G.R.No. 37201-02, March 3, 1975,
♦ Decision,
Fernandez, [J]
♦ Dissenting Opinion,
Castro, Teehankee, Fernando [JJ]
♦ Concurring Opinion,
Antonio, [J]
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.
Separate Opinions
CASTRO, J., dissenting:
The burden of this dissent is my considered view that the particular provision of Section 20 of Article IV of the 1973 Constitution which invalidates a confession obtained during custodial interrogation from a detained person who at such interrogation was not afforded the assistance of counsel, should operate retrospectively as of June 15, 1954 when Republic Act 1083 introduced the second paragraph of article 125 of the Revised Penal Code recognizing the right of a detained person to counsel in any custodial inquest. I am thus distressed by, and consequently am in sharp disagreement with, the following doctrines expostulated in the majority opinion of Justice Estanislao A. Fernandez and in the concurring opinion of Justice Felix Q. Antonio:
(a) "Section 20, Article IV of the new Constitution granted, for the first time, to a person under investigation for a commission of an offense, the right to counsel and to be informed of such right."
(b) "In most areas, police investigators are without modern and sophisticated instruments for criminal investigation. Many grave felonies have been unsolved because of the absence or unavailability of witnesses. In such cases it is obvious that the custodial interrogation of suspects would furnish the only means of solving the crime."
(c) "The law existing at the time of the adoption of the new Constitution, as construed by this Court in People vs. Jose, considered admissible an extra-judicial statement of the accused obtained during custodial interrogation, without assistance of counsel. This decision forms part of the legal system in this jurisdiction."
1. The second paragraph of article 125 of the Revised Penal Code provides: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.
Misreading the intendment of this provision, the majority of my brethren are of the literal view that the "only right granted by the said paragraph to a detained person was to be informed of the cause of his detention," and that a detained person "must make a request for him to be able to claim the right to communicate and confer with counsel at any time." I regard this interpretation as abhorrent because it gravely offends against the provisions of the 1935 Constitution as well as of the 1973 Constitution that guarantee equal protection of the laws to every person in the realm. I am persuaded that only a handful of the more than forty million inhabitants of this country actually know the provisions of the second paragraph of article 125, notwithstanding the mischievous legal fiction that everyone is conclusively presumed to know the law. I would even venture the opinion that at least 95% of the Filipino people are not even aware of the existence of this paragraph. As a matter of fact, the hearing of Magtoto vs. Manguera and Simeon vs. Villaluz, it was my distinct impression that many of those in attendance thereat, lawyers and laymen alike, became aware of the existence of the paragraph then and only then for the first time in their lives. If many full-fledged lawyers with years upon years of practice behind them are not aware of the said paragraph, can we expect the great bulk of the population of the Philippines, whose experience has been limited to occasional brushes with the uniformed "strong arm" of the law (and not with the law itself), to know of its existence? So that in effect the majority interpretation would give the right to counsel at a custodial inquest to only the choice few who happen to know the provisions of the law and have the courage or the temerity to invoke it in the menacing presence of peace officers, and in the same breath deny the beneficence of those provisions to all others. The poor, the ignorant and the illiterate who do not know the rudiments of law would be at an overriding disadvantage as against the informed few.
An accurate paraphrase of the majority view may be stated in the following words: "If this detained wretch asserts his right to counsel, I will allow him to communicate and confer with a lawyer of his choice. But if he says none because he is unlettered or uninformed, I am under no moral or legal obligation to help him because, standing mute, he has no right to counsel." The absurdity so implicit in these words strikes terror in me at the same time that it saddens me, for it not only denies the poor and the unschooled the equal protection of the laws but also inflicts a horrendous indignity on them solely because of their poverty, ignorance or illiteracy. The cogent remark of the late Senator Mariano Jesus Cuenco, truly a man of wisdom and experience, when Republic Act 1083 as a bill was under discussion in the Senate, that a detained person in every custodial interrogation should, under the proposed amendment, be informed beforehand of his right to counsel, was therefore not a mere wisp of wind, but was indeed a warning most pregnant with meaning. The statement by the majority that Cuenco's remark reflects only his personal opinion is too simplistic.
