G.R.No. 37201-02, March 3, 1975,
♦ Decision,
Fernandez, [J]
♦ Dissenting Opinion,
Castro, Teehankee, Fernando [JJ]
♦ Concurring Opinion,
Antonio, [J]
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. Nos. L-37201-02 March 3, 1975
CLEMENTE MAGTOTO, petitioner,
vs.
HON. MIGUEL M. MANGUERA, Judge of the Court of First Instance (Branch II) of Occidental Mindoro, The PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, IGNACIO CALARA, JR., and LOURDES CALARA, respondents.
G.R. No. L-37424 March 3, 1975
MAXIMO SIMEON, LOUIS MEDNATT, INOCENTES DE LUNA, RUBEN MIRANDA, ALFONSO BALLESTEROS, RUDOLFO SUAREZ, MANUEL MANALO, ALBERTO GABION, and RAFAEL BRILL, petitioners,
vs.
HON. ONOFRE A. VILLALUZ, in his capacity as Judge of the Criminal Circuit Court of Pasig, Rizal, and PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.
G.R. No. L-38929 March 3, 1975
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, petitioner,
vs.
HONORABLE ASAALI S. ISNANI, District Judge of the Court of First Instance of Zamboanga del Sur, Branch II, VICENTE LONGAKIT, and JAIME DALION, respondents.
Felipe S. Abeleda for petitioner Clemente Magtoto.
Joaquin L. Misa for petitioners Maximo Simeon, et al.
Alan L. Roxas for respondents Ignacio Calara, Jr., et al.
Organo Law Office for respondent Vicente Longakit, et al.
Office of the Solicitor General Estelito P. Mendoza and Assistant Solicitor General Vicente V. Mendoza for respondent and petitioner People of the Philippines.
FERNANDEZ, J.:
The present cases involve an interpretation of Section 20, Article IV of the New Constitution, which reads:têñ.£îhqwâ£
No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. Any person under investigation for the commission of an offense shall have the right to remain silent and to counsel, and to be informed of such right. No force, violence, threat, intimidation, or any other means which vitiates the free will shall be used against him. Any confession obtained in violation of this section shall be inadmissible in evidence,
and specifically, the portion thereof which declares inadmissible a confession obtained from a person under investigation for the commission of an offense who has not been informed of his right (to remain silent and) to counsel.1
We hold that this specific portion of this constitutional mandate has and should be given a prospective and not a retrospective effect. Consequently, a confession obtained from a person under investigation for the commission of an offense, who has not been informed of his right (to silence and) to counsel, is inadmissible in evidence if the same had been obtained after the effectivity of the New Constitution on January 17, 1973. Conversely, such confession is admissible in evidence against the accused, if the same had been obtained before the effectivity of the New Constitution, even if presented after January 17, 1973, and even if he had not been informed of his right to counsel, since no law gave the accused the right to be so informed before that date.
Accordingly, We hereby sustain the orders of the respondent Judges in G.R. No. L-37201-022 and G.R. No. L-374243 declaring admissible the confessions of the accused in said cases, and We hereby set aside the order of the respondent Judge challenged in G.R. No. L-389294 which declared inadmissible the confessions of the accused in said case, although they have not been informed of their right to remain silent and to counsel before they gave the confessions, because they were given before the effectivity of the New Constitution.
The reasons for these rulings are as follows:
Section 20, Article IV of the New Constitution granted, for the first time, to a person under investigation for the commission of an offense, the right to counsel and to be informed of such right. And the last sentence thereof which, in effect, means that any confession obtained in violation of this right shall be inadmissible in evidence, can and should be given effect only when the right already existed and had been violated. Consequently, because the confessions of the accused in G.R. Nos. L-37201-02, 37424 and 38929 were taken before the effectivity of the New Constitution in accordance with the rules then in force, no right had been violated as to render them inadmissible in evidence although they were not informed of "their right to remain silent and to counsel," "and to be informed of such right," because, We repeat, no such right existed at the time.
