necessarily follow that he could
not validly be the subject of a public comment even
if he was not a public official or at least a public
figure, for he could be, as long as he was involved
in a public issue. If a matter is a subject of public or
general interest, it cannot suddenly become less so
merely because a private individual is involved or
because in some sense the individual did not
voluntarily choose to become involved. The publics
primary interest is in the event; the public focus is
on the conduct of the participant and the content,
effect and significance of the conduct, not the
participant's prior anonymity or notoriety.[30]
There is no denying that the questioned articles
dealt with matters of public interest. A reading of
the imputations of petitioner Borjal against
respondent Wenceslao shows that all these
necessarily bore upon the latter's official conduct
and his moral and mental fitness as Executive
Director of the FNCLT. The nature and functions of
his position which included solicitation of funds,
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
dissemination of information about the FNCLT in
order to generate interest in the conference, and
the management and coordination of the various
activities of the conference demanded from him
utmost honesty, integrity and competence. These
are matters about which the public has the right to
be informed, taking into account the very public
character of the conference itself.
Concededly, petitioner Borjal may have gone
overboard in the language employed describing the
"organizer of the conference." One is tempted to
wonder if it was by some mischievous gambit that
he would also dare test the limits of the "wild blue
yonder" of free speech in this jurisdiction. But no
matter how intemperate or deprecatory the
utterances appear to be, the privilege is not to be
defeated nor rendered inutile for, as succinctly
expressed by Mr. Justice Brennan in New York
Times v. Sullivan, "[D]ebate on public issues should
be uninhibited, robust and wide open, and that it
may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes
unpleasantly sharp attacks on the government and
public officials.[31]
The Court of Appeals concluded that since
malice is always presumed in the publication of
defamatory matters in the absence of proof to the
contrary, the question of privilege is immaterial.
We reject this postulate. While, generally,
malice can be presumed from defamatory words,
the privileged character of a communication
destroys the presumption of malice. [32] The onus of
proving actual malice then lies on plaintiff, private
respondent Wenceslao herein. He must bring home
to the defendant, petitioner Borjal herein, the
existence of malice as the true motive of his
conduct.[33]
Page 69 of 80
Malice connotes ill will or spite and speaks not
in response to duty but merely to injure the
reputation of the person defamed, and implies an
intention to do ulterior and unjustifiable harm.
[34]
Malice is bad faith or bad motive.[35] It is the
essence of the crime of libel.[36]
In the milieu obtaining, can it be reasonably
inferred that in writing and publishing the articles in
question petitioner Borjal acted with malice?
Primarily, private respondent failed to
substantiate by preponderant evidence that
petitioner was animated by a desire to
inflict unjustifiable harm on his reputation, or
that the articles were written and published without
good motives or justifiable ends. On the other hand,
we find petitioner Borjal to have acted in good
faith. Moved by a sense of civic duty and prodded
by his responsibility as a newspaperman, he
proceeded to expose and denounce what he
perceived to be a public deception. Surely, we
cannot begrudge him for that. Every citizen has the
right to enjoy a good name and reputation, but we
do not consider that petitioner Borjal has violated
that right in this case nor abused his press freedom.
Furthermore, to be considered malicious, the
libelous statements must be shown to have been
written or published with the knowledge that they
are false or in reckless disregard of whether they
are false or not.[37] "Reckless disregard of what is
false or not" means that the defendant entertains
serious doubt as to the truth of the publication,
[38]
or that he possesses a high degree of awareness
of their probable falsity.[39]
The articles subject of the instant case can
hardly be said to have been written with knowledge
that these are false or in reckless disregard of what

is false or not. This is not to say however that the
very serious allegations of petitioner Borjal
assumed by private respondent to be directed
against him are true. But we nevertheless find
these at least to have been based on reasonable
grounds formed after the columnist conducted
several personal interviews and after considering
the varied documentary evidence provided him by
his sources. Thus, the following are supported by
documentary evidence: (a) that private respondent
requested Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, then head of
the Garments and Textile Export Board (GTEB), to
expedite the processing and release of the import
approval and certificate of availability of a garment
firm in exchange for the monetary contribution of
Juliano Lim, which necessitated a reply from the
office of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo explaining the
procedure of the GTEB in processing applications
and clarifying that all applicants were treated
equally;[40] (b) that Antonio Periquet was designated
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the FNCLT
notwithstanding that he had previously declined the
offer;[41] and, (c) that despite the fact that then
President Aquino and her Secretary of
Transportation Rainerio Reyes declined the
invitation to be guest speakers in the conference,
their names were still included in the printout of the
FNCLT.[42] Added to these are the admissions of
private respondent that: (a) he assisted Juliano Lim
in his application for a quota allocation with the
GTEB in exchange for monetary contributions to the
FNCLT;[43] (b) he included the name of then
Secretary of Transportation Rainerio Reyes in the
promotional materials of the conference
notwithstanding the latter's refusal to lend his name
to and participate in the FNCLT;[44] and, (c) he used
different letterheads and telephone numbers.[45]
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Even assuming that the contents of the articles
are false, mere error, inaccuracy or even falsity
alone does not prove actual malice. Errors or
misstatements are inevitable in any scheme of truly
free expression and debate. Consistent with good
faith and reasonable care, the press should not be
held to account, to a point of suppression, for
honest mistakes or imperfections in the choice of
language. There must be some room for
misstatement of fact as well as for
misjudgment. Only by giving them much leeway
and tolerance can they courageously and effectively
function as critical agencies in our democracy.
