THIRD DIVISION
|
CARMELO F. LAZATIN, MARINO
A. MORALES, TEODORO L. DAVID and ANGELITO A. PELAYO, Petitioner, - versus
- HON. ANIANO A.
DESIERTO as OMBUDSMAN, and
SANDIGANBAYAN, THIRD DIVISION, Respondents. |
G.R. No. 147097 Present: YNARES-SANTIAGO, J., Chairperson, CARPIO,*
Nachura, and PERALTA, JJ. Promulgated: June 5, 2009 |
|
|
|
x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - x
DECISION
PERALTA, J.:
This
resolves the petition for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court,
praying that the Ombudsman's disapproval of the Office of the Special
Prosecutor's (OSP) Resolution[1]
dated September 18, 2000, recommending dismissal of the criminal cases filed
against herein petitioners, be reversed and set aside.
The
antecedent facts are as follows.
On
July 22, 1998, the Fact-Finding and Intelligence Bureau of the Office of the
Ombudsman filed a Complaint-Affidavit docketed as OMB-0-98-1500, charging
herein petitioners with Illegal Use of Public Funds as defined and penalized
under Article 220 of the Revised Penal Code and violation of Section 3,
paragraphs (a) and (e) of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 3019, as amended.
The
complaint alleged that there were irregularities in the use by then Congressman
Carmello F. Lazatin of his Countrywide Development Fund (CDF) for the calendar
year 1996, i.e., he was both proponent and implementer of the projects
funded from his CDF; he signed vouchers and supporting papers pertinent to the
disbursement as Disbursing Officer; and he received, as claimant, eighteen (18)
checks amounting to P4,868,277.08.
Thus, petitioner Lazatin, with the help of petitioners Marino A. Morales,
Angelito A. Pelayo and Teodoro L. David, was allegedly able to convert his CDF
into cash.
A
preliminary investigation was conducted and, thereafter, the Evaluation and
Preliminary Investigation Bureau (EPIB) issued a Resolution[2]
dated
Petitioner
Lazatin and his co-petitioners then filed their respective Motions for Reconsideration/Reinvestigation, which motions were granted by the
Sandiganbayan (Third Division). The
Sandiganbayan also ordered the prosecution to re-evaluate the cases against
petitioners.
Subsequently,
the OSP submitted to the Ombudsman its Resolution[3]
dated
The
Ombudsman, however, ordered the Office of the Legal Affairs (OLA) to review the
OSP Resolution. In a Memorandum[4]
dated
Thus,
petitioners filed the instant petition.
Petitioners
allege that:
I.
THE
OMBUDSMAN ACTED WITH GRAVE ABUSE OF DISCRETION OR ACTED WITHOUT OR IN EXCESS OF
HIS JURISDICTION.
II.
THE
QUESTIONED RESOLUTION WAS BASED ON MISAPPREHENSION OF FACTS, SPECULATIONS,
SURMISES AND CONJECTURES.[5]
Amplifying
their arguments, petitioners asseverate that the Ombudsman had no authority to
overturn the OSP's Resolution dismissing the cases against petitioners because,
under Section 13, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution, the Ombudsman is clothed
only with the power to watch, investigate and recommend the filing of proper
cases against erring officials, but it was not granted the power to
prosecute. They point out that under the
Constitution, the power to prosecute belongs to the OSP (formerly the
Tanodbayan), which was intended by the framers to be a separate and distinct
entity from the Office of the Ombudsman.
Petitioners conclude that, as provided by the Constitution, the OSP
being a separate and distinct entity, the Ombudsman should have no power and
authority over the OSP. Thus, petitioners
maintain that R.A. No. 6770 (The Ombudsman Act of 1989), which made the OSP an
organic component of the Office of the Ombudsman, should be struck down for
being unconstitutional.
Next,
petitioners insist that they should be absolved from any liability because the
checks were issued to petitioner Lazatin allegedly as reimbursement for the
advances he made from his personal funds for expenses incurred to ensure the
immediate implementation of projects that are badly needed by the Pinatubo
victims.
The
Court finds the petition unmeritorious.
Petitioners'
attack against the constitutionality of R.A. No. 6770 is stale. It has long been settled that the provisions
of R.A. No. 6770 granting the Office of the Ombudsman prosecutorial powers and
placing the OSP under said office have no constitutional infirmity. The issue of whether said provisions of R.A.