The argument that the second paragraph of Article 125 of the Revised Penal Code, which was added by Republic Act No. 1083 enacted in l954, which reads as follows:têñ.£îhqwâ£
In every case, the person detained shall be informed of the cause of his detention and shall be allowed, upon his request, to communicate and confer at any time with his attorney or counsel.
impliedly granted to a detained person the right to counsel and to be informed of such right, is untenable. The only right granted by said paragraph to a detained person was to be informed of the cause of his detention. But he must make a request for him to be able to claim the right to communicate and confer with counsel at any time.
The remark of Senator Cuenco, when Republic Act No. 1083 was being discussed in the Senate, that the bill which became Republic Act No. 1083 provides that the detained person should be informed of his right to counsel, was only the personal opinion of Senator Cuenco. We grant that he was, as We personally knew him to be, a learned lawyer and senator. But his statement could reflect only his personal opinion because if Congress had wanted Republic Act No. 1083 to grant a detained person a right to counsel and to be informed of such right, it should have been so worded. Congress did not do so.
As originally worded, Senate Bill No. 50, which became Republic Act No. 1083, provided: "In every case the person detained shall be allowed, upon his request, to have the services of an attorney or counsel. In the period of amendment, the phrase "have the services of" was changed to the present wording "communicate and confer anytime with his." As the Solicitor General points out in his able memorandum, apparently the purpose was to bring the provision in harmony with the provision of a complementary measure, Republic Act No. 857 (effective July 16, 1953), which provides:têñ.£îhqwâ£
SECTION 1. Any public officer who shall obstruct, prohibit, or otherwise prevent an attorney entitled to practice in the courts of the Philippines from visiting and conferring privately with a person arrested, at any hour of the day or, in urgent cases, of the night, said visit and conference being requested by the person arrested or by another acting in his behalf, shall be punished by arresto mayor.
None of these statutes requires that police investigators inform the detained person of his "right" to counsel. They only allow him to request to be given counsel. It is not for this Court to add a requirement and carry on where both Congress and the President stopped.
The history behind the new right granted to a detained person by Section 20, Article IV of the New constitution to counsel and to be informed of said right under pain of a confession taken in violation thereof being rendered inadmissible in evidence, clearly shows the intention to give this constitutional guaranty not a retroactive, but a prospective, effect so as to cover only confessions taken after the effectivity of the New Constitution.
To begin with, Section 29, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court, provides:têñ.£îhqwâ£
Confession.—The declaration of an accused expressly acknowledging his guilt of the offense charged, may be given in evidence against him.
And according to Section 3, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court:
Extrajudicial confession, not sufficient ground for conviction.—An extrajudicial confession made by an accused, shall not be sufficient ground for conviction, unless corroborated by evidence of corpus delicti.
Extrajudicial confessions of the accused in a criminal case are universally recognized as admissible in evidence against him, based on the presumption that no one would declare anything against himself unless such declarations were true. Accordingly, it has been held that a confession constitutes an evidence of a high order since it is supported by the strong presumption that no person of normal mind would deliberately and knowingly confess to a crime unless prompted by truth and conscience. (U.S. vs. Delos Santos, 24 Phil. 329, 358).
The fundamental rule is that a confession, to be admissible, must be voluntary. And the first rule in this connection was that before the confession could be admitted in evidence, the prosecution must first show to the satisfaction of the Court that the same was freely and voluntarily made, as provided for in Section 4 of Act 619 of the Philippine Commission (U.S. vs. Pascual, August 29, 1903, 2 Phil. 458). But with the repeal of said provision of law by the Administrative Code in 1916, the burden of proof was changed. Now, a confession is admissible in evidence without previous proof of its voluntariness on the theory that it is presumed to be voluntary until the contrary is proved (5 Moran, Comments on the Rules of Court, p. 264; People vs. Dorado, 30 SCRA 53, 57, citing U.S. vs. Zara, 42 Phil. 308; People vs. Cabrera, 43 Phil. 64; People v. Singh, 45 Phil. 676; People v. Pereto, 21 SCRA 1469).