[46]
In Bulletin Publishing Corp. v. Noel[47] we held -
A newspaper especially one national in reach and
coverage, should be free to report on events and
developments in which the public has a legitimate
interest with minimum fear of being hauled to court
by one group or another on criminal or civil charges
for libel, so long as the newspaper respects and
keeps within the standards of morality and civility
prevailing within the general community.
To avoid the self-censorship that would
necessarily accompany strict liability for erroneous
statements, rules governing liability for injury to
reputation are required to allow an adequate
margin of error by protecting some inaccuracies. It
is for the same reason that the New York
Times doctrine requires that liability for defamation
of a public official or public figure may not be
imposed in the absence of proof of "actual malice"
on the part of the person making the libelous
statement.
At any rate, it may be salutary for private
respondent to ponder upon the advice of Mr. Justice
Page 70 of 80
Malcolm expressed in U.S. v. Bustos,[48] that "the
interest of society and the maintenance of good
government demand a full discussion of public
affairs. Complete liberty to comment on the conduct
of public men is a scalpel in the case of free
speech. The sharp incision of its probe relieves the
abscesses of officialdom. Men in public life may
suffer under a hostile and unjust accusation; the
wound may be assuaged by the balm of a clear
conscience. A public official must not be too thin-
skinned with reference to comments upon his
official acts.
The foregoing disposition renders the second
and seventh assigned errors moot and academic,
hence, we find no necessity to pass upon them.
We must however take this opportunity to
likewise remind media practitioners of the high
ethical standards attached to and demanded by
their noble profession. The danger of an unbridled
irrational exercise of the right of free speech and
press, that is, in utter contempt of the rights of
others and in willful disregard of the cumbrous
responsibilities inherent in it, is the eventual self-
destruction of the right and the regression of
human society into a veritable Hobbesian state of
nature where life is short, nasty and
brutish. Therefore, to recognize that there can be
no absolute "unrestraint" in speech is to truly
comprehend the quintessence of freedom in the
marketplace of social thought and action, genuine
freedom being that which is limned by the freedom
of others. If there is freedom of the press, ought
there not also be freedom from the press? It is in
this sense that self-regulation as distinguished
from self-censorship becomes the ideal mean for,
as Mr. Justice Frankfurter has warned, "[W]ithout x
x x a lively sense of responsibility, a free press may

readily become a powerful instrument of
injustice."[49]
Lest we be misconstrued, this is not to diminish
nor constrict that space in which expression freely
flourishes and operates. For we have always
strongly maintained, as we do now, that freedom of
expression is man's birthright - constitutionally
protected and guaranteed, and that it has become
the singular role of the press to act as its "defensor
fidei" in a democratic society such as ours. But it is
also worth keeping in mind that the press is the
servant, not the master, of the citizenry, and its
freedom does not carry with it an unrestricted
hunting license to prey on the ordinary citizen.[50]
On petitioners counterclaim for damages, we
find the evidence too meager to sustain any
award. Indeed, private respondent cannot be said
to have instituted the present suit in abuse of the
legal processes and with hostility to the press; or
that he acted maliciously, wantonly, oppressively,
fraudulently and for the sole purpose of harassing
petitioners, thereby entitling the latter to
damages. On the contrary, private respondent
acted within his rights to protect his honor from
what he perceived to be malicious imputations
against him. Proof and motive that the institution of
the action was prompted by a sinister design to vex
and humiliate a person must be clearly and
preponderantly established to entitle the victim to
damages. The law could not have meant to impose
a penalty on the right to litigate, nor should
counsels fees be awarded every time a party wins a
suit.[51]
For, concluding with the wisdom in Warren v.
Pulitzer Publishing Co.[52] -
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Every man has a right to discuss matters of public
interest. A clergyman with his flock, an admiral with
his fleet, a general with his army, a judge with his
jury, we are, all of us, the subject of public
discussion. The view of our court has been thus
stated: It is only in despotisms that one must
speak sub rosa, or in whispers, with bated breath,
around the corner, or in the dark on a subject
touching the common welfare. It is the brightest
jewel in the crown of the law to speak and maintain
the golden mean between defamation, on one
hand, and a healthy and robust right of free public
discussion, on the other.
WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED. The
Decision of the Court of Appeals of 25 March 1996
and its Resolution of 12 September 1996 denying
reconsideration are REVERSED and SET ASIDE, and
the complaint for damages against petitioners is
DISMISSED. Petitioners counterclaim for damages
is likewise DISMISSED for lack of merit. No costs.
SO ORDERED.
14. People vs velasco (NF)
15. Ayer productions vs capulong
G.R. No. 82380 April 29, 1988
AYER PRODUCTIONS PTY. LTD. and McELROY
& McELROY FILM PRODUCTIONS, petitioners,
vs.
Page 71 of 80
HON.IGNACIO M. CAPULONG and JUAN PONCE
ENRILE, respondents.
G.R. No. 82398 April 29, 1988
HAL MCELROY petitioner,
vs.
HON. IGNACIO M. CAPULONG, in his capacity
as Presiding Judge of the Regional Trial Court
of Makati, Branch 134 and JUAN PONCE
ENRILE, respondents.
FELICIANO, J.:
Petitioner Hal McElroy an Australian film maker, and
his movie production company, Petitioner Ayer
Productions pty Ltd. (Ayer
Productions), 1 envisioned, sometime in 1987, the
for commercial viewing and for Philippine and
international release, the histolic peaceful struggle
of the Filipinos at EDSA (Epifanio de los Santos
Avenue). Petitioners discussed this Project with
local movie producer Lope V. Juban who suggested
th they consult with the appropriate government
agencies and also with General Fidel V. Ramos and
Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, who had played major
roles in the events proposed to be filmed.
