The acquittal of accused-appellant is in order. Jurisprudence dictates that the correct course of action depends on whether the prosecution has presented evidence to establish the guilt of the accused

"The acquittal of accused-appellant is in order. Jurisprudence dictates that the correct course of action depends on whether the prosecution has presented evidence to establish the guilt of the accused


The State insists that the case must be remanded to the trial court for further proceedings so that the trial court may comply with the requirements of Sec. 3, Rule 116.


For his part, accused-appellant insists that he should be acquitted because his guilt was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. In support thereof, he cited Janjalani80 which ruled that "[c]onvictions based on an improvident plea of guilt are set aside only if such plea is the sole basis of the judgment."


Unfortunately, accused-appellant's quote is misleading. While it is true that convictions based on an improvident plea of guilt are indeed set aside if the plea is the sole basis of the judgment, it does not automatically result in the acquittal of the accused. Rather, the case is remanded to the lower court for compliance with Sec. 3, Rule 116 of the 2000 Revised Rules.


The issue of the effects of an improvident plea of guilty on a conviction is not novel.


The applicable course of action prior to the 1985 Rules is clear. As stated above, the conviction of the accused simply depends on whether the plea of guilty to a capital offense was improvident or not. An indubitable admission of guilt automatically results to a conviction. Otherwise, a conviction on the basis of an improvident plea of guilt, on appeal, would be set aside and the case would be remanded for presentation of evidence. An exception to this is when, despite the existence of an improvident plea, a conviction will not be disturbed when the prosecution presented sufficient evidence during trial to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. The existing rules, however, shifted the focus from the nature of the plea to whether evidence was presented during the trial to prove the guilt of the accused.


People v. Derilo81 explained this shift, thus:


Over the years and through numerous cases, this Court has adopted an exception to the erstwhile rule enunciating that there is no need to prove the presence of aggravating circumstances alleged in an information or complaint when the accused pleads guilty to the charge. Our rulings regarding this principle were expressed more or less in this wise:


Having pleaded guilty to the information, these aggravating circumstances were deemed fully established, for the plea of guilty to the information covers both the crime as well as its attendant circumstances qualifying and/or aggravating the crime.


We are not, however, concerned here merely with the doctrine itself but more specifically with the consequences thereof. Thus, in People vs. Rapirap, it was formerly explained that the subject doctrine has the following effects:


A plea of guilty does not merely join the issues of the complaint or information, but amounts to an admission of guilt and of the material facts alleged in the complaint or information and in this sense takes the place of the trial itself. Such plea removes the necessity of presenting further evidence and for all intents and purposes the case is deemed tried on its merits and submitted for decision. It leaves the court with no alternative but to impose the penalty prescribed by law.


Then, in People vs. Lambino, we prevented the accused in criminal actions from contradicting the outcome of his admission, with our holding that by the plea of guilty, the accused admits all the facts alleged in the information and, by that plea, he is precluded from showing that he has not committed them.


People vs. Yamson, et al. thereafter expanded the application of the doctrine to both capital and non-capital cases:


A plea of guilty is an admission of all the material facts alleged in the complaint or information. A plea of guilty when formally entered in arraignment is sufficient to sustain a conviction for any offense charged in the information, without the necessity of requiring additional evidence, since by so pleading, the defendant himself has supplied the necessary proof. It matters not even if the offense is capital for the admission (plea of guilty) covers both the crime as well as its attendant circumstances.


Finally, People vs. Apduhan, Jr. cited by some of the cases relied upon by the lower court, declared that —


While an unqualified plea of guilty is mitigating, it at the same time constitutes an admission of all material facts alleged in the information, including the aggravating circumstance therein recited, x x x The prosecution does not need to prove the three aggravating circumstances (all alleged in the second amended information) since the accused, by his plea of guilty, has supplied the requisite proof.


With the foregoing presentation, the trial court must have believed that it had acted correctly in presuming the existence of evident premeditation based on appellant's plea of guilty without any proof being presented to establish such aggravating circumstance. However, the developmental growth of our procedural rules did not stop there. With the advent of the revised Rules on Criminal Procedure on January 1, 1985, a new rule, specifically mandating the course that trial courts should follow in capital cases where the accused pleads guilty, was introduced into our remedial law with this provision:


SEC. 3. Plea of guilty to capital offense; reception of evidence — When the accused pleads guilty to a capital offense, the court shall conduct a searching inquiry into the voluntariness and full comprehension of the consequences of his plea and require the prosecution to prove his guilt and the precise degree of culpability. The accused may also present evidence in his behalf.