And once the accused succeeds in proving that his extrajudicial confession was made involuntarily, it stands discredited in the eyes of the law and is as a thing which never existed. It is incompetent as evidence and must be rejected. The defense need not prove that its contents are false (U.S. vs. Delos Santos, 24 Phil. 329, 358; U.S. vs. Zara, 42 Phil. 325, November, 1921). The same rule was followed in People vs. Nishishima. "Involuntary confessions are uniformly held inadmissible as evidence — by some courts on the ground that a confession so obtained is unreliable, and by some on the ground of humanitarian principles which abhor all forms of torture or unfairness towards the accused in criminal proceedings. ... ." (57 Phil. 26, 48, 51; 1932).4* In the concurring opinion of Justice Butte, he said: "Apart, from the fact that involuntary confessions will be declared incompetent and are therefore utterly futile, it is high time to put a stop to these (third degree) practices which are a blot on our Philippine civilization."
This rule was, however, changed by this court in 1953 in the case of People vs. Delos Santos, et al., G.R. No. L-4880, citing the rule in Moncado vs. People's Court, et al., 80 Phil 1, and followed in the case of People vs. Villanueva, et al. (G.R. No. L-7472, January 31, 1956), to the effect that "a confession to be repudiated, must not only be proved to have been obtained by force or violence or intimidation, but also that it is false or untrue, for the law rejects the confession when by force or violence, the accused is compelled against this will to tell a falsehood, not when by such force and violence is compelled to tell the truth." This ruling was followed in a number of cases.5
But the ruling in Moncado vs. People's Court et al., 80 Phil 1, which was the basis of the leading case of People vs. Delos Santos, supra, was overruled in the case of Stonehill vs. Diokno (20 SCRA 383, June 19, 1963), holding that evidence illegally obtained is not admissible in evidence. So, We reverted to the original rule. As stated by this Court, speaking thru Justice Teehankee in People vs. Urro (44 SCRA 473, April 27, 1972), "involuntary or coerced confessions obtained by force or intimidation are null and void and are abhorred by law which proscribes the use of such cruel and inhuman methods to secure a confession." "A coerced confession stands discredited in the eyes of the law and is as a thing that never existed." The defense need not prove that its contents are false. Thus, We turned full circle and returned to the rule originally established in the case of U.S. vs. Delos Santos, 24 Phil. 323 and People vs. Nishishima, 42 Phil. 26. (See also People vs. Imperio, 44 SCRA 75).
It must be noted that all these Philippine cases refer to coerced confessions, whether the coercion was physical, mental and/or emotional.
In the meantime, the United States Supreme Court decided the following cases: Massiah vs. United States (377 U.S. 201, 1964), Escobedo vs. Illinois (378 U.S. 478, 1964); and Miranda vs. Arizona (384 U.S. 436, 1966). In Miranda vs. Arizona, it was held:têñ.£îhqwâ£
To summarize, we hold that when an individual is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom by the authorities in any significant way and is subjected to questioning, the privilege against self-incrimination is jeopardized. Procedural safeguards must be employed to protect the privilege *[384 U.S. 479]* and unless other fully effective means are adopted to notify the person of his right of silence and to assure that the exercise of the right will be scrupulously honored, the following measures are required. He must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires. Opportunity to exercise these rights must be afforded to him throughout the interrogation. After such warning have been given, and such opportunity afforded him, the individual may knowingly and intelligently waive these rights and agree to answer questions or make statement. But unless and until such warning and waiver are demonstrated by the prosecution at trial, no evidence obtained as a result of interrogation can be used against him. (Miranda vs. Arizona, supra, p. 478)[Emphasis Ours]
When invoked in this jurisdiction, however, the Miranda rule was rejected by this Court. In the cases of People vs. Jose (37 SCRA 450, February 6, 1971) and People vs. Paras 56 SCRA 248, March 29, 1974), We rejected the rule that an extrajudicial confession given without the assistance of counsel is inadmissible in evidence. This Court in the Jose case(as in the Paras case), held:têñ.£îhqwâ£
The inadmissibility of his extrajudicial statements is likewise being questioned by Jose on the other ground that he was not assisted by counsel during the custodial interrogations. He cites the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in Massiah vs. U.S. (377 U.S. 201), Escobedo vs. Illinois (37 U.S. 478) and Miranda vs .Arizona (384 U.S. 436).