The proposed motion picture entitled "The Four Day
Revolution" was endorsed by the Movie Television
Review and Classification Board as wel as the other
government agencies consulted. General Fidel
Ramos also signified his approval of the intended
film production.

In a letter dated 16 December 1987, petitioner Hal
McElroy informed private respondent Juan Ponce
Enrile about the projected motion picture enclosing
a synopsis of it, the full text of which is set out
below:
The Four Day Revolution is a six hour
mini-series about People Powera
unique event in modern history that-
made possible the Peaceful revolution
in the Philippines in 1986.
Faced with the task of dramatising
these rerkble events, screenwriter
David Williamson and history Prof Al
McCoy have chosen a "docu-drama"
style and created [four] fictitious
characters to trace the revolution
from the death of Senator Aquino, to
the Feb revolution and the fleeing of
Marcos from the country.
These character stories have been
woven through the real events to
help our huge international audience
understand this ordinary period
inFilipino history.
First, there's Tony O'Neil, an
American television journalist working
for major network. Tony reflects the
average American attitude to the
Phihppinence once a colony, now
the home of crucially important
military bases. Although Tony is
aware of the corruption and of
Marcos' megalomania, for him, there
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
appears to be no alternative to
Marcos except the Communists.
Next, Angie Fox a fiery Australian
photo-journalist. A 'new girl in town,'
she is quickly caught up in the events
as it becomes dear that the time has
come for a change. Through Angle
and her relationship with one of the
Reform Army Movement Colonels (a
fictitious character), we follow the
developing discontent in the armed
forces. Their dislike for General Ver,
their strong loyalty to Defense
Minister Enrile, and ultimately their
defection from Marcos.
The fourth fictitious character is Ben
Balano, a middle-aged editor of a
Manila newspaper who despises the
Marcos regime and is a supporter an
promoter of Cory Aquino. Ben has
two daughters, Cehea left wing
lawyer who is a secret member of the
New People's Army, and Eva--a -P.R.
girl, politically moderate and very
much in love with Tony. Ultimately,
she must choose between her love
and the revolution.
Through the interviews and
experiences of these central
characters, we show the complex
nature of Filipino society, and
thintertwining series of events and
characters that triggered these
remarkable changes. Through them
also, we meet all of the principal
Page 72 of 80
characters and experience directly
dramatic recreation of the revolution.
The story incorporates actual
documentary footage filmed during
the period which we hope will capture
the unique atmosphere and forces
that combined to overthrow President
Marcos.
David Williamson is Australia's
leading playwright with some 14
hugely successful plays to his
credit(Don's Party,' 'The Club,'
Travelling North) and 11 feature films
(The Year of Living Dangerously,'
Gallipoli,' 'Phar Lap').
Professor McCoy (University of New
South Wales) is an American historian
with a deep understanding of the
Philippines, who has worked on the
research for this project for some 18
months. Together with Davi
Wilhamgon they have developed a
script we believe accurately depicts
the complex issues and events that
occurred during th period .
The six hour series is a McElroy and
McElroy co-production with Home Box
Office in American, the Australian
Broadcast Corporation in Australia
and Zenith Productions in the United
Kingdom
The proposed motion picture would be essentially a
re-enact. ment of the events that made possible the

EDSA revolution; it is designed to be viewed in a
six-hour mini-series television play, presented in a
"docu-drama" style, creating four (4) fictional
characters interwoven with real events, and utilizing
actual documentary footage as background.
On 21 December 1987, private respondent Enrile
replied that "[he] would not and will not approve of
the use, appropriation, reproduction and/or
exhibition of his name, or picture, or that of any
member of his family in any cinema or television
production, film or other medium for advertising or
commercial exploitation" and further advised
petitioners that 'in the production, airing, showing,
distribution or exhibition of said or similar film, no
reference whatsoever (whether written, verbal or
visual) should not be made to [him] or any member
of his family, much less to any matter purely
personal to them.
It appears that petitioners acceded to this demand
and the name of private respondent Enrile was
deleted from the movie script, and petitioners
proceeded to film the projected motion picture.
On 23 February 1988, private respondent filed a
Complaint with application for Temporary
Restraining Order and Wilt of Pretion with the
Regional Trial Court of Makati, docketed as Civil
Case No. 88-151 in Branch 134 thereof, seeking to
enjoin petitioners from producing the movie "The
Four Day Revolution". The complaint alleged that
petitioners' production of the mini-series without
private respondent's consent and over his objection,
constitutes an obvious violation of his right of
privacy. On 24 February 1988, the trial court
issued ex-parte a Temporary Restraining Order and
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
set for hearing the application for preliminary
injunction.
On 9 March 1988, Hal McElroy flied a Motion to
Dismiss with Opposition to the Petition for
Preliminary Injunction contending that the mini-
series fim would not involve the private life of Juan
Ponce Enrile nor that of his family and that a
preliminary injunction would amount to a prior
restraint on their right of free expression. Petitioner
Ayer Productions also filed its own Motion to
Dismiss alleging lack of cause of action as the mini-
series had not yet been completed.