Twenty centuries ago, our Lord Jesus Christ articulated the first recorded concept of social justice when he admonished his disciples that "the poor will always be with you." Two decades ago President Ramon Magsaysay expressed the concept of social justice in his own phrase: "He who has less in life should have more in law." And President Ferdinand E. Marcos, expounding his own concept of a "compassionate society," has only one emphasis: the balancing of the scales between the affluent and the poor. The meaning given by the majority to the second paragraph of article 125 not only completely denignates all concepts of social justice I have imbibed, for it accords the right to counsel in custodial interrogation only to an informed few and denies it to the great masses of the nation, but also would result in a grossly uneven and largely fortuitous application of the law.
I regard as intolerable in a civilized nation, which proclaims equal justice under law as one of its ideals, that any man should be handicapped when he confronts police agencies because of the happenstance that he is poor, underprivileged, unschooled or uninformed. The majority interpretation does violence to the democratic tradition of affording the amplest protection to the individual — any and every individual — against the tyranny of any governmental agency. It should be unthinkable that an innocent man may be condemned to penal servitude or even sent to his death because he is not blessed with familiarity with the intricacies of the law.
I am thus of the firm view that the second paragraph of article 125 makes it an obligation on the part of any detaining officer to inform the person detained of his right to counsel before the very inception of custodial inquest, and that this obligation was made a statutory one as early as in the year 1954. So I consider it an error to say that Section 20 of Article IV of the 1973 Constitution granted, for the first time, the right to counsel to a person under custodial interrogation.
Without making any reference to the minutes of any proceedings of the 1971 Constitutional Convention, Justice Fernandez, who himself was a Delegate to the said convention, attests that the Convention articulated the Miranda- Escobedo doctrine of the United States Supreme Court, as a "new right" granted to detained person, in Section 20 of Article IV of the 1973 Constitution. He cites the submission by Delegate de Guzman of the draft of the said Section 20 to the October 26, 1972 meeting of the 17-man committee of the Steering Council of the Convention at which time "Delegate Leviste expressly made of record that 'we are adopting here the ruling of the US Supreme Court in the Miranda-Escobedo cases.' " This sketchy statement is all the advertence made by Justice Fernandez to the proceedings of the 1971 Constitutional Convention upon the issue at bar. Considering the curiously remarkable paucity of the discussion made by Justice Fernandez, I am at a loss to determine whether the delegates who had anything to do with the draft of Section 20 of Article IV knew at all of the existence of the second paragraph of article 125, or, if they were aware of its existence, whether they really knew what the paragraph meant and signified vis-a-vis the Miranda-Escobedo doctrine. I am more inclined to believe that the delegates, if indeed they were aware of the existence of the said second paragraph, completely overlooked it, or chose to consider it as at par with the Miranda-Escobedo doctrine and decided to elevate it to the primacy of a constitutional mandate, the better to insulate it from the passing frenzies of temporary majorities.
2. The concurring opinion notes that "in most areas, police investigators are without modern and sophisticated instruments for criminal investigation. Many grave felonies have been unsolved because of the absence or unavailability of witnesses. In such cases it is obvious that the custodial interrogation of suspects would furnish the only means of solving the crime." That most of our police agencies are superannuated, is undeniable. But I am amused, and also at the same time outraged, by the implication therefrom that "custodial interrogation of suspects," in such an environment, "would furnish the only means of solving the crime." If I understand the size and shape of this implication, Justice Antonio is of the opinion that until our police agencies are freed from the confining limits of their antiquated methods and ancient equipment, custodial interrogation of detained persons, without the benefit of counsel, would "furnish the only means of solving" crimes in this jurisdiction. The validity of this view is of course to be seriously doubted. Conversely, does this mean that if a detained person has the assistance of counsel, custodial interrogation would cease to be an effective means of solving the crime?
I hold no brief against custodial interrogation per se. But I do entertain mortal fear that when a detained person is subjected, without the assistance of counsel, to custodial interrogation by peace officers, official lawlessness could be the rule and not the exception. Witness the innumerable cases in the annals of adjudication where this Court has set at naught and declared inadmissible confessions obtained from detained persons thru official lawlessness. It is a verity in the life of our nation that people without influence and without stature in society have, more often than not, been subjected to brutal and brutalizing third-degree methods, if not actually framed, by many police agencies in this country. Instead of blinking our eyes shut to this reality, we must recognize it for what it is.