The provision of the Constitution of the Philippines in point is Article III (Bill of Rights), Section 1, par. 17 of which provides: "In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall ... enjoy the right to be heard by himself and counsel ... ." While the said provision is identical to that in the Constitution of the United States, in this jurisdiction the term criminal prosecutions was interpreted by this Court in U.S. vs. Beechman, 23 Phil 258 (1912), in connection with a similar provision in the Philippine Bill of Rights (Section 5 of Act of Congress of July 1, 1902), to mean proceedings before the trial court from arraignment to rendition of the judgment. Implementing the said Constitutional provision, We have provided in Section 1, Rule 115 of the Rules of Court that "In all criminal prosecutions the defendant shall be entitled ... (b) to be present and defend in person and by attorney at every state of the proceedings, that is, from the arraignment to the promulgation of the judgment." The only instances where an accused is entitled to counsel before arraignment, if he so requests, are during the second stage of preliminary investigation (Rule 112, Section 11) and after the arrest(Rule 113, Section 18). The rule in the United States need not be unquestioningly adhered to in this jurisdiction, not only because it has no binding effect here, but also because in interpreting a provision of the Constitution the meaning attached hereto at the time of the adoption thereof should be considered. And even there the said rule is not yet quite settled, as can be deduced from the absence of unanimity in the voting by the members of the United States Supreme Court in all the three above-cited cases. (People vs. Jose, supra, at page 472).
The Constitutional Convention at the time it deliberated on Section 20, Article IV of the New Constitution was aware of the Escobedo and Miranda rule which had been rejected in the case of Jose. That is the reason why the Miranda-Escobedo rule was expressly included as a new right granted to a detained person in the present provision of Section 20, Article IV of the New Constitution.
When Delegate de Guzman (A) submitted the draft of this Section 20, Article IV to the October 26, 1972 meeting of the 17-man committee of the Steering Council, Delegate Leviste (O) expressly made of record that "we are adopting here the rulings of US Supreme Court in the Miranda-Escobedo cases." And We cannot agree with the insinuation in the dissenting opinion of Justice Castro that the Delegates did not know of the existence of the second paragraph of Art. 125 of the Revised Penal Code.
Hence, We repeat, this historical background of Section 20, Article IV of the New Constitution, in Our considered opinion, clearly shows that the new right granted therein to a detained person to counsel and to be informed of such right under pain of his confession being declared inadmissible in evidence, has and should be given a prospective and not a retroactive effect. It did not exist before its incorporation in our New Constitution, as We held in the Jose and Paras cases, supra.
The authors of the dissenting opinions ignore the historical fact that the constitutional and legal guarantees as well as the legal precedents that insure that the confession be voluntary, underwent a slow and tedious development. The constitutional guarantee in question might indeed have come late in the progress of the law on the matter. But it is only now that it had come under Section 20 of Article IV of the 1973 Constitution. That is all that our duty and power ordain Us to proclaim; We cannot properly do more.