In an Order 2 dated 16 March 1988, respondent
court issued a writ of Preliminary Injunction against
the petitioners, the dispositive portion of which
reads thus:
WHEREFORE, let a writ of preliminary
injunction be issued, ordering
defendants, and all persons and
entities employed or under contract
with them, including actors, actresses
and members of the production staff
and crew as well as all persons and
entities acting on defendants' behalf,
to cease and desist from producing
and filming the mini-series entitled
'The Four Day Revolution" and from
making any reference whatsoever to
plaintiff or his family and from
creating any fictitious character in
lieu of plaintiff which nevertheless is
based on, or bears rent substantial or
marked resemblance or similarity to,
or is otherwise Identifiable with,
plaintiff in the production and any
Page 73 of 80
similar film or photoplay, until further
orders from this Court, upon
plaintiff's filing of a bond in the
amount of P 2,000,000.00, to answer
for whatever damages defendants
may suffer by reason of the
injunction if the Court should finally
decide that plaintiff was not entitled
thereto.
xxx xxx xxx
(Emphasis supplied)
On 22 March 1988, petitioner Ayer Productions
came to this Court by a Petition for certiorari dated
21 March 1988 with an urgent prayer for
Preliminary Injunction or Restraining Order, which
petition was docketed as G.R. No. L-82380.
A day later, or on 23 March 1988, petitiioner Hal
McElroy also filed separate Petition for certiorari
with Urgent Prayer for a Restraining Order or
Preliminary Injunction, dated 22 March 1988,
docketed as G.R. No. L-82398.
By a Resolution dated 24 March 1988, the petitions
were consolidated and private respondent was
required to file a consolidated Answer. Further, in
the same Resolution, the Court granted a
Temporary Restraining Order partially enjoining the
implementation of the respondent Judge's Order of
16 March 1988 and the Writ of Preliminary
Injunction issued therein, and allowing the
petitioners to resume producing and filming those
portions of the projected mini-series which do not
make any reference to private respondent or his

family or to any fictitious character based on or
respondent.
Private respondent seasonably filed his
Consolidated Answer on 6 April 1988 invoking in the
main a right of privacy.
I [19421) is the Importance of motion
The constitutional and legal issues raised by the
present Petitions are sharply drawn. Petitioners'
claim that in producing and "The Four Day
Revolution," they are exercising their freedom of
speech and of expression protected under our
Constitution. Private respondent, upon the other
hand, asserts a right of privacy and claims that the
production and filming of the projected mini-series
would constitute an unlawful intrusion into his
privacy which he is entitled to enjoy.
Considering first petitioners' claim to freedom of
speech and of expression the Court would once
more stress that this freedom includes the freedom
to film and produce motion pictures and to exhibit
such motion pictures in theaters or to diffuse them
through television. In our day and age, motion
pictures are a univesally utilized vehicle of
communication and medium Of expression. Along
with the press, radio and television, motion pictures
constitute a principal medium of mass
communication for information, education and
entertainment. In Gonzales v. Katigbak, 3 former
Chief Justice Fernando, speaking for the Court,
explained:
1. Motion pictures are important both
as a medium for the communication
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
of Ideas and the expression of the
artistic impulse. Their effect on the
perception by our people of issues
and public officials or public figures as
well as the pre cultural traits is
considerable. Nor as pointed out
in Burstyn v. Wilson (343 US 495
pictures as an organ of public opinion
lessened by the fact that they are
designed to entertain as well as to
inform' (Ibid, 501). There is no clear
dividing line between what involves
knowledge and what affords pleasure.
If such a distinction were sustained,
there is a diminution of the basic
right to free expression. ... 4
This freedom is available in our country both to
locally-owned and to foreign-owned motion picture
companies. Furthermore the circumstance that the
production of motion picture films is a commercial
activity expected to yield monetary profit, is not a
disqualification for availing of freedom of speech
and of expression. In our community as in many
other countries, media facilities are owned either by
the government or the private sector but the
private sector-owned media facilities commonly
require to be sustained by being devoted in whole
or in pailt to revenue producing activities. Indeed,
commercial media constitute the bulk of such
facilities available in our country and hence to
exclude commercially owned and operated media
from the exerciseof constitutionally protected om of
speech and of expression can only result in the
drastic contraction of such constitutional liberties in
our country.
Page 74 of 80
The counter-balancing of private respondent is to a
right of privacy. It was demonstrated sometime ago
by the then Dean Irene R. Cortes that our law,
constitutional and statutory, does include a right of
privacy. 5 It is left to case law, however, to mark
out the precise scope and content of this right in
differing types of particular situations. The right of
privacy or "the right to be let alone," 6 like the right
of free expression, is not an absolute right. A
limited intrusion into a person's privacy has long
been regarded as permissible where that person is
a public figure and the information sought to be
elicited from him or to be published about him
constitute of apublic character. 7 Succinctly put, the
right of privacy cannot be invoked resist publication
and dissemination of matters of public
interest. 8 The interest sought to be protected by
the right of privacy is the right to be free
from unwarranted publicity, from
the wrongful publicizing of the private affairs and
activities of an individual which are outside the
realm of legitimate public concern. 9
Lagunzad v. Vda. de Gonzales, 10 on which private
respondent relies heavily, recognized a right to
privacy in a context which included a claim to
freedom of speech and of
expression. Lagunzad involved a suit fortion picture
producer as licensee and the widow and family of
the late Moises Padilla as licensors. This agreement
gave the licensee the right to produce a motion
Picture Portraying the life of Moises Padilla, a
mayoralty candidate of the Nacionalista Party for
the Municipality of Magallon, Negros Occidental
during the November 1951 elections and for whose
murder, Governor Rafael Lacson, a member of the
Liberal Party then in power and his men were tried
and convicted. 11 In the judgment of the lower court

enforcing the licensing agreement against the
licensee who had produced the motion picture and
exhibited it but refused to pay the stipulated
royalties, the Court, through Justice Melencio-
Herrera, said:
Neither do we agree with petitioner's
subon that the Licensing Agreement
is null and void for lack of, or for
having an illegal cause or
consideration, while it is true that
petitioner bad pled the rights to the
book entitled "The Moises Padilla
Story," that did not dispense with the
need for prior consent and authority
from the deceased heirs to portray
publicly episodes in said deceased's
life and in that of his mother and the
member of his family. As held in
Schuyler v. Curtis, ([1895],147 NY
434,42 NE 31 LRA 286.49 Am St Rep
671), 'a privilege may be given the
surviving relatives of a deperson to
protect his memory, but the privilege
wts for the benefit of the living, to
protect their feelings and to preventa
violation of their own rights in the
character and memory of the
deceased.'
