[ G.R. No. 30375. September 12, 1978 ] 174 Phil. 490; 75 OG 4949 (June, 1979)
EN BANC
[ G.R. No. 30375. September 12, 1978 ]
JOSE ESCRIBANO, PETITIONER, VS. HON. DAVID P. AVILA, AS PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF COTABATO (FIRST BRANCH) AND SALIPADA K. PENDATUN, RESPONDENTS. D E C I S I O N
AQUINO, J.:
This case is about the jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance to conduct the preliminary investigation of a complaint for written defamation.
On September 25, 1968 Congressman Salipada K. Pendatun, the governor-elect of Cotabato, filed directly with the Court of First Instance of that province (now North Cotabato) a complaint for libel against Mayor Jose Escribano of Tacurong, Cotabato (now the province of Sultan Kudarat). The complaint was subscribed and sworn to before respondent Judge David P. Avila. It was supported by the affidavit of Acting Governor Simeon Datumanong.
In that complaint Escribano was charged with having said in a speech, which was broadcasted on August 26, 1968 by a radio station at Cotabato City, that “Mr. Pendatun is the worst animal that ever live (lived) in this province” (Criminal Case No. 5283).
Escribano questioned Judge Avila’s authority to conduct the preliminary investigation of the offense. Judge Avila in his orders of March 5, 20 and 27, 1969 ruled that he had the power to conduct the preliminary investigation. He received complainant’s evidence.
On April 1, 1969 Escribano filed in this Court against Judge Avila and Pendatun the instant special civil actions of certiorari and prohibition, praying that the said orders of Judge Avila be set aside. The respondents were required to answer the petition. No restraining order was issued.
On April 18 Escribano filed a supplemental petition to annul Judge Avila’s order of March 29, 1969. In that order he found that Pendatun’s evidence had “established a probable cause to believe that “libel by radio had been committed and that Escribano “probably committed the same.” Judge Avila ordered the arrest of Escribano, fixed the bail at three thousand pesos, and referred the case to the city fiscal of Cotabato for the filing of the corresponding information. A warrant of arrest was issued on March 31. Sometime before April 16 the city fiscal filed an information for libel against Escribano.
On August 10, 1970 this Court issued a resolution restraining Judge Avila from proceeding with the arraignment of Escribano.
The issue is whether the Court of First Instance of Cotabato is invested with authority to conduct the preliminary investigation of the crime of libel committed by means of radio at Cotabato City or whether that power is lodged exclusively in the city attorney of that city.
Petitioner Escribano, in support of his contention that the city fiscal of Cotabato is the only functionary empowered to conduct the preliminary investigation of the libel charge, invokes the following provisions of the charter of Cotabato City, Republic Act No. 2364, as amended by Republic Act No. 3332:
“SEC. 23. The city attorney — His compensation, powers and duties.- The provisions of Commonwealth Act Numbered Four hundred nine to the contrary notwithstanding, the city shall have an attorney who shall be the chief legal adviser of the city. x x x. The city attorney shall have the following powers and duties:
xxx xxx xxx
‘’(f) He shall investigate all charges of crimes, misdemeanors and violations of laws and city ordinances and prepare the necessary informations or make the necessary complaints against the persons accused. x x x.
“(g) He shall have charge of the prosecution of all crimes, misdemeanors and violations of laws and city ordinances triable in the Court of First Instance of Cotabato, and the municipal court of the city, and shall discharge all the duties in respect to criminal prosecutions enjoined by law upon provincial fiscals.”
He cites the ruling in Sayo vs. Chief of Police, 80 Phil. 859; Montelibano vs. Ferrer and Benares, 97 Phil. 228, and Guerrero vs. Ferrer, 106 Phil. 1163, that in chartered cities the city fiscal has the exclusive authority to conduct preliminary investigations.
He also invokes the following provisions of article 360 of the Revised Penal Code, which were inserted by Republic Act No. 4363, approved on June 19, 1965, and which do not empower the Court of First Instance to conduct a preliminary investigation of written defamations:
“Preliminary investigation of criminal actions for written defamations as provided for in the chapter shall be conducted by the provincial or city fiscal of the province or city, or by the municipal court of the city or capital of the province where such actions may be instituted in accordance with the provisions of this article.”