Furthermore, to give a retroactive effect to this constitutional guarantee to counsel would have a great unsettling effect on the administration of justice in this country. It may lead to the acquittal of guilty individuals and thus cause injustice to the People and the offended parties in many criminal cases where confessions were obtained before the effectivity of the New Constitution and in accordance with the rules then in force although without assistance of counsel. The Constitutional Convention could not have intended such a a disastrous consequence in the administration of justice. For if the cause of justice suffers when an innocent person is convicted, it equally suffers when a guilty one is acquitted.
Even in the United States, the trend is now towards prospectivity. As noted in the memorandum of the Solicitor General:têñ.£îhqwâ£
... That survey indicates that in the early decisions rejecting retroactivity, the United States Supreme Court did not require "pure prospectivity;" the new constitutional requirements there were applied to all cases still pending on direct review at the time they were announced. (See Linkletter vs. Walker, 381 U.S. 618 (1965) (on admissibility of illegally-seized evidence); Tehan vs. Shott, 382 U.S. 406 (1966) (on the self-incrimination rule of Griffin vs. California, 380 U.S. 609 (1965). But the Court began a new course with Johnson vs. New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719 (1966). It departed from Linkletter and Tehan and came closer to "pure prospectivity" by refusing to permit cases still pending on direct review to benefit from the new in-custody interrogation requirements of Miranda vs. Arizona. As Chief Justice Warren observed in Jenkins vs. Delaware, 395 U.S. 213 (1969), "With Johnson we began increasing emphasis upon the point at which law enforcement officials relied upon practices not yet prescribed." "More recently," he continued, "we have selected the point of initial reliance." That development began with Stovall vs. Denno, 388 U.S. 293 (1967) (on the line-up requirements of United States vs. Wade, 388 U.S. 218 (1967) and Gilbert vs. California, 388 U.S. 263 (1967). These new rulings were held applicable only in the immediate cases "and all future cases which involve confrontation for identification purposes conducted in the absence of counsel after the dates of Wade and Gilbert." The fact that Wade and Gilbert were thus the only beneficiaries of the new rules was described as an "unavoidable consequence of the necessity that constitutional adjudications not stand as mere dictum." In Jenkins vs. Delaware itself, the Court held that the Miranda requirement did not apply to a re-trial after June 13, 1966 — the cut-off point set for the Miranda requirement by Johnson vs. New Jersey — because Jenkins original trial had begun before the cut-off point.
Thus, the remarkable thing about this development in judge-made law is not that it is given limited retroactive effort. That is to be expected in the case of judicial decision as distinguished from legislation. The notable thing is that the limited retroactivity given to judge-made law in the beginning by Linkletter vs. Walker has been abandoned as the Supreme Court in Johnson vs. New Jersey and in Jenkins vs. Delaware moved toward "pure prospectivity" (pp. 26-28) (Respondents' memorandum, Feb. 16, 1974).
The provision of Article 22 of the Revised Penal Code that:têñ.£îhqwâ£
Retroactive effect of penal laws.—Penal laws shall have a retroactive effect insofar as they favor the person guilty of a felony, who is not a habitual criminal, as this term is defined in Rule 5 of Article 62 of this Code, although at the time of the publication of such laws a final sentence has been pronounced and the convict is serving the same,
is not applicable to the present cases: First, because of the inclusion We have arrived at that the constitutional provision in question has a prospective and not a retrospective effect, based on the reasons We have given; second, because the "penal laws" mentioned in Article 22 of the Revised Penal Code refer to substantive penal laws, while the constitutional provision in question is basically a procedural rule of evidence involving the incompetency and inadmissibility of confessions and therefore cannot be included in the term "penal laws;"6 and third, because constitutional provisions as a rule should be given a prospective effect.7
Even as We rule that the new constitutional right of a detained person to counsel and to be informed of such right under pain of any confession given by him in violation thereof declared inadmissible in evidence, to be prospective, and that confessions obtained before the effectivity of the New Constitution are admissible in evidence against the accused, his fundamental right to prove that his confession was involuntary still stands. Our present ruling does not in any way diminish any of his rights before the effectivity of the New Constitution.