Petitioners averment that private
respondent did not have any property
right over the life of Moises Padilla
since the latter was a public figure, is
neither well taken. Being a public
figure ipso facto does not
automatically destroy in toto a
person's right to privacy. The right to
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
invade a person's privacy to
disseminate public information does
not extend to a fictional or novelized
representation of a person, no matter
how public a he or she may be
(Garner v. Triangle Publications,
DCNY 97 F. Supp., SU 549 [1951]).
In the case at bar, while it is true that
petitioner exerted efforts to present a
true-to-life Story Of Moises Padilla,
petitioner admits that he included a
little romance in the film because
without it, it would be a drab story of
torture and brutality. 12
In Lagunzad, the Court had need, as we have in the
instant case, to deal with contraposed claims to
freedom of speech and of expression and to
privacy. Lagunzad the licensee in effect claimed, in
the name of freedom of speech and expression, a
right to produce a motion picture biography at least
partly "fictionalized" of Moises Padilla without the
consent of and without paying pre-agreed royalties
to the widow and family of Padilla. In rejecting the
licensee's claim, the Court said:
Lastly, neither do we find merit in
petitioners contention that the
Licensing Agreement infringes on the
constitutional right of freedom of
speech and of the press, in that, as a
citizen and as a newspaperman, he
had the right to express his thoughts
in film on the public life of Moises
Padilla without prior restraint.The
right freedom of expression, indeed,
occupies a preferred position in the
"hierarchy of civil liberties" (Philippine
Page 75 of 80
Blooming Mills Employees
Organization v. Philippine Blooming
Mills Co., Inc., 51 SCRA 191 [1963]).
It is not, however, without
limitations. As held in Gonzales v.
Commission on Elections, 27 SCRA
835, 858 [1960]:
xxx xxx xxx
The prevailing doctine is that the
clear and present danger rule is such
a limitation. Another criterion for
permissible limitation on freedom of
speech and the press, which includes
such vehicles of the mass media as
radio, television and the movies, is
the "balancing of interest test" (Chief
Justice Enrique M. Fernando on the
Bill of Rights, 1970 ed. p. 79). The
principle "requires a court to take
conscious and detailed consideration
of the interplay of interests
observable in given situation or type
of situation" (Separation Opinion of
the late Chief Justice Castro in
Gonzales v. Commission on
Elections, supra, p. 899).
In the case at bar, the interests
observable are the right to privacy
asserted by respondent and the right
of freedom of expression invoked by
petitioner. taking into account the
interplay of those interests, we hold
that under the particular
circumstances presented, and
considering the obligations assumed

in the Licensing Agreement entered
into by petitioner, the validity of such
agreement will have to be upheld
particularly because the limits of
freedom of expression are reached
when expression touches upon
matters of essentially private
concern." 13
Whether the "balancing of interests test" or the
clear and present danger test" be applied in respect
of the instant Petitions, the Court believes that a
different conclusion must here be reached: The
production and filming by petitioners of the
projected motion picture "The Four Day Revolution"
does not, in the circumstances of this case,
constitute an unlawful intrusion upon private
respondent's "right of privacy."
1. It may be observed at the outset that what is
involved in the instant case is a prior and direct
restraint on the part of the respondent Judge upon
the exercise of speech and of expression by
petitioners. The respondent Judge has restrained
petitioners from filming and producing the entire
proposed motion picture. It is important to note
that in Lagunzad, there was no prior restrain of any
kind imposed upon the movie producer who in fact
completed and exhibited the film biography of
Moises Padilla. Because of the speech and of
expression, a weighty presumption of invalidity
vitiates. 14 The invalidity of a measure of prior
restraint doesnot, of course, mean that no
subsequent liability may lawfully be imposed upon a
person claiming to exercise such constitutional
freedoms. The respondent Judge should have
stayed his hand, instead of issuing an ex-parte
Temporary Restraining Order one day after filing of
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
a complaint by the private respondent and issuing a
Preliminary Injunction twenty (20) days later; for
the projected motion picture was as yet
uncompleted and hence not exhibited to any
audience. Neither private respondent nor the
respondent trial Judge knew what the completed
film would precisely look like. There was, in other
words, no "clear and present danger" of any
violation of any right to privacy that private
respondent could lawfully assert.