No. 6770 violated the Constitution had been fully dissected as far back as 1995
in Acop v. Office of the Ombudsman.[6]
Therein,
the Court held that giving prosecutorial powers to the Ombudsman is in
accordance with the Constitution as paragraph 8, Section 13, Article XI
provides that the Ombudsman shall “exercise such other functions or duties as
may be provided by law.” Elucidating on
this matter, the Court stated:
x x
x While the intention to withhold
prosecutorial powers from the Ombudsman was indeed present, the Commission
[referring to the Constitutional Commission of 1986] did not hesitate to
recommend that the Legislature could, through statute, prescribe such other
powers, functions, and duties to the Ombudsman. x
x x As finally approved by the Commission after
several amendments, this is now embodied in paragraph 8, Section 13, Article XI
(Accountability of Public Officers) of the Constitution, which provides:
Sec.13.
The Office of the Ombudsman shall have the following powers, functions, and
duties:
x x x x
Promulgate
its rules and procedure and exercise such other functions or duties as may be
provided by law.
Expounding
on this power of Congress to prescribe other powers, functions, and duties to
the Ombudsman, we quote Commissioners Colayco and Monsod during interpellation
by Commissioner Rodrigo:
x x x x
MR.
RODRIGO:
Precisely, I am coming to that. The last of the enumerated functions of the
Ombudsman is: “to exercise such powers or perform such functions or duties as
may be provided by law.” So, the
legislature may vest him with powers taken away from the Tanodbayan, may it
not?
MR.
COLAYCO:
Yes.
MR.
MONSOD:
Yes.
x x x x
MR.
RODRIGO:
Madam
President. Section 5 reads: “The Tanodbayan shall continue to function
and exercise its powers as provided by law.”
MR.
COLAYCO:
That
is correct, because it is under P.D. No. 1630.
MR.
RODRIGO:
So,
if it is provided by law, it can be taken away by law, I suppose.
MR.
COLAYCO:
That
is correct.
MR.
RODRIGO:
And
precisely, Section 12(6) says that among the functions that can be performed by
the Ombudsman are “such functions or duties as may be provided by law.” The sponsors admitted that the legislature
later on might remove some powers from the Tanodbayan and transfer these to the
Ombudsman.
MR.
COLAYCO:
Madam
President, that is correct.
x x x x
MR.
RODRIGO:
Madam
President, what I am worried about is, if we create a constitutional body which
has neither punitive nor prosecutory powers but only persuasive powers, we
might be raising the hopes of our people too much and then disappoint them.
MR.
MONSOD:
I
agree with the Commissioner.
MR.
RODRIGO:
Anyway,
since we state that the powers of the Ombudsman can later on be implemented by
the legislature, why not leave this to the legislature?
x
x x x
MR.
MONSOD: (reacting to statements of Commissioner Blas Ople):
x
x x x
With respect to the argument that he is a toothless animal,
we would like to say that we are promoting the concept in its form at the
present, but we are also saying that he can exercise such powers and functions
as may be provided by law in accordance with the direction of the thinking of
Commissioner Rodrigo. We do not think
that at this time we should prescribe this, but we leave it up to Congress at
some future time if it feels that it may need to designate what powers the
Ombudsman need in order that he be more effective. This is not foreclosed.
So, this is a reversible disability,
unlike that of a eunuch; it is not an irreversible disability.[7]
The
constitutionality of Section 3 of R.A. No. 6770, which subsumed the OSP under the Office of the Ombudsman, was
likewise upheld by the Court in Acop.
It was explained, thus:
x x
x the petitioners conclude that
the inclusion of the Office of the Special Prosecutor as among the offices
under the Office of the Ombudsman in Section 3 of R.A. No. 6770 (“An Act
Providing for the Functional and Structural Organization of the Office of the
Ombudsman and for Other Purposes”) is unconstitutional and void.
The contention is not impressed with
merit. x
x x
x x
x x
x x
x Section 7 of Article XI
expressly provides that the then existing Tanodbayan, to be henceforth known as
the Office of the Special Prosecutor, “shall continue to function and exercise
its powers as now or hereafter may be provided by law, except those conferred
on the Office of the Ombudsman created under this Constitution.” The underscored phrase evidently refers to
the Tanodbayan's powers under P.D. No.
1630 or subsequent amendatory legislation.
It follows then that Congress may remove any of the Tanodbayan's/Special
Prosecutor's powers under P.D. No. 1630 or grant it other powers, except those
powers conferred by the Constitution on the Office of the Ombudsman.
Pursuing the present line of
reasoning, when one considers that by express mandate of paragraph 8, Section
13, Article XI of the Constitution, the Ombudsman may “exercise such other
powers or perform functions or duties as may be provided by law,” it is
indubitable then that Congress has the power to place the Office of the Special
Prosecutor under the Office of the Ombudsman.