We expounded on this in People vs. Camay with this explanation:


Under the new formulation, three (3) things are enjoined of the trial court after a plea of guilty to a capital offense has been entered by the accused: 1. The court must conduct a searching inquiry into the voluntariness and full comprehension of the consequences of his plea; 2. The court must require the prosecution to present evidence to prove the guilt of the accused and the precise degree of his culpability; and 3. The court must ask the accused if he desires to present evidence in his behalf and allow him to do so if he desires.


The amended rule is a capsulization of the provisions of the old rule and pertinent jurisprudence. We had several occasions to issue the caveat that even if the trial court is satisfied that the plea of guilty was entered with full knowledge of its meaning and consequences, the Court must still require the introduction of evidence for the purpose of establishing the guilt and degree of culpability of the defendant. This is the proper norm to be followed not only to satisfy the trial judge but also to aid the Court in determining whether or not the accused really and truly comprehended the meaning, full significance and consequences of his plea.


The presentation of evidence is required in order to preclude any room for reasonable doubt in the mind of the trial court, or the Supreme Court on review, as to the possibility that there might have been some misunderstanding on the part of the accused as to the nature of the charge to which he pleaded guilty, and to ascertain the circumstances attendant to the commission of the crime which justify or require the exercise of a greater or lesser degree of severity in the imposition of the prescribed penalty.


To emphasize its importance this Court held in People vs. Dayot that the rule in Section 3, Rule 116 is mandatory, and issued the warning that any judge who fails to observe its command commits a grave abuse of discretion.


This Court has come a long way in adopting a mandatory rule with regard to the presentation of evidence in capital cases where the accused pleads guilty to the criminal charge. From granting trial courts in the


earlier Rules of Court sufficient discretion in requiring evidence whenever guilt is admitted by the accused, the Court has now made it mandatory on the part of the lower courts to compel the presentation of evidence and make sure that the accused fully comprehends the nature and consequences of his plea of guilty.82 (citations omitted)


Thus, the plea of guilty of an accused cannot stand in place of the evidence that must be presented and is called for by Sec. 3 of Rule 116. Trial courts should no longer assume that a plea of guilty includes an admission of the attending circumstances alleged in the information as they are now required to demand that the prosecution prove the exact liability of the accused. The requirements of Sec. 3 would become idle and fruitless if we were to allow conclusions of criminal liability and aggravating circumstances on the dubious strength of a presumptive rule.83


As it stands, the conviction of the accused shall be based principally on the evidence presented by the prosecution. The improvident plea of guilty by the accused becomes secondary.


Accordingly, convictions involving improvident pleas are affirmed if the same are supported by proof beyond reasonable doubt. Otherwise, the conviction is set aside and the case remanded for re-trial when the conviction is predicated solely on the basis of the improvident plea of guilt, meaning that the prosecution was unable to prove the accused's guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Thus:


As in the case of an improvident plea of guilty, an invalid waiver of the right to present evidence and be heard per se does not work to vacate a finding of guilt in the criminal case and enforce an automatic remand thereof to the trial court. In People v. Molina, to warrant the remand of the case it must also be proved that as a result of such irregularity there was inadequate representation of facts by either the prosecution or the defense during the trial —


In People v. Abapo we found that undue reliance upon an invalid plea of guilty prevented the prosecution from fully presenting its evidence, and thus remanded the criminal case for further proceedings. Similarly in People v. Durango where an improvident plea of guilty was followed by an abbreviated proceeding with practically no role at all being played by the defense, we ruled that this procedure was "just too meager to accept as being the standard constitutional due process at work enough to forfeit a human life" and so threw back the criminal case to the trial court for appropriate action. Verily the relevant matter that justifies the remand of the criminal case to the trial court is the procedural unfairness or complete miscarriage of justice in the handling of the proceedings a quo as occasioned by xxx the "attendant circumstances."


Conversely, where facts are adequately represented in the criminal case and no procedural unfairness or irregularity has prejudiced either the prosecution or the defense as a result of the invalid waiver, the rule is that the guilty verdict may nevertheless be upheld where the judgment is supported beyond reasonable doubt by the evidence on record. Verily, in such a case, it would be a useless ritual to return the case to the trial court for further proceedings.84 (emphases supplied)


Accordingly, this Court has sustained convictions85 involving impro­vident pleas of guilt because, in any case, the sentence of conviction is supported by proof beyond reasonable doubt independent of the accused's plea of guilty.


However, where the conviction is predicated solely on the basis of an improvident plea of guilty, this Court has consistently chosen to set aside said conviction and, instead, remand the case to the lower court for further proceedings. This was the ruling in an unbroken line of jurisprudence.86 "Further proceedings" usually entails re-arraignment and reception of evidence from both the prosecution and the defense in compliance with Sec. 3, Rule 116.


