ENRILE v SALAZAR grave offenses referred to in the first clause of the same paragraph;
therefore, ruling in Hernandez should not apply.
PONENTE: Narvasa, J. (5) 4 Members of the Court voted against granting bail to Sen. Enrile and 2 against granting bail to the Panlilios. DOCTRINE: Complex Crimes and Special Complex Crimes (Art. 48) ISSUE: W/N the doctrine in Hernandez is to be applied making rebellion RULING FORMAT: absorb all other offenses committed in its course, whether or not necessary to its commission or in furtherance thereof. FACTS: (1) In the afternoon of February 27, 1990, Senate Minority floor leader HELD: Juan Ponce Enrile was arrested by the NBI, pursuant to a warrant (1) Article 48 was enacted for the purpose of favoring the culprit, not issued by Hon. Jaime Salazar. Sen. Enrile, together with spouses of sentencing him to a penalty more severe than that which would Rebecco and Erlinda Panlilio and Gregorio Honasan, was charged be proper if the several acts performed by him were punished with the crime of rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated separately. When two or more crimes are the result of a single act, murder allegedly committed during a failed coup attempt from the offender is deemed less perverse than when he commits said November 29 to December 10 that year. crimes thru separate and distinct acts. Instead of sentencing him (2) Senator Enrile was taken and held overnight at the NBI for each crime independently from the other, he must suffer the headquarters. No bail was recommended in the information and maximum of the penalty for the more serious one, on the none was fixed in the arrest warrant. assumption that it is less grave than the sum total of the separate (3) The following morning, he was brought to Camp Tomas Karingal penalties for each offense. where he was given over the custody of the Superintendent of the Northern Police Distrinct. The same day, Sen. Enrile filed a (2) The doctrine in Hernandez remains binding in prohibiting the petition for habeas corpus, alleging that he was: (1) charged with a complexing of rebellion with any other offense committed on the criminal offense which does not exist in statute books; (2) denied occasion thereof, either as a means necessary to its commission or of due process as no complaint or preliminary investigation was as an unintended effect of an activity that constitutes rebellion. conducted before he was charged; (3) denied his right to bail; (d) This, however, does not write finis to the case. Petitioner's guilt or arrested and detained on the strength of a warrant issued without innocence is not here inquired into, much less adjudged. That is for the judge having personally determine the existence of probable the trial court to do at the proper time. The Court's ruling merely cause. provides a take-off point for the disposition of other questions (4) The Solicitor General filed a return stating that, petitioners' case relevant to the petitioner's complaints about the denial of his rights does not fall within the Hernandez ruling because in Hernandez, and to the propriety of the recourse he has taken. murders and other common crimes were committed as a necessary means for the commission of rebellion; whereas in the present The Court rules further (by a vote of 11 to 3) that the information case, murder and frustrated murder was committed on the filed against the petitioner does in fact charge an offense. occasion, but not in furtherance, of rebellion. Stated otherwise, Disregarding the objectionable phrasing that would complex the Solicitor General would distinguish between the complex crime rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder, that arising from an offense being a necessary means for committing indictment is to be read as charging simple rebellion. another, which is referred to in the second clause of Article 48 and is the subject of the Hernandez ruling, and the compound crime The plaint of petitioner's counsel that he is charged with a crime arising from a single act constituting two or more grave or less that does not exist in the statute books, while technically correct so far as the Court has ruled that rebellion may not be complexed the crime of simple rebellion, which is bailable before conviction, with other offenses committed on the occasion thereof, must that must now be accepted as a correct proposition. therefore be dismissed as a mere flight of rhetoric. Read in the context of Hernandez, the information does indeed charge the The Court's earlier grant of bail to petitioners being merely petitioner with a crime defined and punished by the Revised Penal provisional in character, the proceedings in both cases are ordered Code: simple rebellion. REMANDED to the respondent Judge to fix the amount of bail to be posted by the petitioners. Once bail is fixed by said respondent (3) In the light of the Court's reaffirmation of Hernandez as applicable for any of the petitioners, the corresponding bail bond flied with to petitioner's case, and of the logical and necessary corollary that this Court shall become functus oficio. the information against him should be considered as charging only