2. The subject matter of "The Four Day Revolution"
relates to the non-bloody change of government
that took place at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in
February 1986, and the trian of events which led up
to that denouement. Clearly, such subject matter is
one of public interest and concern. Indeed, it is,
petitioners' argue, of international interest. The
subject thus relates to a highly critical stage in the
history of this countryand as such, must be
regarded as having passed into the public domain
and as an appropriate subject for speech and
expression and coverage by any form of mass
media. The subject mater, as set out in the
synopsis provided by the petitioners and quoted
above, does not relate to the individual life and
certainly not to the private life of private
respondent Ponce Enrile. Unlike in Lagunzad, which
concerned the life story of Moises Padilla necessarily
including at least his immediate family, what we
have here is not a film biography, more or less
fictionalized, of private respondent Ponce Enrile.
"The Four Day Revolution" is not principally about,
nor is it focused upon, the man Juan Ponce Enrile'
but it is compelled, if it is to be historical, to refer to
the role played by Juan Ponce Enrile in the
precipitating and the constituent events of the
change of government in February 1986.
Page 76 of 80
3. The extent of the instrusion upon the life of
private respondent Juan Ponce Enrile that would be
entailed by the production and exhibition of "The
Four Day Revolution" would, therefore, be limited in
character. The extent of that intrusion, as this Court
understands the synopsis of the proposed film, may
be generally described as such intrusion as is
reasonably necessary to keep that film a truthful
historical account. Private respondent does not
claim that petitioners threatened to depict in "The
Four Day Revolution" any part of the private life of
private respondent or that of any member of his
family.
4. At all relevant times, during which the
momentous events, clearly of public concern, that
petitioners propose to film were taking place,
private respondent was what Profs. Prosser and
Keeton have referred to as a "public figure:"
A public figure has been defined as a
person who, by his accomplishments,
fame, or mode of living, or by
adopting a profession or calling which
gives the public a legitimate interest
in his doings, his affairs, and his
character, has become a 'public
personage.' He is, in other words, a
celebrity. Obviously to be included in
this category are those who have
achieved some degree of reputation
by appearing before the public, as in
the case of an actor, a professional
baseball player, a pugilist, or any
other entertainment. The list is,
however, broader than this. It
includes public officers, famous
inventors and explorers, war heroes

and even ordinary soldiers, an infant
prodigy, and no less a personage
than the Grand Exalted Ruler of a
lodge. It includes, in short, anyone
who has arrived at a position where
public attention is focused upon him
as a person.
Such public figures were held to have
lost, to some extent at least, their
tight to privacy. Three reasons were
given, more or less indiscrimately, in
the decisions" that they had sought
publicity and consented to it, and so
could not complaint when they
received it; that their personalities
and their affairs has already public,
and could no longer be regarded as
their own private business; and that
the press had a privilege, under the
Constitution, to inform the public
about those who have become
legitimate matters of public
interest. On one or another of these
grounds, and sometimes all, it was
held that there was no liability when
they were given additional publicity,
as to matters legitimately within the
scope of the public interest they had
aroused.
The privilege of giving publicity to
news, and other matters of public
interest, was held to arise out of the
desire and the right of the public to
know what is going on in the world,
and the freedom of the press and
other agencies of information to tell
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
it. "News" includes all events and
items of information which are out of
the ordinary hum-drum routine, and
which have 'that indefinable quality of
information which arouses public
attention.' To a very great extent the
press, with its experience or instinct
as to what its readers will want, has
succeeded in making its own
definination of news, as a glance at
any morning newspaper will
sufficiently indicate. It includes
homicide and othe crimes, arrests
and police raides, suicides, marriages
and divorces, accidents, a death from
the use of narcotics, a woman with a
rare disease, the birth of a child to a
twelve year old girl, the reappearance
of one supposed to have been
murdered years ago, and
undoubtedly many other similar
matters of genuine, if more or less
deplorable, popular appeal.
The privilege of enlightening the
public was not, however, limited, to
the dissemination of news in the
scene of current events. It extended
also to information or education, or
even entertainment and amusement,
by books, articles, pictures, films and
broadcasts concerning interesting
phases of human activity in general,
as well as the reproduction of the
public scene in newsreels and
travelogues. In determining where to
draw the line, the courts were invited
to exercise a species of censorship
Page 77 of 80
over what the public may be
permitted to read; and they were
understandably liberal in allowing the
benefit of the doubt. 15
Private respondent is a "public figure" precisely
because, inter alia, of his participation as a principal
actor in the culminating events of the change of
government in February 1986. Because his
participation therein was major in character, a film
reenactment of the peaceful revolution that fails to
make reference to the role played by private
respondent would be grossly unhistorical. The right
of privacy of a "public figure" is necessarily
narrower than that of an ordinary citizen. Private
respondent has not retired into the seclusion of
simple private citizenship. he continues to be a
"public figure." After a successful political campaign
during which his participation in the EDSA
Revolution was directly or indirectly referred to in
the press, radio and television, he sits in a very
public place, the Senate of the Philippines.
5. The line of equilibrium in the specific context of
the instant case between the constitutional freedom
of speech and of expression and the right of
privacy, may be marked out in terms of a
requirement that the proposed motion picture must
be fairly truthful and historical in its presentation of
events. There must, in other words, be no knowing
or reckless disregard of truth in depicting the
participation of private respondent in the EDSA
Revolution. 16 There must, further, be no
presentation of the private life of the unwilling
private respondent and certainly no revelation of
intimate or embarrassing personal facts. 17 The
proposed motion picture should not enter into what
Mme. Justice Melencio-Herrera in Lagunzad referred

to as "matters of essentially private concern." 18 To
the extent that "The Four Day Revolution" limits
itself in portraying the participation of private
respondent in the EDSA Revolution to those events
which are directly and reasonably related to
the public facts of the EDSA Revolution, the
intrusion into private respondent's privacy cannot
be regarded as unreasonable and actionable. Such
portrayal may be carried out even without a license
from private respondent.