In the same vein, Congress may remove some of the powers granted to the
Tanodbayan by P.D. No. 1630 and transfer them to the Ombudsman; or grant the
Office of the Special Prosecutor such other powers and functions and duties as
Congress may deem fit and wise. This
Congress did through the passage of R.A. No. 6770.[8]
The foregoing ruling of the Court has been
reiterated in Camanag v. Guerrero.[9] More recently, in Office of the Ombudsman
v. Valera,[10]
the Court, basing its ratio decidendi on its ruling in Acop and Camanag,
declared that the OSP is “merely a component of the Office of the Ombudsman and
may only act under the supervision and control, and upon authority of the Ombudsman”
and ruled that under R.A. No. 6770, the power to preventively suspend is lodged
only with the Ombudsman and Deputy Ombudsman.[11] The Court's ruling in Acop that the
authority of the Ombudsman to prosecute based on R.A. No. 6770 was authorized
by the Constitution was also made the foundation for the decision in Perez v.
Sandiganbayan,[12]
where it was held that the power to
prosecute carries with it the power to authorize the filing of informations,
which power had not been delegated to the OSP.
It is, therefore, beyond cavil
that under the Constitution, Congress was not proscribed from legislating the
grant of additional powers to the Ombudsman or placing the OSP under the Office
of the Ombudsman.
Petitioners
now assert that the Court's ruling on the constitutionality of the provisions
of R.A. No. 6770 should be revisited and the principle of stare decisis
set aside. Again, this contention
deserves scant consideration.
The
doctrine of stare decisis et non quieta movere (to adhere to precedents and not to unsettle things which are
established) is embodied in
Article 8 of the Civil Code of the
ART.
8. Judicial decisions applying or interpreting the laws or the Constitution
shall form a part of the legal system of the
It was further explained in Fermin
v. People[13]
as follows:
The doctrine of stare decisis enjoins adherence to judicial precedents. It requires courts in a country to follow
the rule established in a decision of the Supreme Court thereof. That decision becomes a judicial precedent to
be followed in subsequent cases by all courts in the land. The doctrine of stare decisis is based on the principle that once a question of law
has been examined and decided, it should be deemed settled and closed to
further argument.[14]
In Chinese Young Men's Christian
Association of the Philippine Islands v. Remington Steel Corporation,[15] the
Court expounded on the importance of the foregoing doctrine, stating that:
The doctrine of stare decisis is one of
policy grounded on the necessity for securing certainty and stability of
judicial decisions, thus:
Time
and again, the court has held that it is a very desirable and necessary
judicial practice that when a court has laid down a principle of law
as applicable to a certain state of facts, it will adhere to that principle and
apply it to all future cases in which the facts are substantially the
same. Stare decisis et non quieta
movere. Stand by the decisions and
disturb not what is settled. Stare decisis
simply means that for the sake of certainty, a conclusion reached in one
case should be applied to those that follow if the facts are substantially the
same, even though the parties may be different. It proceeds from the first principle of
justice that, absent any powerful countervailing considerations, like cases
ought to be decided alike. Thus,
where the same questions relating to the same event have been put forward by
the parties similarly situated as in a previous case litigated and decided by a
competent court, the rule of stare decisis is a bar to any attempt to
relitigate the same issue.[16]
The doctrine has
assumed such value in our judicial system that the Court has ruled that “[a]bandonment
thereof must be based only on strong and compelling reasons, otherwise, the
becoming virtue of predictability which is expected from this Court would be
immeasurably affected and the public's confidence in the stability of the
solemn pronouncements diminished.”[17] Verily,
only upon showing that circumstances attendant in a particular case override
the great benefits derived by our judicial system from the doctrine of stare
decisis, can the courts be justified in setting aside the same.
In this case, petitioners have not
shown any strong, compelling reason to convince the Court that the doctrine of stare
decisis should not be applied to this case.
They have not successfully demonstrated how or why it would be grave
abuse of discretion for the Ombudsman, who has been validly conferred by law
with the power of control and supervision over the OSP, to disapprove or overturn any resolution
issued by the latter.
The second issue advanced by
petitioners is that the Ombudsman's disapproval of the OSP Resolution
recommending dismissal of the cases is based on misapprehension of facts,
speculations, surmises and conjectures.
The question is really whether the Ombudsman correctly ruled that there
was enough evidence to support a finding of probable cause. That issue, however, pertains to a mere error
of judgment. It must be stressed that certiorari is a remedy meant to
correct only errors of jurisdiction, not errors of judgment. This has been emphasized in First
Corporation v. Former Sixth Division of the Court of Appeals,[18]
to wit:
It is a fundamental aphorism in law
that a review of facts and evidence is not the province of the extraordinary
remedy of certiorari, which is extra ordinem - beyond the ambit of
appeal. In certiorari proceedings, judicial review does not go as far as to
examine and assess the evidence of the parties and to weigh the probative value
thereof. It does not include an inquiry
as to the correctness of the evaluation of evidence. Any error committed in the
evaluation of evidence is merely an error of judgment that cannot be remedied by
certiorari. An error of judgment is one which the court
may commit in the exercise of its jurisdiction. An error of jurisdiction is one where the act complained of was
issued by the court without or in excess of jurisdiction, or with grave abuse
of discretion, which is tantamount to lack or in excess of jurisdiction and
which error is correctible only by the extraordinary writ of certiorari. Certiorari will not be issued to cure errors of the trial court in
its appreciation of the evidence of the parties, or its conclusions anchored on
the said findings and its conclusions of law.
