EN BANC
G.R. No. L-33964 December 11, 1971
IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF TEODOSIO LANSANG RODOLFO DEL ROSARIO, and BAYANI ALCALA, petitioners,
vs.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL EDUARDO M. GARCIA, Chief, Philippine Constabulary, respondent.
G.R. No. L-33965 December 11, 1971
ROGELIO V. ARIENDA, petitioner,
vs.
SECRETARY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE, and CHIEF, PHIL. CONSTABULARY, respondents.
G.R. No. L-33973 December 11, 1971
LUZVIMINDA DAVID, petitioner,
vs.
GEN. EDUARDO GARCIA, in his capacity as Chief, Philippine Constabulary, COL. N. C. CAMELLO, in his capacity as Chief of Staff, Philippine Constabulary and HON. JUAN PONCE ENRILE in his capacity as Secretary, Department of National defense, respondents.
G.R. No. L-33982 December 11, 1971
IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF NEMESIO E. PRUDENTE FELICIDAD G. PRUDENTE, petitioners,
vs.
GENERAL MANUEL YAN, GEN. EDU GARCIA, respondents.
G.R. No. L-34004 December 11, 1971
IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION FOR HABEAS CORPUSIN BEHALF OF GERARDO TOMAS, ALSO KNOWN AS "GERRY TOMAS" AND FOR RETURN OF DOCUMENTS ILLEGALLY SEIZED. DOMINGO E. DE LARA, in his capacity as Chairman, Committee on Legal Assistance, Philippine Bar Association, petitioner,
vs.
BRIG. GENERAL EDUARDO M. GARCIA, CHIEF, PHILIPPINE CONSTABULARY, respondent.
G.R. No. L-34013 December 11, 1971
REYNALDO RIMANDO, petitioner,
vs.
BRIG. GEN. EDUARDO M. GARCIA, Chief of the Philippine Constabulary, respondent.
G.R. No. L-34039 December 11, 1971
IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION FOR HABEAS CORPUSIN BEHALF OF SGT. FILOMENO M. DE CASTRO AND HIS WIFE, MRS. BARCELISA C. DE CASTRO. CARLOS C. RABAGO, in his capacity as President of the Conference Delegates Association of the Philippines (CONDA),petitioner,
vs.
BRIG. GEN. EDUARDO M. GARCIA, Chief, Philippine Constabulary, respondent.
G.R. No. L-34265 December 11, 1971
IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF ANTOLIN ORETA, JR. ANTOLIN ORETA, JR., petitioner,
vs.
GEN. EDUARDO GARCIA and COL. PROSPERO OLIVAS, respondents.
G.R. No. L-34339 December 11, 1971
GARY B. OLIVAR, assisted by his father, GEORGE OLIVAR, petitioner,
vs.
GEN. EDUARDO GARCIA, in his capacity as Chief, Philippine Constabulary, et al., respondents.
Ignacio P. Lacsina for petitioners Teodosio Lansang, et al.
Ramon A. Gonzales for petitioner Rogelio V. Arienda.
E. Voltaire Garcia II for petitioner Luzvimindo David.
Verzola, Africa and Atencio, Lorenzo M. Tanada, Wigberto E. Tañada, Fortunato de Leon, R. G. Suntay and Juan T. David for petitioner Felicidad G. Prudente.
Ruben L. Roxas for petitioner Reynaldo Rimando.
Nuñez, Acob, Del Rosario and Ramos for petitioner Carlos Rabago, etc.
E. Voltaire Garcia II and M. P. Vivo for petitioner Gary Olivar, etc., et al.
Jose W. Diokno and Juanito R. Remulla for petitioner Antolin Oreta, Jr.
Domingo E. de Lara for and in his own behalf.
Office of the Solicitor General Felix Q. Antonio and Assistant Solicitor General Bernardo P. Pardo for respondents.
Separate Opinions
CASTRO and BARREDO, JJ., concurring:
While concurring fully in the opinion of the Court, we nevertheless write separately to answer, from our own perspective, a point which Mr. Justice Fernando makes in his dissent. His view, as we understand it, is that while an individual may be detained beyond the maximum detention period fixed by law when the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is suspended, such individual is nevertheless entitled to be released from the very moment a formal complaint is filed in court against him. The theory seems to be that from the time the charge is filed, the court acquires, because the executive officials abdicate, jurisdiction.