II
In a Manifestation dated 30 March 1988, petitioner
Hal McElroy informed this Court that a Temporary
Restraining Order dated 25 March 1988, was issued
by Judge Teofilo Guadiz of the Regional Trial Court
of Makati, Branch 147, in Civil Case No. 88-413,
entitled "Gregorio B. Honasan vs. Ayer Productions
Pty. Ltd., McElroy Film Productions, Hal McElroy,
Lope Juban and PMP Motion for Pictures Production"
enjoining him and his production company from
further filimg any scene of the projected mini-series
film. Petitioner alleged that Honasan's complaint
was a "scissors and paste" pleading, cut out straight
grom the complaint of private respondent Ponce
Enrile in Civil Case No. 88-151. Petitioner Ayer
Productions, in a separate Manifestation dated 4
April 1988, brought to the attention of the Court the
same information given by petitoner Hal McElroy,
reiterating that the complaint of Gregorio B.
Honasan was substantially identical to that filed by
private respondent herein and stating that in
refusing to join Honasan in Civil Case No. 88-151,
counsel for private respondent, with whom counsel
for Gregorio Honasan are apparently associated,
deliberately engaged in "forum shopping."
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Private respondent filed a Counter-Manifestation on
13 April 1988 stating that the "slight similarity"
between private respondent's complaint and that on
Honasan in the construction of their legal basis of
the right to privacy as a component of the cause of
action is understandable considering that court
pleadings are public records; that private
respondent's cause of action for invasion of privacy
is separate and distinct from that of Honasan's
although they arose from the same tortious act of
petitioners' that the rule on permissive joinder of
parties is not mandatory and that, the cited cases
on "forum shopping" were not in point because the
parties here and those in Civil Case No. 88-413 are
not identical.
For reasons that by now have become clear, it is
not necessary for the Court to deal with the
question of whether or not the lawyers of private
respondent Ponce Enrile have engaged in "forum
shopping." It is, however, important to dispose to
the complaint filed by former Colonel Honasan who,
having refused to subject himself to the legal
processes of the Republic and having become once
again in fugitive from justice, must be deemed to
have forfeited any right the might have had to
protect his privacy through court processes.
WHEREFORE,
a) the Petitions for Certiorari are GRANTED DUE
COURSE, and the Order dated 16 March 1988 of
respondent trial court granting a Writ of Preliminary
Injunction is hereby SET ASIDE. The limited
Temporary Restraining Order granted by this Court
on 24 March 1988 is hereby MODIFIED by enjoining
unqualifiedly the implementation of respondent
Page 78 of 80
Judge's Order of 16 March 1988 and made
PERMANENT, and
b) Treating the Manifestations of petitioners dated
30 March 1988 and 4 April 1988 as separate
Petitions for Certiorari with Prayer for Preliminary
Injunction or Restraining Order, the Court, in the
exercise of its plenary and supervisory jurisdiction,
hereby REQUIRES Judge Teofilo Guadiz of the
Regional Trial Court of Makati, Branch 147,
forthwith to DISMISS Civil Case No. 88-413 and
accordingly to SET ASIDE and DISSOLVE his
Temporary Restraining Order dated 25 March 1988
and any Preliminary Injunction that may have been
issued by him.
No pronouncement as to costs.
SO ORDERED.
16.Larobis vs CA
G.R. No. 104189 March 30, 1993
AMELIA LAROBIS, petitioner,
vs.
COURT OF APPEALS and the PEOPLE OF THE
PHILIPPINES, respondents.
Francisco D. Alas for petitioner.
The Solicitor General for public respondents.

QUIASON, J.:
This is a petition for review on certiorari under Rule
45 of the Revised Rules of Court of the decision of
the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR No. 10507,
entitled "Amelia Larobis v. Hon. Rodrigo F. Lim, Jr.,
at al." promulgated on November 20, 1991 and the
resolution of the same Court dated January 22,
1992, denying the motion for reconsideration of
said decision.
In CA-G.R. No. 10507, the Court of Appeals
affirmed the decision of the Regional Trial Court,
Manolo-Fortich, Bukidnon, Br. XI, in Criminal Case
No. 979 insofar as it found petitioner guilty of the
crime of grave oral defamation but it modified the
penalty imposed on petitioner to an imprisonment
of "three (3) months of arresto mayor as minimum
and one year and eight (8) months of prision
correccional as maximum."