On the other hand, complainant Pendatun and respondent Judge rely on section 13, Rule 112 of the Rules of Court to support their view that the Court of First Instance of Cotabato could conduct the preliminary investigation:
‘‘SEC. 13. Preliminary examination and investigation by the judge of the Court of First Instance. - Upon complaint filed directly with the Court of First Instance, without previous preliminary examination and investigation conducted by the fiscal, the judge referred thereof shall either refer the complaint to the municipal judge referred to in the second paragraph of section 2 hereof for preliminary examination and investigation, or himself conduct both preliminary examination and investigation simultaneously in the manner provided in the preceding sections, and should he find reasonable ground to believe that the defendant has committed the offense charged, he shall issue a warrant for his arrest, and thereafter refer the case to the fiscal for the filing of the corresponding information.”
Was it intended by Republic Act No. 4363, in specifying that the preliminary investigation of criminal actions for written defamations may be conducted by the provincial or city fiscal of the province or city, or the municipal court of the city or capital of the province, where the criminal action may be filed, to exclude the Court of First Instance from conducting such preliminary investigation and to entrust that power exclusively to those fiscals and courts? (Libel by means of radio is a written defamation under article 355 of the Revised Penal Code).
As admitted by the petitioner, the purpose of the amendment is to prevent the complainants in written defamation cases from harassing the accused by means of out-of-town libel suits, meaning complaints filed in remote municipal courts (Time, Inc. vs. Reyes, L-28882, May31, 1971, 39 SCRA 303, 311; p. 11, Memorandum, p. 113, Rollo).
The rule is that in construing a statute the mischief intended to be removed or suppressed and the causes which induced the enactment of a law are important factors to be considered in its construction (2 Sutherland on Statutory Construction, 885-886, cited in Philippine Sugar Centrals Agency vs. Collector of Customs, 51 Phil. 131, 145).
Therefore, it is safe to conclude that the enumeration in the amendatory law of the public officers and the courts that may conduct the preliminary investigation of complaints for written defamation was designed to divest the ordinary municipal court of that power but not to deprive the proper Court of First Instance of that same power.
Article 360 in its original form provided that the venue of the criminal and civil actions for written defamations is the province wherein the libel was published, displayed or exhibited, regardless of the place where the same was written, printed or composed. Article 360 originally did not specify the public officers and the courts that may conduct the preliminary investigation of complaints for libel.
Before article 360 was amended, the rule was that a criminal action for libel may be instituted in any jurisdiction where the libelous article was published or circulated, irrespective of where it was written or printed (People vs. Borja, 43 Phil. 618). Under that rule, the criminal action is transitory and the injured party has a choice of venue.
Experience had shown that under that old rule the offended party could harass the accused in a libel case by laying the venue of the criminal action in a remote or distant place.
Thus, in connection with an article published in the Daily Mirror and the Philippines Free Press, Pio Pedrosa, Manuel V. Villareal and Joaquin Roces were charged with libel in the justice of the peace court of San Fabian, Pangasinan (Amansec vs. De Guzman, 93 Phil. 933). To forestall such harassment, Republic Act No. 4363 laid down the following rules on the venue of the criminal and civil actions in written defamations:[*]
General rule: The action may be filed in the Court of First Instance of the province or city where the libelous article is printed and first published or where any of the offended parties actually resides at the time of the commission of the offense.
If the offended party is a public officer with office in Manila at the time the offense was committed, the venue is Manila or the city or province where the libelous article is printed and first published.
Where an offended party is a public official with office outside of Manila, the venue is the province or the city where he held office at the time of the commission of the offense or where the libelous article is printed and first published.
If an offended party is a private person, the venue is his place of residence at the time of the commission of the offense or where the libelous article is printed and first published.
The common feature of the foregoing rules is that whether the offended party is a public officer or a private person, he has always the option to file the action in the Court of First instance of the province or city where the libelous article is printed or first published.