This view is based on the separate opinion of Mr. Justice Pedro Tuason in Nava vs. Gatmaitan.1 Justice Tuason, in part, said:
All persons detained for investigation by the executive department are under executive control. It is here where the Constitution tells the court to keep their hands off — unless the cause of the detention be for an offense other than rebellion or insurrection, which is another matter.
By the same token, if and when a formal complaint is presented, the court steps in and the executive steps out. The detention ceases to be an executive and becomes a judicial concern...
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But the issue to which the Supreme Court Justices in Nava individually addressed themselves is radically disparate from that raised in these cases. There the question was whether after the detainees had been formally charged in court and an order for their arrest had been issued, they were entitled to bail. It was on that question that the Court was split 5 to 4, and it was the opinion of Justice Tuason, one of the five, that after the detainees had been accused in court, the question of release on bail was a matter that the court should decide.
Upon the other hand, the question here presented is whether the detainees should be released forthwith upon the filing of charges against them in court and cannot thereafter be re-arrested except only by court order. This is a totally different question. It is our submission that they are not entitled to be released. The dissent is, we believe, based on the fallacy that when a formal charge is filed against a person he is thereby surrendered to the court and the arresting officer is thereby divested of custody over him. Except in a metaphorical sense, the detainee is not delivered or surrendered at all to the judicial authorities. What the phrase "delivered to the court" simply means is that from the time a person is indicted in court, the latter acquires jurisdiction over the subject-matter. 2 The detainee remains in the custody of the detaining officer, under the same authority invoked for the detention, until the court decides whether there is probable cause to order his arrest.
Under ordinary circumstances, when a person is arrested without a warrant and is charged in court, he is not released.£A⩊phi£ He is held until the judicial authority orders either his release or his confinement. It is no argument to say that under Article III, section 1 (3) of the Constitution only a court can order the arrest of an individual. Arrests without warrant are familiar occurrences, and they have been upheld as constitutional.3
What is more, the privilege of the writ was suspended precisely to authorize the detention of persons believed to be plotting against the security of the State until the courts can act on their respective cases. To require their peremptory release upon the mere filing of charges against them, without giving the proper court opportunity and time to decide the question of probable cause, would obviously be to defeat the very basic purpose of the suspension. We think our role as judges in the cases at bar is clear. After finding that the Presidential decree was validly issued, we should give it effect. To uphold its validity and then try to dilute its efficacy in the name of personal liberty is, we believe, actually to doubt the constitutionality of the exercise of the Presidential prerogative.
Not only that. If the rule were that the detainees must be released upon the mere filing of charges against them in court, it is unlikely that the executive officials would have filed the charges because of their awareness of the continuing danger which in the first place impelled the arrest of the detainees, and the end result would be to inflict on the latter a much longer period of deprivation of personal liberty than is warranted.
Whatever our personal views may be of the power to suspend, the fact remains that the power is there, writ large and indubitable in the Constitution. It is far too easy to write anthologies on the side of civil liberties or on the side of governmental order, depending on one's inclination or commitment. But that is not our function. Constitutional issues, it has been said, do not take the form of right versus wrong, but of right versus right. And the Court's function, as we see it, is, fundamentally to moderate the clash of values, and not to inflate them into constitutional dimensions.
Where it is possible, we should avoid passing on a constitutional question. But where there is no escape from the duty of abstention, our further duty is to decide the question of constitutional validity on a less heroic plane.
And that is what we have tried to do in pointing out that the ordinary rules of criminal procedure provide an adequate answer to Mr. Justice Fernando's problem. That solution is for the arresting officer to hold the person detained until the court can act, with the only difference that where the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is available, the arresting officer must release the detainee upon the expiration of the maximum detention time allowed by law, if he has not delivered the detainee to the court within that period.
To insist on the procedural aspect of a constitutional problem as a manner of solving it is, after all, no less to be libertarian. Insistence on it is, to us, and in point of fact, one of the cornerstone of liberalism.
Footnotes
1 90 Phil. 172, 204 (1951).
2 Sayo vs. Chief of Police, 80 Phil. 859 (1948).
3 E.g., People vs. Kagui Malasugui, 63 Phil. 231 (1936).
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