I am completely conscious of the need for a balancing of the interests of society with the rights and freedoms of the individual. I have advocated the balancing-of-interests rule in all situations which call for an appraisal of the interplay of connecting interests of consequential dimensions. But I reject any proposition that would blindly uphold the interests of society at the sacrifice of the dignity of any human being.
3. I do not ascribe any significance to the statement made by this Court in People vs. Jose that an extra-judicial confession given without the assistance of counsel is not necessarily inadmissible in evidence. This ruling, if it can be construed as a ruling, is, to my mind, unmitigated obiter, since it was absolutely unnecessary to the Court's affirmance of the conviction of the accused in People vs. Jose. If one were to read critically and with discernment the entire decision in People vs. Jose, one would inescapably see it crystal-clear that the conviction of the accused was based entirely on the inculpating declarations in court of the offended party Maggie de la Riva. Their conviction was a necessary consequence not because of their confessions but in spite of them.
4. If I understand my jurisprudence in criminal adjective law, it would appear to me that an extra-judicial confession, of and by itself alone, has never been regarded as a proper basis for conviction. I am not aware of any decision of this Court which affirmed the conviction of an accused solely and exclusively on the basis of his written confession obtained during custodial interrogation. To the contrary, my abiding impression is that extra-judicial confessions have been adduced in criminal trials as mere corroboration of other evidence independently establishing the guilt of the accused. Courts have generally been reluctant to convict on the strength of extra-judicial confessions alone. This is quite understandable. Judges generally recognize human frailties and know the realities of life, and one of these realities is that many police agencies have been prone, as a most facile way out of their inadequacies, to extract confessions by force from detained persons during custodial interrogation. This is why in the process of adjudication in criminal cases, courts have invariably required presentation of evidence of guilt other than and independent of the extra-judicial confession of the accused.
I cannot comprehend the apprehension of some of my brethren that a retrospective application of the particular provision of Section 20 of Article IV of the 1973 Constitution relating to the inadmissibility of a confession obtained from a detained person during custodial interrogation without the assistance of counsel, would, in the language of the majority opinion, "have a great unsettling effect in the administration of justice in this country," and, in the phrase of the concurring opinion, "have an impact upon the administration of criminal law so devastating as to need no elaboration." Giving due allowance for the hyperbolic and rather extravagant expressions used, I say that the Court need not entertain such fears, which indeed are more fancied than real. If and when called upon to review any criminal conviction since June 15, 1954, the Court need merely examine the record for independent credible evidence, other than the extra-judicial confession of the accused, proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Indeed, the Court has always regarded extra-judicial confessions as merely and essentially corroborative in nature, never as primary or exclusive inculpating proof.
Perhaps, my brethren may not begrudge this paraphrase of Justice William Douglas as a conclusion to this dissent: the rights of none are safe unless the rights of all are protected; even if we should sense no danger to our own rights because we belong to a group that is informed, important and respected, we must always recognize that any code of fair play is also a code for the less fortunate.
Separate Opinions
TEEHANKEE, J., dissenting:
I am constrained to dissent from the valedictory main opinion of Mr. Justice Estanislao A. Fernandez ruling that confessions obtained during custodial interrogation from a detained person without the assistance of counsel before the effectivity of the 1973 Constitution on January 17, 19731 are admissible in evidence against the accused at his trial although he had not been duly informed of his right to remain silent and to counsel. Such ruling, to my mind, is in violation of the plain and unqualified mandate of the Constitution that such confessions are invalid and inadmissible in evidence.
Section 20 of the Bill of Rights (Article IV) of the 1973 Constitution explicitly provides (as against its one-sentence counterpart provision in the 1935 Constitution2 ) that têñ.£îhqwâ£
SEC. 20. 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.
The main opinion concedes that "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."3
I fail to see, however, any valid basis for distinguishing such invalid confessions obtained before the effectivity of the New Constitution from those obtained afterwards and the main opinion's ruling that conversely such confessions obtained before are to be held admissible in evidence against the accused.
