G.R. No. 225595 - Dissenting Opinion

G.R. No. G.R. No. 225595, August 6, 2019,
♦ Decision, Caguioa, [J]
♦ Dissenting Opinion, Bersamin, [C J]
♦ Concurring Opinion, Perlas-Bernabe, [J]
♦ Separate Concurring Opinion, Gesmundo, [J]

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. ROLANDO SOLAR Y DUMBRIQUE, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

The Court of Appeals (CA) promulgated its decision dated January 13, 20151 in CA-G.R. CR-HC No. 05757 affirming the judgment of conviction of the accused-appellant rendered on September 3, 2012 by the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 202, in Las Piñas City2 but downgraded the crime from murder to homicide on the ground that the information did not allege murder.

Today, the Court affirms the finding of guilty but reverses the CA's downgrading of the offense, and finds the accused-appellant guilty of murder as found by the RTC on the basis that he had waived his right to assail the defects of the information filed against him and under which he had been arraigned.

I maintain that the CA correctly downgraded the offense from murder to homicide considering that the information did not charge murder, but only homicide. I insist that the accused-appellant could not be held guilty of murder if the information denied him due notice of what he was being charged with.

As can be seen, the information tersely averred that "[t]he killing of the aforesaid victim is qualified by the circumstances of treachery and abuse of superior strength." Such averment did not state any facts that described or set forth the acts constitutive of treachery and abuse of superior strength, the attendant circumstances that would have qualified the killing to murder. Such acts would have told him how he had mounted the lethal attack that led to the killing of the victim. It was to such terse information that the accused-appellant pleaded not guilty at his arraignment.

Here, the averments of the information to the effect that the two accused "with intent to kill and with treachery and abuse of superior strength, did then and there knowingly, unlawfully and feloniously attack, assault and use personal violence upon one JOSEPH CAPINIG y MATO, by then and there hitting and beating his head with a baseball bat, thereby inflicting upon the latter mortal injury which directly caused his death" did not sufficiently set forth the facts and circumstances describing how treachery attended the killing. It should not be difficult to see that merely averring the killing of a person by hitting his head with a baseball bat, without more, did not show how the execution of the crime was directly and specially ensured without risk to the accused from the defense that the victim might make. Indeed, the use of the baseball bat as an instrument to kill was not per se treachery, for there are other instruments that could serve the same lethal purpose. Nor did the use of the term treachery constitute a sufficient averment, for that term, standing alone, was nothing but a conclusion of law, not an averment of fact. In short, the particular acts and circumstances constituting treachery as an attendant circumstance[s] in murder were missing from the information.4

In People v. Valdez,5 a ruling that the CA cited to buttress its foregoing opinion, the Court emphatically held:

The majority opinion, written for the Court by Justice Caguioa, explains in justification of the reversal of the CA that:

x x x, Rolando did not question the supposed insufficiency of the Information filed against him through either a motion to quash or motion for bill of particulars. He voluntarily entered his plea during the arraignment and proceeded with the trial. Thus, he is deemed to have waived any of the waivable defects in the Information, including the supposed lack of particularity in the description of the attendant circumstances. In other words, Rolando is deemed to have understood the acts imputed against him by the Information. The CA therefore erred in modifying Rolando's conviction in the way that it did when he had effectively waived the right to question his conviction on that ground.

It is for this reason that the Court modifies Rolando's conviction from Homicide to Murder – he failed to question the sufficiency of the Information by availing any of the remedies provided under the procedural rules, namely: either by filing a motion to quash for failure of the Information to conform substantially to the prescribed form, or by filing a motion for bill of particulars. Again, he is deemed to have waived any of the waivable defects in the Information filed against him.

The right of every accused to know from the information the charge to which he pleads and for which he stands to be tried, and upon which he is to be held criminally liable is a precious and fundamental one that is constitutionally guaranteed. The right, which should be respected by all means, should not be casually taken away or be easily denied only because he did not assail the information prior to arraignment and plea, as the majority opinion has found.

Therein lay the fallacy of the majority opinion. In the first place, the accused-appellant had no duty or obligation to remind the State by motion to quash on what charge he should be made to answer to. Indeed, if he was legally and genuinely presumed not to know of any act or omission that would soon be alleged against him, he could not even be expected to speak at all or be heard from. To insist otherwise was to annul the formidable presumption of his innocence. In the second place, he must be fully informed of every act or omission that could render him criminally liable because fully informing him thereof was of the essence of due process of law. He could not properly prepare his defense without being thereby fully informed. In the third place, the omission from the information of the acts constituting treachery and abuse of superiority did not emanate from him; hence, that the information actually filed against him did not fully or adequately inform him of his supposed crime should never be blamed on him.

If the State, not him, ought to know what crime he committed, and should tell him so, then the Court as the bastion of fairness and constitutionalism should desist from treating so slightly his right to be informed. This is why the Court has fashioned Rule 110 of the Rules of Court as the means of respecting the right to be informed, providing therein as follows:

Section 8. Designation of the offense.– The complaint or information shall state the designation of the offense given by the statute, aver the acts or omissions constituting the offense, and specify its qualifying and aggravating circumstances. If there is no designation of the offense, reference shall be made to the section or subsection of the statute punishing it. (8a)

Section 9. Cause of the accusation. – The acts or omissions complained of as constituting the offense and the qualifying and aggravating circumstances must be stated in ordinary and concise language and not necessarily in the language used in the statute but in terms sufficient to enable a person of common understanding to know what offense is being charged as well as its qualifying and aggravating circumstance and for the court to pronounce judgment. (9a)

I urge, therefore, that the Court must enforce the rules. Let us always hold the right of every accused to be informed of the charge brought against him in the highest esteem. If we cannot enforce the rules we have designed to enforce constitutionally guaranteed rights for the protection of the accused, let us stop fashioning them.

ACCORDINGLY, I vote TO AFFIRM the decision of the Court of Appeals downgrading the offense from murder to homicide.