IN VIEW OF ALL THE FOREGOING, the petitions for writs of certiorari in G.R. Nos. L-37201-02 and G.R. No. L-37424 are denied and that in G.R. No. L-38929 is granted. As a consequence, all the confessions involved in said cases are hereby declared admissible in evidence. No costs.
Makalintal, C.J., Barredo, Makasiar, Esguerra, Muñoz Palma and Aquino, JJ., concur.1äwphï1.ñët
Footnotes
1 We here limit Ourselves to a discussion of this right to counsel and to be informed of such right, because that is the only principal issue in these cases, and that is the only new right given to an accused by the New Constitution with respect to extrajudicial confessions. Under the Old Constitution, there was already the provision that no person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself (Art. Ill, Section I (18); this right included the right to remain silent (U.S. vs. Luzon, 4 Phil. 343); and confessions obtained through force, violence, threat, intimidation or any other means which vitiates the free will were already declared inadmissible against an accused person in a number of Our decisions to which We shall refer in the course of this opinion, although they were raised into the category of a constitutional mandate under Section 20, Article IV of the New Constitution.
2 Petitioner Magtoto was accused in Criminal Cases Nos. 394 and 395 (CFI of Occidental Mindoro) of murder for the death of Ignacio Calara and Eduardo Calara in two informations both dated February 23, 1973; and during the joint trial of these cases, his extrajudicial confession dated November 25, 1972 was, in the Court's order of June 18, 1973, admitted in evidence over the objection of the defense on the ground that it was taken while the accused was in the preventive custody of the PC without his having been informed of his right to remain silent and to counsel.
3 The petitioners were accused of murder for the death of Pedro Langaoen in Criminal Case No. CCC-VII 87, Rizal. When arraigned on November 25, 1972, they pleaded not guilty. Their Extrajudicial confessions, obtained without the benefit of counsel were taken on October 17, 1970, and presented during the trial held on June 2, 1973 and admitted in the Court's order of August 16, 1973.
4 In G.R. No. L-38929, the respondents Vicente Longakit and Jaime Dalion were both accused in Criminal Case No. 4113 of the Court of First Instance of Zamboanga del Sur for robbery with homicide. The information is dated February 6, 1970. The extrajudicial confession of Longakit was executed on November 7, 1968, while his additional confession was executed on September 1, 1970, without his having been informed of his right to counsel; and they were offered in evidence during the trial and rejected by the Court on June 18, 1974. In this case, nothing was mentioned of any extrajudicial confession of the co-accused and co-respondent Jaime Dalion.
4* "While from the purely evidentiary standpoint, a confession may be truthful even if coerced; yet it must not be overlooked that extraction of such a confession infringes the constitutional guarantees of due process and the inhibition against compulsory self-incrimination (Const., Art. III, sec. 1 (1 and 18)) that are among the touchstones dividing democratic from totalitarian methods, and that the violation of these Constitution prescriptions suffices to render the coerced confession objectionable." (People vs. Castro, 11 SCRA 699, 710).
5 People vs. Tiongson, G.R. No. L-6872, May 21, 1955; People vs. Dizon, G.R. No. L-8336, July 30, 1957; People vs. Garcia, L-8289, May 29, 1957; People vs. Frias, G.R. No. L-13767, July 30, 1960.
6 "As applied to criminal law, substantive law is that which declares what acts are crimes and prescribes the punishment for committing them, as distinguished from the procedural which provides or regulates the steps by which one who commits a crime is to be punished." (22 C.J.S. 49: Bustos vs. Lucero, 81 Phil. 640, 650)..
7 Vide, Black on Interpretation of Laws, 2d Ed., p. 26, citing City of Shreveport vs. R.T. Cole, et al., 129 US 36; San Antonio vs. San Antonio Public Service Co., 255 US 547; also Cooley, Constitutional Limitation, 8th Ed., Vol. 1, pp. 136,137..
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