1. The Constitution now expressly protects "a person under investigation for the commission of an offense" from the overwhelming power of the State and from official abuse and lawlessness and guarantees that he "shall have the right to remain silent and to counsel and to be informed of such right." In order to give force and meaning to the constitutional guarantee, it flatly outlaws the admission of any confession obtained from a person under investigation who has not been afforded his right to silence and counsel and to be informed of such right. There is no room for interpretation and the plain mandate of the Constitution expressly adopting the exclusionary rule as the only practical means of enforcing the constitutional injunction against such confessions obtained in violation of one's constitutional rights by outlawing their admission and thereby removing the incentive on the part of state and police officers to disregard such rights (in the same manner that the exclusionary rule bars admission of illegally seized evidence4 ) should be strictly enforced. What the plain language of the Constitution says is beyond the power of the courts to change or modify.
2. The outlawing of all such confessions is plain, unqualified and without distinction whether the invalid confession be obtained before or after the effectivity of the Constitution. The Court is called upon to enforce the plain mandate of the Constitution outlawing the admission of such invalid confessions. Ubi lex non distinguit nec nos distinguere debemus.
3. Stated otherwise, the Constitution has now given full substance and meaning to the fundamental right recognized by all civilized states that no person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself by placing confessions obtained without counsel in the same category as coerced confessions (whether the coercion be physical, mental or emotional5 ) and they are therefore deemed null and void and expressly declared to be inadmissible in evidence. Such confessions obtained without counsel stand discredited and outlawed by mandate of the Constitution.
ACCORDINGLY, and in line with the views herein expressed, I join Justices Castro and Fernando (who have extensively expounded on the history and rationale of the rule) in voting for the unqualified application of the exclusionary rule to confessions obtained without counsel before the effectivity of the 1973 Constitution but only thereafter sought to be admitted in evidence against the accused and for the rejection of the confessions in the cases at bar.
Footnotes
1 January 17, 1973 is considered as the effective date of the 1973 Constitution under Presidential Proc No. 1102 of the same date. The writer subscribes to the view that the 1973 Constitution was considered in force and effect upon the finality on April 17, 1973 of the Court's decision in Javellana vs. Exec. Secretary, 50 SCRA 30, wherein a split Court dismissed the petitions questioning the validity of the proclamation. Cf. Writer's separate opinion in Aquino, Jr. vs. Enrile, 59 SCRA 183, 309 (Sept. 17,1974).
2 Section 18 of the Bill of Rights (Art. III) of the 1935 Constitution simply, provided that "No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself." .
3 At page 2, main opinion; emphasis supplied.
4 Cf. Stonehill vs. Diokno, 20 SCRA 383 (1967).
5 People vs. Bagasala, 39 SCRA 236 (1971); People vs. Urro, 44 SCRA 473 (1972).
Separate Opinions
FERNANDO, J., dissenting:
It is the difficulty, rather marked in my case, of reconciling the policy of the Constitution regarding the admissibility of confessions obtained during custodial interrogation, as set forth in language forthright and categorical, that precludes my yielding conformity to the conclusion reached by my brethren. Regretfully, with recognition and awareness of the plausibility from its basic approach that characterizes the lucid and exhaustive opinion of Justice Fernandez, I must dissent. My starting point is the recognition of the power of the Constitutional Convention to impose conditions that must be fulfilled before a duty is cast on a court to allow a confession to form part of the records of the case and that such power was in fact exercised. So I read the last sentence of the provision in question: "Any confession obtained in violation of this section shall he inadmissible in evidence."1 The words cannot be any clearer. A judge is bereft of the competence, even if he were so minded, to impress with admissibility any confession unless the person under investigation was informed of his right to remain silent and his right to counsel.2 Absent such a showing, whatever statement or admission was obtained during such stage of custodial interrogation is a worthless piece of paper. So the Constitution commands. It speaks in no uncertain terms from and after January 17, 1973 when it became effective. The crucial date is not when the confession was obtained, but when it was sought to be offered in evidence. Parenthetically, such a mode of viewing the issue would indicate the irrelevancy of the question of prospectivity. To repeat, there is no imprecision in the terminology of the fundamental law. It is quite emphatic in its choice of the phrase, "inadmissible in evidence." This then is, for me at least, one of those cases where, to paraphrase Justice Moreland, the judicial task is definitely indicated, its first and fundamental duty being to apply the law with the Constitution at the top rung in the hierarchy of legal norms. Interpretation therefore comes in only after it has been demonstrated that application is impossible or inadequate without its aid.3
Assume, however, that the need for construction is unavoidable, it is my submission that the compulsion exerted by the specific wording of the above provision, its historical background with particular reference to the explicit adoption of the Philippines of the Miranda decision4 of the United States Supreme Court and the policy to be pursued in line with the avowed objective to vitalize further the rights of an accused, the present Constitution reflecting, to borrow from Frankfurter, a more progressive standard of criminal justice, calls for a decision other than that reached by the Court. Hence this dissent.