It is not for this Court to re-examine conflicting evidence, re-evaluate
the credibility of the witnesses or substitute the findings of fact of the
court a quo.[19]
Evidently,
the issue of whether the evidence indeed supports a finding of probable cause
would necessitate an examination and re-evaluation of the evidence upon which
the Ombudsman based its disapproval of the OSP Resolution. Hence, the Petition for Certiorari
should not be given due course.
Likewise
noteworthy is the holding of the Court in Presidential Ad Hoc Fact-Finding
Committee on Behest Loans v. Desierto,[20]
imparting the value of the Ombudsman's independence, stating thus:
Under Sections 12 and 13, Article XI
of the 1987 Constitution and RA 6770 (The Ombudsman Act of 1989), the Ombudsman
has the power to investigate and prosecute any act or omission of a public
officer or employee when such act or omission appears to be illegal, unjust,
improper or inefficient. It has been
the consistent ruling of the Court not to interfere with the Ombudsman's
exercise of his investigatory and prosecutory powers as long as his rulings are
supported by substantial evidence.
Envisioned as the champion of the people and preserver of the integrity
of public service, he has wide latitude in exercising his powers and is free
from intervention from the three branches of government. This is to ensure that
his Office is insulated from any outside pressure and improper influence.[21]
Indeed, for the Court to overturn
the Ombudsman's finding of probable cause, it is imperative for petitioners to
clearly prove that said public official acted with grave abuse of
discretion. In Presidential
Commission on Good Government v. Desierto,[22]
the Court elaborated on what constitutes such abuse, to wit:
Grave
abuse of discretion implies a capricious and whimsical exercise of judgment
tantamount to lack of jurisdiction. The Ombudsman's exercise of power must have
been done in an arbitrary or despotic manner which must be so patent and gross
as to amount to an evasion of a positive duty or a virtual refusal to perform
the duty enjoined or to act at all in contemplation of law. x
x x[23]
In this case, petitioners failed to
demonstrate that the Ombudsman acted in a manner described above. Clearly, the Ombudsman was acting in
accordance with R.A. No. 6770 and properly exercised its power of
control and supervision over the OSP when it disapproved the Resolution dated
It should also be noted that the
petition does not question any order or action of the Sandiganbayan Third
Division; hence, it should not have been
included as a respondent in this petition.
IN
VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the
petition is DISMISSED for lack of merit.
No costs.
SO ORDERED.
DIOSDADO M.
PERALTA
Associate
Justice
WE CONCUR:
CONSUELO YNARES-SANTIAGO
Associate Justice
Chairperson
ANTONIO T. CARPIO RENATO
C. CORONA
Associate Justice Associate Justice
ANTONIO EDUARDO B. NACHURA
Associate Justice
ATTESTATION
I
attest that the conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in
consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the
Court’s Division.
CONSUELO
YNARES-SANTIAGO
Associate
Justice
Third Division, Chairperson
CERTIFICATION
Pursuant
to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution and the Division Chairperson’s
Attestation, I certify that the conclusions in the above Decision were reached
in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of
the Court’s Division.
REYNATO
S. PUNO
Chief Justice
* Designated to
sit as an additional member, per Special Order No. 646 dated
** Designated to sit as an additional member, per
Special Order No. 631 dated
[1] Rollo, pp. 48-57.
[2]
[3] Supra note 1.
[4] Rollo, pp. 114-117.
[5]
[6]G.R. No. 120422,
[7]
[8]
[9]G.R. No.
164250,
[10]G.R. No.
121017,
[11]
[12]G.R. No.
166062,
[13]G.R. No.
157643,
[14]
[15]G.R. No. 159422, March 28, 2008, 550 SCRA 180.
[16]Id. at 197-198. (Emphasis supplied).
[17]Pepsi-Cola Products, Phil., Inc. v. Pagdanganan, G.R. No. 167866, October 12, 2006, 504 SCRA 549, 564.
[18]G.R. No.
171989, July 4, 2007, 526 SCRA 564.
[19]Id. at 578.
(Emphasis supplied).
[20]G.R. No.
138142, September 19, 2007, 533 SCRA 571.
[21]Id. at 581-582. (Emphasis supplied).
[22]G.R. No.
139296, November 23, 2007, 538 SCRA 207.
[23]Id. at 216.