Congress did not confine the amendatory law to laying down the guidelines for the venue of criminal and civil actions. Since, as already noted, its purpose is to minimize the filing in municipal courts of out-of-town libel suits, the lawmaking body, in order to attain that objective, deprived the ordinary municipal courts of the power to conduct the preliminary investigation of a criminal action for written defamation.
In other words, the amendment contains not only the rules limiting the venue of the criminal and civil actions to the Court of First Instance of the province or city where the libelous matter is printed and first published, or where the offended party held office or resided at the time the libel was committed, but it also specifies that the preliminary investigation should be conducted by the provincial or city fiscal of the province or city or by the municipal court of the city or capital of the province where the action may be instituted. (See People and Navarro vs. Hechanova, L-26459, November 29, 1973, 54 SCRA 101).
It should be repeated that the amendment, in specifying those who may conduct the preliminary investigation, deprived the ordinary municipal court of that power in cases of written defamations. And it should be recalled that the power of the ordinary municipal court to conduct such preliminary investigations under the old law facilitated the filing of libel cases in remote municipal courts and the consequent harassment of the accused.
That purpose of the amendment has nothing to do with the power of the Court of First Instance to conduct preliminary investigations in criminal cases cognizable by it. To retain that power of the Court of First Instance would in a way be an implementation of the purpose of the amendment, which is to prevent complainants from harassing and embarrassing the accused with libel suits in distant municipalities.
Therefore, it can be stated without fear of successful contradiction that the lawmaking body, by means of that amendment, never intended to take away the jurisdiction of the proper Court of First Instance to conduct a preliminary investigation in libel cases. The amendment merely sought to strip the ordinary municipal court (not the municipal court of the provincial capital or the city court) of its power to hold a preliminary investigation of written defamations.
The fact that the Court of First Instance is not mentioned in article 360 as a tribunal that may conduct the preliminary investigation of libel cases would seem to suggest that it cannot conduct such preliminary investigation, following the maxim inclusio unius est exclusio alterius (the inclusion of one thing is the exclusion of another or the enumeration of particular things excludes the idea of something else not mentioned, applied in Acosta vs. Flor, 5 Phil. 18; De la Rosa vs. Revita Santos, 10 Phil. 148, 149; Conde vs. Abaya, 13 Phil. 249; Tavora vs. Gavina, 79 Phil. 421, 435; In re Guzman, 73 Phil. 51; In re Estate of Enriquez and Reyes, 29 Phil. 167; Weigall vs. Shuster, 11 Phil. 340, 357; Vega vs. Municipal Board of Iloilo, 94 Phil. 949, 953; Gomez vs. Ventura, 54 Phil. 726; Mendenilla vs. Onandia, 115 Phil. 534, 539; Canlas and Manila Pencil Co. vs. Republic, 103 Phil. 712, 716; Lao Oh Kim vs. Reyes, 103 Phil. 1139).
Under that canon of legal hermeneutics, where a statute directs the performance of certain acts by a particular person or class of persons, it implies that it shall not be done otherwise or by a different person or class of persons (82 C.J.S. 667-668).
That maxim is not a rule of law. It is just a tool of statutory construction or a means of ascertaining the legislative intent. It is not of universal application and is not conclusive. It cannot be used to defeat the plainly indicated purpose of the lawmaking body (82 C.J.S. 668). The maxim is inapplicable if there is some special reason for mentioning one thing and none for mentioning another which is otherwise within the statute, so that the absence of any mention of such other will not exclude it (82 C.J.S. 670).
The maxim does not apply in case a statute appears upon its face to limit the operation of its provisions to particular persons or things by enumerating them, but no reason exists why other persons or things not so enumerated should not have been included, and manifest injustice will follow by not so including them (Springer vs. Philippine Islands, 72 Law. ed. 845, 227 U.S. 189; People vs. Manantan, 115 Phil. 657, 668).
“The maxim is no more than an auxiliary rule of interpretation to be ignored where other circumstances indicate the enumeration was not intended to be exclusive” (Manabat vs. De Aquino, 92 Phil. 1025, 1027).