1. The authoritative force inherent in the specific language employed by the Constitution is a fundamental rule of construction. As was expressed in J.M. Tuason & Co., Inc. v. Land Tenure Administration:5 "We do not of course stop there, but that is where we begin. It is to be assumed that the words in which constitutional provisions are couched express the objective sought to be attained. They are to be given ordinary meaning except where technical terms are employed in which case the significance thus attached to them prevails. ... What it says according to the text of the provision to be construed compels acceptance and negates the power of the courts to alter it, based on the postulate that the framers and the people mean what they say. Thus there are cases where the need for construction is reduced to a minimum."6 I am of the belief that this is one of them. The provision, to my mind, leaves no doubt as to what is intended. Its meaning is crystal-clear. I fail to discern any ambiguity. What it prohibits then cannot be countenanced its categorical wording should control. No confession contrary to its tenor is admissible after January 17, 1973. That conclusion I find inescapable.
2. Even if there were less certitude in its wording, the conclusion, to my mind, would not be any different. So it must be, if we pay heed to history, one of the extrinsic aids to constitutional construction. This is to acknowledge, in the terminology of Cardozo, the force of tradition.7 It is to defer to what has been aptly termed by Holmes "the felt necessities of the time."8 To recall Justice Tuason, the state of affairs existing when the Constitution was framed as reflected in the operative principles of law is not to be ignored.9It supplies the needed illumination when things are shrouded in mist. Such is not the case at all, as was made clear in the preceding paragraph. Even if it were so, the trend of authoritative decisions of recent date is unmistakable. Confessions are carefully scrutinized and if, in the language of People v. Bagasala,1 O suffering in any wise from "coercion whether physical, mental, or emotional" are impressed "with inadmissibility."11 The opinion continues: "What is essential for its validity is that it proceeds from the free will of the person confessing."12 It is not just a happy coincidence that Bagasala was promulgated on May 31, 1971, one day before the Constitutional Convention met. In March of 1972, while it was in session, this Court in a unanimous opinion by Justice Makasiar in People v. Imperio13 rejected confessions on a showing of circumstances neutralizing their "voluntary character."14 The next month, in People v. Urro,15 cited in the opinion of the Court, Justice Teehankee as ponente stressed: "A coerced confession 'stands discredited in the eyes of the law and is as a thing that never existed.'"16 Further: "In any case, the most painstaking scrutiny must be resorted to by the trial courts in weighing evidence relating to alleged voluntary confessions of the accused and the courts should be slow to accept such confessions unless they are corroborated by other testimony."17 Nothing is clearer therefore than that during the period this provision was under consideration by the Convention, the juridical atmosphere was permeated by healthy skepticism, at times downright distrust, whenever confessions were relied upon by the prosecution, there being an insistence, as was but proper, that they should be unmarred by any taint of impairment of will. So it has been from the later sixties.18
To complete the picture, just shortly before the parties in Magtoto and Simeon, were heard in oral argument, in the closing days of November, 1973, in People v. Saligan,19 Justice Castro could speak thus for a unanimous Court: "It is worthy of note that the trial fiscal was in the correct frame of mind when he recognized the importance of demonstrating the culpability of the defendant by evidence, apart from the latter's plea of guilty. Unfortunately, however, the fiscal did not follow through. His offer of the extrajudicial confession of the defendant as evidence of the latter's guilt and the trial court's admission thereof do not afford us comfort in the discharge of our task. For, having rejected judicial confession of guilt of the defendant (his plea of guilty) on the ground that the manner of his arraignment does not exclude the possibility of improvidence in its entry, we can do no less with regard to his extrajudicial confession, the same not having been properly identified nor shown to have been freely and voluntarily executed."20
Thus is the indispensability of proof of the voluntariness of a confession underscored in a decision rendered after the effectivity of the Constitution. ℒαwρhi৷To repeat, even if the applicable provision were not free from doubt as to its literal command, history, I would think, supplies the answer. It sustains the plea for inadmissibility. .