In Criminal Case No. 979, the Regional Trial Court
rendered its decision dated January 9, 1991,
affirming in toto the decision of the 2nd Municipal
Circuit Trial Court of Manolo Fortich-Libona,
Bukidnon, finding petitioner herein guilty beyond
reasonable doubt of the crime of grave oral
defamation and (a) sentencing her to suffer an
imprisonment of an "Indeterminate Sentence of
four (4) months and one (1) day of arresto
mayor in its maximum period to one (1) year and
one (1) day of prision correccional minimum
period", and (b) ordering her to pay the
complainant the amounts of (i) P1,500.00 as
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
attorney's fees, (ii) P3,500.00 as moral damages,
and (iii) P100.00 as cost. (Rollo, p. 19)
The Court of Appeals and two trial courts found that
petitioner had shouted, within hearing distance of
several persons, the following words calculated to
humiliate and to cast aspersion on the complainant:
LIMBONGAN, MARO NGA
MAGTUTUDLO, PATAY GUTOM,
TIGULANG GIUBAN NA, BOGOK,
HUGAWAN, IPASALBIDS KA NAKO NI
DODONG AMORA. ("You are a cheat,
a dishonest teacher, you are dead
hungry, an old person with gray hair,
dull, dirty, I will have you salvage(d)
by Dodong Amora.") (Rollo, pp. 16 &
18)
In this petition, petitioner claims that the Court of
Appeals erred in the evaluation of the evidence,
particularly in its findings that her defamatory
utterances were "calculated if not wholly
premeditated" to insult the complainant, that there
was no provocation on the part of the complainant,
and that the utterances were not made in the heat
of anger and obfuscation.
Petitioner has not shown any grounds to warrant a
disturbance of the findings of facts of not one, not
two but three different courts. (Padilla v. Court of
Appeals, 157 SCRA 729 [1988]; Calalang v.
Intermediate Appellate Court, 194 SCRA 514
[1991])
Page 79 of 80
The sole legal question raised by petitioner is her
claim that, at most, she is liable only for the crime
of slight oral defamation. (Rollo, p. 14)
Whether the offense committed is serious or slight
oral defamation, depends not only upon the sense
and grammatical meaning of the utterances but
also upon the special circumstances of the case, like
the social standing or the advanced age of the
offended party. (Victorio v. Court of Appeals, 173
SCRA 645 [1989]; Balite v. People, 18 SCRA 280
[1966])
Elements that qualify the oral defamation to the
graver offense are extant. Petitioner disregarded
the respect due to the age and status of the
complainant, who was 61 years old and has been a
public school teacher for the past 32 years.
The offense, having been qualified to grave oral
defamation by the aforementioned special
circumstances, cannot be reduced to simple oral
defamation by the claim that the slanderous words
were said in the heat of anger. Besides, the
slanderous words were uttered with evident intent,
using the language of Balite v. People (18 SCRA
280) to "strike deep into the character of the
victim."
In reviewing the penalty meted on petitioner, WE
found that the Regional Trial Court erred in
imposing the minimum penalty while the Court of
Appeals erred in imposing the maximum penalty.
While petitioner did not raise said errors as issues in
her appeal, this Court has the authority to review
the same if their consideration is necessary in

arriving at a just resolution of the case. (Miguel v.
Court of Appeals, 29 SCRA 760 [1969]; Sociedad
Europea de Financiacion, S.A. v. Court of Appeals,
193 SCRA 105 [1991]).
The penalty imposed by Article 358 of the Revised
Penal Code for grave oral defamation is arresto
mayor its maximum period to prision correccional in
its minimum period.
In order to fix the minimum term of the penalty
required by the Indeterminate Sentence Law, WE
descend one degree lower from arresto
mayor maximum to arresto mayor medium or an
imprisonment of two (2) months and one (1) day to
four (4) months. (Sec. 1, Act No. 4103 as amended
by Act No. 4225; People v. Gonzales, 73 Phil. 549
[1942]) The Regional Trial Court did not follow this
mandate of the law.
The Court of Appeals was correct in fixing the
minimum term of the penalty to three (3) months
of arresto mayor which is within the range
of arresto mayor medium, instead of four (4)
months and one (l) day of arresto mayor as fixed
by the Regional Trial Court.
The Court of Appeals however erred in increasing
the maximum term of the penalty from one (1) year
and one (1) day of prision correccional as imposed
by the Regional Trial Court, to one (1) year and
eight (8) months of prision correccional. (Rollo, p.
24)
With respect to the imposition of the maximum
term of the penalty, WE have to divide by three the
number of days included in the penalty prescribed
Criminal Law Review Fulltext Cases Fiscal Dura
Labrador Notes
Page 80 of 80
by law because the said penalty is composed only The courts should be careful in fixing penalties
of two periods, i.e., arresto mayor maximum because any error may have dire consequences, as
and prision correccional minimum. (Art. 65, Revised in this case wherein the prison term imposed on the
Penal Code) The rules on the application of the accused has been increased erroneously. To unduly
different circumstances attending the commission of prolong the confinement of an accused, even by
an offense require three periods. (Art. 64, Revised only one day, is unjust in any sense of the word.
Penal Code).
WHEREFORE, the decision of the Court of Appeals is
Dividing the penalty for grave oral defamation into affirmed with the modification that the petitioner is
three periods produces the following results: sentenced to an indeterminate penalty ranging from
three (3) months of arresto mayor to one (1) year
Minimum Four (4) months and one and one (1) day of prision correccional. In all other
(1) day to one (1) year; respects, the civil liabilities imposed by the Regional
Trial Court are affirmed.
Medium: One (1) year and one (1)
day to one (1) year and eight (8) SO ORDERED.
months; and
Maximum: One (1) year, eight (8)
months and one (1) day to two (2)
years and four (4) months. (II Reyes,
The Revised Penal Code, 12th ed.,
1006)
There being neither mitigating nor aggravating
circumstances present in this case, the maximum
term of the penalty should be imposed in its
medium period, i.e., within the range of one (1)
year and one (1) day to one (1) year and eight (8)
months. (Art. 65 (1), Revised Penal Code)
The maximum term of the penalty imposed by the
Regional Trial Court is within the range of the
medium period and there is no legal basis for the
Court of Appeals to change it.