The maxim cannot be applied in this case because, as shown above, the fact that the Court of First Instance is not mentioned in the amendment, as being empowered to conduct a preliminary investigation in cases of written defamation, has nothing to do with the purpose of the amendment. It should be stressed that in construing a law, the court must look to the object to be accomplished, the evils and mischief sought to be remedied, or the purpose to be subserved, and it should give the law a reasonable or liberal construction which will best effect its purpose rather than one which will defeat it (82 C.J.S. 593).
It is reasonable to surmise that the Court of First Instance was not mentioned due to inadvertence. That oversight is not unusual since preliminary investigations are usually conducted by municipal courts and fiscals. In practice, a preliminary investigation by the Court of First Instance is the exception, not the general rule.
In this connection, it is pertinent to cite the recent ruling that the power of the Court of First Instance to conduct a preliminary investigation is derived from the constitutional provision that “no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, to be determined by the judge after examination under oath or affirmation of the complainant and the witnesses he may produce” (Sec. 1[3], Art. III, now Sec. 3, Art. IV, 1973 Constitution; Collector of Customs vs. Villaluz, L-34038, June 18, 1976 and five other cases, 71 SCRA 356).
Implicit in that provision is the constitutional grant of power to the judge to hold a preliminary examination and to issue warrants of arrest and search warrants. That which is plainly implied in the language of a law is as much a part of it as that which is expressed (In re McCulloch Dick, 38 Phil. 41, 45, 90). The term “judge” embraces a judge of the Court of First Instance. Its coverage is not restricted to judges of inferior courts.
The silence of article 360 on the power of a judge of the Court of First Instance to conduct a preliminary investigation of criminal actions for written defamations does not preclude a judge of that court from holding such investigation.
However, the exercise of that power is tied up with the rules on the venue of a criminal action for written defamation. That power is lodged in the Court of First Instance of the city or province where the libelous article was printed or first published or where the offended party actually resided, or where the offended public official held office, at the time of the commission of the offense.
Escribano’s contention that in chartered cities the city fiscal has the exclusive authority to conduct preliminary investigations is not correct. While section 23(f) of the Charter of Cotabato City (Republic Act No. 2364) empowers its city attorney to “investigate all charges of crimes, misdemeanors and violations of laws and city ordinances and prepare the necessary informations or make the necessary complaints against the persons accused”, that power is not exclusive.
Section 78 of the same charter provides that the municipal or city court of Cotabato City “may also conduct preliminary investigations for any offense, without regard to the limits of punishments”, a provision which is found in section 87 of the Judiciary Law and in section 2, Rule 112 of the Rules of Court.
That same power is found in the last sentence of section 41 of Republic Act No. 409, the Revised Charter of Manila, which took effect on June 18, 1949 or after Sayo vs. Chief of Police of Manila, 80 Phil. 859 was decided.
But that provision is not found in Commonwealth Act No. 326, the charter of Bacolod City, under which Montelibano vs. Ferrer, 97 Phil. 228 and Guerrero vs. Ferrer, 106 Phil. 1163 were decided, nor is it found in the old Manila charter contained in the Revised Administrative Code.
Hence, in the Sayo, Montelibano and Guerrero cases, it was held that the city court could not conduct preliminary investigations. (See Callanta vs. Villanueva, L-24646 and L-24674, June 20, 1977, 77 SCRA 377).
WHEREFORE, the petition is dismissed with costs against the petitioner.
SO ORDERED.
Castro, C.J., Antonio, Muñoz Palma, Santos, Fernandez, and Guerrero, JJ., concur.
Teehankee, J., concurs in a separate opinion.
Fernando, J., dissents in a separate opinion.
Barredo, J., dissents on the ground that it is his firm conviction that court of first instance have no power to conduct preliminary investigations as he explained in his separate opinion in Villaluz, 71 SCRA 412-425.
Makasiar, J., concur in so far as the opinion is connected with ruling in the Villaluz case (71 SCRA 356)
Concepcion, Jr., J., no part.