3. Reference to the epochal American Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona21 is not amiss. The issue therein raised concerned the admissibility of statements from an individual under police custody, considering that under such a time and under the stress of such conditions, he would be hard put not to admit incriminatory matters. The American Supreme Court, through Chief Justice Warren, held that such statements made during the period of custodial interrogation to be admissible require a clear, intelligent waiver of constitutional rights, the suspect being warned prior to questioning that he has a right to remain silent, that any utterance may be used against him, and that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed. The Miranda doctrine as set forth in Chief Justice Warren's opinion, is to this effect: "Our holding will be spelled out with some specificity in the pages which follow but briefly stated it is this: the prosecution may use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. As for the procedural safeguards to be employed, unless other fully effective means are devised to inform accused persons of their right of silence and to assure a continuous opportunity to exercise it, the following measures are required. Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed. The defendant may waive effectuation of those rights, provided the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently. If, however, he indicates in any manner and at any stage of the process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking there can be no questioning. Likewise, if the individual is alone and indicates in any manner that he does not wish to be interrogated, the police may not question him. The mere fact that he may have answered some questions or volunteered some statements on his own does not deprive him of the right to refrain from answering any further inquiries until he has consulted with an attorney and thereafter consents to be questioned."22 The delegates to the Constitutional Convention, many of them lawyers, were familiar with this ruling announced in 1966. Concerned as they were with vitalizing the right against self-incrimination, they advisedly used words that render unmistakable the adoption of the Miranda doctrine. It would be then, in my opinion, to betray lack of fidelity to the objective thus revealed if any other interpretation were accorded this provision than that of conformity to its express terms. No juridical difficulty is posed by this Court's holding in People v. Jose,23 decided in 1971, that rejected the applicability of the Miranda doctrine. Precisely it must have been partly the dissatisfaction by the Constitutional Convention with the doctrine announced that led to its inclusion with its express prohibition against the admission of confessions so tainted, without any qualification as to when it was obtained. All that it means then is that henceforth People v. Jose and the latter case of People v. Paras24 are bereft of any persuasive force. This is so not because of a change of judicial attitude but because of the express language of the present Constitution.25
4. Now as to the question of policy. It is submitted, with respect, that the interpretation adopted by the Court affords less than hospitable scope to a categorical command of the present Constitution without, to my way of thinking, deriving support from any overriding consideration from the standpoint of an efficient administration of justice. Would it not amount then to frustrating the evident end and aim of such constitutional safeguard? For it does appear that the Convention, in manifesting its will, had negated any assumption that criminal prosecution would thereby be needlessly hampered. The memorandum of Solicitor General Estelito Mendoza and Assistant Solicitor General Vicente Mendoza, commendable for its thoroughness, cites an American leading decision, McNabb v. United States.26 It does not lend support to their plea, which merited the approval of my brethren. It is a blade that cuts both ways. Witness these words in the opinion of Justice Frankfurter: "Legislation such as this, requiring that the police must with reasonable promptness show legal cause for detaining arrested persons, constitutes an important safeguard - not only in assuring protection for the innocent but also in securing conviction of the guilty by methods that commend themselves to a progressive and self-confident society. For this procedural requirement checks resort to those reprehensible practices known as the 'third degree' which, though universally rejected as indefensible, still find their way into use. It aims to avoid all the evil implications of secret interrogation of persons accused of crime. It reflects not a sentimental but a sturdy view of law enforcement. It outlaws easy but self-defeating ways in which brutality is substituted for brains as an instrument of crime detection."27