In People v. Dalacat,87 this Court, in deciding to remand the case, stated the following:


Given the unchanging state of the three-tiered requisites in Section 3, Rule 116, there is, indeed, no justification for the trial court's failure to observe them.


Thus, we purge the decision under review of its errors and remand the case to the trial court for further re-arraignment, a more incisive searching inquiry and the reception of evidence for the prosecution and the defense, if the latter so desires, in accordance with the foregoing guideposts.88 (citation omitted)


Parenthetically, it is a mistake to assume that an invalid arraignment automatically results to a remand of the case. In People v. Ong (Ong),89 the Court decided the case on its merits despite a determination of an invalid arraignment.


Jurisprudence has developed in such a way that cases are remanded back to the trial court for re-arraignment and re-trial when undue prejudice was brought about by the improvident plea of guilty. The Court explains this course of action in People v. Abapo,90 viz:


We are not unmindful of the rulings of this Court to the effect that the manner by which the plea of guilt was made, whether improvidently or not, loses its legal significance where the conviction is based on the evidence proving the commission by the accused of the offense charged. However, after a careful examination of the records of this case, we find that the improvident plea of guilt of the accused-appellant has affected the manner by which the prosecution conducted its presentation of the evidence. The presentation of the prosecution's case was lacking in assiduity and was not characterized with the meticulous attention to details that is necessarily expected in a prosecution for a capital offense. The state prosecutor in his examination of the victim was evidently concerned only with proving the respective dates of the commission of the repeated rapes, and did not attempt to elicit details about the commission of each rape that would satisfy the requirements for establishing proof beyond reasonable doubt that the offenses charged have in fact been committed by the accused. It is clear to our mind that the prosecution did not discharge its obligation as seriously as it would have had there been no plea of guilt on the part of the accused, x x x[.]91 (citation omitted)


The Court repeated the rule in People v. Molina (Molina)92 when it held that:


It is also urged in the Brief for the Appellant that an improvident plea of guilty per se results in the remand of the criminal case(s) to the trial court for the re-arraignment of accused-appellant and for further proceedings. We hold that this argument does not accurately reflect the standing principle. Our jurisdiction does not subscribe to a per se rule that once a plea of guilty is deemed improvidently made that the accused-appellant is at once entitled to a remand. To warrant a remand of the criminal case, it must also be proved that as a result of such irregularity there was inadequate representation of facts by either the prosecution or the defense during the trial. In People v. Abapo, we found that undue reliance upon an invalid plea of guilty prevented the prosecution from fully presenting its evidence, and thus remanded the criminal case for further proceedings. Similarly in People v. Durango where an improvident plea of guilty was followed by an abbreviated proceeding with practically no role at all being played by the defense, we ruled that this procedure was "just too meager to accept as being the standard constitutional due process at work enough to forfeit a human life" and so threw back the criminal case to the trial court for appropriate action. Verily the relevant matter that justifies the remand of the criminal case to the trial court is the procedural unfairness or complete miscarriage of justice in the handling of the proceedings a quo as occasioned by the improvident plea of guilty, or what People v. Tizon, encapsulizes as the "attendant circumstances."93 (citations omitted, emphasis supplied)


Here, the Court cannot sustain the conviction as there is nothing in the records that would show the guilt of accused-appellant. Neither is it just to remand the case. This is not a situation where the prosecution was wholly deprived of the opportunity to perform its duties under the 2000 Revised Rules to warrant a remand. In this case, the prosecution was already given reasonable opportunity to prove its case against accused-appellant. Regrettably, the State squandered its chances to the detriment of accused-appellant. If anything, the State, given its vast resources and awesome powers, cannot be allowed to vex an accused with criminal prosecution more than once. The State should, first and foremost, exercise fairness.


The records also do not disclose that the improvident plea of guilty jeopardized the presentation of evidence by the prosecution, to the prejudice of either the prosecution or accused-appellant.


Therefore, in instances where an improvident plea of guilt has been entered and the prosecution was given reasonable opportunity to present evidence to establish the guilt of the accused but failed to do so, the accused is entitled to an acquittal, if only to give rise to the constitutionally guaranteed right to due process and the presumption of innocence.


Since the prosecution was given four (4) separate hearing dates to present evidence against accused-appellant and, despite these chances, the prosecution was unable to prove his guilt, the Court acquits accused- appellant for failure of the prosecution to establish his guilt beyond reasonable doubt for the crime of murder."



PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. BRENDO P. PAGAL, A.K.A. "DINDO," ACCUSSED-APPELLANT. G.R. No. 241257, September 29, 2020, EN BANC.


https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2020/sep2020/gr_241257_2020.html