So I would view the matter and thus reach a conclusion different from that of the Court.ᇈWᑭHIL This is not to discount the possibility that it may be a little more difficult to obtain convictions. Such a misgiving informs the prevailing opinion. It seems to me, again with due respect, that a reaction of that sort, while not groundless, may have an element that goes beyond the bounds of permissible exaggeration. Even if, as I would have it, the confessions in question are deemed inadmissible in accordance with the specific wording of the provision under scrutiny, it does not follow that the efforts of the prosecution are effectively stymied. It would be, to my way of thinking, an undeserved reflection on that arm of the government if the only way it could prove guilt is to rely on confessions, especially so when, as is quite apparent from the early sixties, the trend in judicial decisions has been as is quite proper to scrutinize them with care to erase any lurking doubt or suspicion as to their having been obtained by coercion, either physical or psychological. Only thus may be truthfully said that there is full respect for the constitutional mandate that no person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.28
5. It is by virtue of the above considerations that I am compelled to differ. Certainly this is not to imply lack of awareness of the merits of the opinion of the Court. It is only that for me the countervailing considerations are much more persuasive. There is the apprehension that to postpone the effectivity of the provision in question by a construction that looks for meaning outside its borders may at least during such time devitalize its essence. Under the circumstances then, I could not be as one with my brethren. It is not unusual that the vote of a Justice reflects his deeply-held convictions. Much more so in constitutional law where it can truly be said that it may not be a matter of right or wrong but of means and ends. As was so succinctly and aptly put by Justice Malcolm: "Most constitutional issues are determined by the court's approach to them."29 I am the first to admit then that viewed from the inarticulate major premise, which, as pointed out by Justice Holmes, is often decisive, of what in Packer's terminology is the Crime Control Model in the administration of criminal statutes that I discern in the opinion of the Court, the conclusion reached is both logical and inevitable. I am unable however to overcome what undoubtedly for some may be a predilection for what in his value system lies at the other end of the spectrum, the Due Process Model, that for me conduces most to an effective maintenance of the cluster of the constitutional rights of an accused person. In the eloquent language of Justice Black: "No higher duty, no more solemn responsibility, rests upon this Court, than that of translating into living law and maintaining this constitutional shield deliberately planned and inscribed for the benefit of every human being subject to our Constitution - of whatever race, creed or persuasion."30 So it will be in due time, even with this decision. Soon, hopefully, the lower courts will no longer be confronted with confessions obtained before the effectivity of the Constitution but offered in evidence thereafter. So with more reason, I am led to conclude, if eventually it has to be thus, why not now?
Footnotes
1 Article IV, Section 20 of the Constitution reads: 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."
2 It is admitted in the opinion of Justice Fernandez that the right to remain silent has always been an aspect, one of great significance, in the guarantee against self-incrimination. This is not unexpected for as counsel in the leading case of Chavez v. Court of Appeals, L-29169, August 19, 1968, 24 SCRA 663, he argued most persuasively for its being deferred to and respected. Moreover, then and now again in his opinion, he could trace its origin to United States v. Luzon, 4 Phil. 343, a 1905 decision.
3 Cf. Lizarraga Hermanos v. Yap Tico, 24 Phil. 504, 513 (1913).
4 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436 (1966).
5 L-21064, February 18, 1970, 31 SCRA 413.
6 Ibid, 422-423.
7 Cf. Cardozo, The Nature of Judicial Process, 127-132 (l921).
8 Holmes, The Common Law 1 (1881).
9 Cf. De los Santos v. Mallare, 87 Phil. 289 (1950).
10 L-26182, May 31, 1971, 39 SCRA 236.
11 Ibid, 242.
12 Ibid.
13 L-26194, March 29, 1972, 44 SCRA 75.
14 Ibid, 85.
15 L-28405, April 27, 1972, 44 SCRA 473.
16 Ibid, 484. Citing United States v. De los Santos, 24 Phil. 329 (1913).
17 Ibid.
18 Cf. People v. Manobo, L-19798, Sept. 20, 1966, 18 SCRA 30; People v. Chaw, L-19590, April 25,1968, 23 SCRA 127; Chavez v. Court of Appeals, L-29169, Aug. 19, 1968, 24 SCRA 663; People v. Alto, L-18661, Nov. 29, 1968, 26 SCRA 342; Pascual v. Board of Medical Examiners, L-25018, May 26, 1969, 28 SCRA 344; People v. Gande, L-28163, Jan. 30, 1970, 31 SCRA 347.
19 L-35792, November 29, 1973, 54 SCRA 190.
20 Ibid, 195-196.
21 384 US 436 (1966). Even before Miranda, the trend appears to be towards a much more exacting scrutiny of the voluntariness of confessions. Cf. Brown v. Mississippi, 297 US 278 (1936); Chambers v. Florida, 309 US 227 (1940); Lisenba v. California, 314 US 219 (1941); Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 US 143 (1944); Malinski v. New York, 324 US 401 (1945); Lee v. Mississippi, 332 US 742 (1948); Williams v. United States, 341 US 97 (1951); Rochin v. California, 342 US 165 (1952); Levra v. Denno, 347 US 556 (1954); Pennsylvania v. Claudy, 350 US 116 (1956); Payne v. Arkansas, 356 US 560 (1958); Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 US 199 (1960); Rogers v. Richmond, 365 US 534 (1961); Reck v. Pate, .367 US 433 (1961); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 US 643 (1961); Gallegas v. Colorado, 370 US 49 (1962); Shotwell Manufacturing Co. v. United States, 371 US 341 (1963); Fay v. Noia, 372 US 391 (1963); Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 US 528 (1963); Brady v. Maryland, 373 US 83 (1963); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 US 1 (1964); Jackson v. Denno. 378 US 368 (1964); Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 US 478 (1964).
22 Ibid, 444-445. There were dissents from Justices Clark, Harlan, White and Stewart.
23 L-28232, February 6, 1971, 37 SCRA 450.
24 L-23111 , March 29,1974, 56 SCRA 248.
25 Again there can be no dispute as to the competence of the Constitutional Convention setting aside and discarding rulings of this Court which failed to meet its approval. To cite one conspicuous instance, it was held by this Court in a March, 1972 decision, Martinez v. Morfe, L-34022, reported in 44 SCRA 22, that the parliamentary privilege of freedom from arrest under the 1935 Constitution did not cover criminal prosecutions. This, inspite of the brilliant advocacy of counsel for the Constitutional Convention, then Delegate, now Justice, Estanislao Fernandez. What happened next? The Convention, under his leadership, decided to amend the provision so that now it reads: "A Member of the National Assembly shall, in all offenses punishable by not more than six years imprisonment, be privileged from arrest during his attendance at its sessions, and in going to and returning from the same; but the National Assembly shall surrender the Member involved to the custody of the law within twenty-four hours after its adjournment for a recess or for its next session, otherwise such privilege shall cease upon its failure to do so." Article VIII, Section 9 of the Constitution.
26 318 US 332 (1943).
27 Ibid, 343-344.
28 It is to the credit of the opinion of Justice Fernandez that he cited the concurrence of Justice Butte in People v. Nishishima, 57 PhiL 26 (1932), with its excoriation of involuntary confessions which should be "declared incompetent and are therefore utterly futile ..." At 51. It is understandable why therein reference was made to what for some scholars is an aberration in Philippine decisional law, People v. De los Santos, 93 Phil. 83 (1953), with its seeming approval of the employment of force or violence as long as it is utilized to obtain the truth. At any rate, as admitted by the ponente, there has been a repudiation of such a doctrine which should never have been even announced in the first place contrary as it is to the mandate that no person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. It can then be looked upon as a derelict in the sea of the law. To vary the figure of speech and to borrow from Justice Street in Bachrach Motors Co. v. Summers, 42 Phil. 3 (1921), even its mere mention could amount to "rattling the bones of an antiquated skeleton from which all semblance of animate lite has long since departed." At 9.
29 Manila Trading and Supply Company v. Reyes, 62 Phil. 461, 471 (1935).
30 Chambers v. Florida, 309 US 227,241 (1940).
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