CASE #9: UMIL v Ramos (G.R. No.

81567)
FACTS: The Intelligence Operations Unit of the Capital Command received confidential information about a
member of the NPA Sparrow Unit being treated for a gunshot wound at the St. Agnes Hospital, QC. Upon
verification, it was found that the wounded person, is actually Rolando Dural, a member of the NPA liquidation
squad, who was positively identified as one who is responsible for the killing of two (2) soldiers. Dural was
transferred to the Regional Medical Services of the CAPCOM, for security reasons.
As a consequence of this positive identification, Rolando Dural was referred to the Caloocan City Fiscal who
conducted an inquest and thereafter filed with the Regional Trial Court of Caloocan City an information
charging Rolando Dural alias Ronnie Javelon with the crime of "Double Murder with Assault Upon Agents of
Persons in Authority."
A petition for habeas corpus was filed with the Court on behalf of Roberto Umil, Rolando Dural, and Renato
Villanueva, which was subsequently approved by the former. However, Roberto Umil and Renato Villanueva
posted bail before the RTC of Pasay City where charges for violation of the Anti-Subversion Act had been filed
against them, and they were accordingly released. The petition for habeas corpus, insofar as Umil and
Villanueva are concerned, is now moot and academic and is accordingly dismissed.
The petitioner asserts that his detention is unlawful as their arrests were made without warrant and, that no
preliminary investigation was first conducted, so that the information filed against them are null and void. It
clearly appears that he was not arrested while in the act of shooting the two soldiers nor was, he arrested just
after the commission of the said offense Seemingly, his arrest without warrant is unjustified.
ISSUE: Whether or not the arrest, detention, and denial of petition to habeas corpus of the petitioner amounts
to deprivation of his constitutional right to liberty, and hence null and void.
RULING: NO, an arrest without a warrant under Section 5 paragraphs (a) and (b) of Rule 113 of the Rules of
Court, as amended, is justified when the person arrested is caught in flagranti delicto (“in the act of committing
an offense”) or when an offense has just been committed and the person making the arrest has personal
knowledge of the facts indicating that the person arrested has committed it.
The record of the instant cases would show that the persons in whose behalf these petitions for habeas corpus
have been filed, had freshly committed or were actually committing an offense, when apprehended, so that
their arrests without a warrant were clearly justified, and that they are, further, detained by virtue of valid
information filed against them in court.
Further, dural was arrested for being a member of the NPA, an outlawed subversive organization. Subversion
being a continuing offense, the arrest of Rolando Dural without warrant is justified as it can be said that he was
committing an offense when arrested. The crimes of rebellion, subversion, conspiracy or proposal to commit
such crimes, and crimes or offenses committed in furtherance thereof or in connection therewith constitute
direct assaults against the State and are in the nature of continuing crimes.
The arrest, therefore, need not follow the usual procedure in the prosecution of offenses which requires the
determination by a judge of the existence of probable cause before the issuance of a judicial warrant of arrest
and the granting of bail if the offense is bailable. Obviously, the absence of a judicial warrant is no legal
impediment to arresting or capturing persons committing overt acts of violence against government forces, or
any other milder acts but equally in pursuance of the rebellious movement.
Petition DISMISSED.
EN BANC

[G.R. No. 81567. July 9, 1990.]

IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF ROBERTO UMIL, ROLANDO DURAL
and RENATO VILLANUEVA. MANOLITA O. UMIL, and NICANOR P. DURAL, FELICITAS V. SESE,
petitioners, vs. FIDEL V. RAMOS, MAJ. GEN. RENATO DE VILLA, BRIG. GEN. RAMON MONTANO,
BRIG. GEN. ALEXANDER AGUIRRE, respondents.

[G.R. Nos. 84581-82. July 9, 1990.]

AMELIA ROQUE and WILFREDO BUENAOBRA, petitioners, vs. GEN. RENATO DE VILLA and GEN.
RAMON MONTANO, respondents.

[G.R. Nos. 84583-84. July 9, 1990.]

IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF ATTY. DOMINGO T. ANONUEVO and
RAMON CASIPLE. DOMINGO T. ANONUEVO and RAMON CASIPLE, petitioners, vs. HON. FIDEL V.
RAMOS, GEN. RENATO S. DE VILLA, COL. EVARISTO CARINO, LT. COL. REX D. PIAD, T/ SGT.
CONRADO DE TORRES, S/SGT. ARNOLD DURIAN, and Commanding Officer, PC-INP Detention Center,
Camp Crame, Quezon City, respondents.

[G.R. No. 83162. July 9, 1990.]

IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF VICKY A. OCAYA AND DANNY
RIVERA. VIRGILIO A. OCAYA, petitioner, vs. BRIG. GEN. ALEXANDER AGUIRRE, COL., HERCULES
CATALUNA, COL. NESTOR MARIANO, respondents.

[G.R. No. 85727. July 9, 1990.]

IN THE MATTER OF APPLICATION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF: DEOGRACIAS ESPIRITU, petitioner, vs.
BRIG. GEN. ALFREDO S. LIM, COL. RICARDO REYES, respondents.

[G.R. No. 86332. July 9, 1990.]

IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF NARCISO B. NAZARENO, ALFREDO
NAZARENO, petitioner, vs. THE STATION COMMANDER OF THE MUNTINLUPA POLICE STATION,
Muntinlupa, Metro Manila, P/SGT. JACINTO MEDINA, P/SGT. ELADIO TAGLE, P/SGT. LEVI SOLEDAD,
and P/SGT. MAURO AROJADO, respondents.

Efren H. Mercado for petitioners in G.R. No. 81567.

Ricardo C. Valmonte for petitioners in G.R. Nos. 84581-82.

Ramon S. Esguerra Barbara Anne C. Migallos and Agripino G. Morga for petitioners in G.R. Nos. 84583-
84.

Efren H. Mercado for petitioner in G.R. No. 83162.

Banzuela, Flores, Miralles, Raneses, Sy, Taquio & Associates for petitioner in G.R. No. 85727.

Josefina G. Campbell-Castillo for petitioners in G.R. No. 86332.

The Solicitor General for the respondents.

DECISION
PER CURIAM p:

These are eight (8) petitions for habeas corpus filed before the Court, which have been consolidated because
of the similarity of issues raised, praying for the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus, ordering the respective
respondents to produce the bodies of the persons named therein and to explain why they should not be set at
liberty without further delay.

In their respective Returns, the respondents uniformly assert that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is
not available to the petitioners as they have been legally arrested and are detained by virtue of valid
informations filed in court against them. LexLib

The petitioners counter that their detention is unlawful as their arrests were made without warrant and, that no
preliminary investigation was first conducted, so that the informations filed against them are null and void.

The Court has carefully reviewed the contentions of the parties in their respective pleadings, and it finds that
the persons detained have not been illegally arrested nor arbitrarily deprived of their constitutional right to
liberty, and that the circumstances attending these cases do not warrant their release on habeas corpus.

The arrest of a person without a warrant of arrest or previous complaint is recognized in law. The occasions or
instances when such an arrest may be effected are clearly spelled out in Section 5, Rule 113 of the Rules of
Court, as amended, which provides:

"Sec. 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful. — A peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant,
arrest a person:

(a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to
commit en offense;

(b) When an offense has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that
the person to be arrested has committed it; and

(c) When the person to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped from a penal establishment or place where
he is serving final judgment or temporarily confined while his case is pending, or has escaped while being
transferred from one confinement to another.

In cases falling under paragraphs (a) and (b) hereof, the person arrested without a warrant shall be forthwith
delivered to the nearest police station or jail, and he shall be proceeded against in accordance with Rule 112,
Section 7."

An arrest without a warrant of arrest, under Section 5 paragraphs (a) and (b) of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court,
as amended, is justified when the person arrested is caught in flagranti delicto, viz., in the act of committing an
offense; or when an offense has just been committed and the person making the arrest has personal
knowledge of the facts indicating that the person arrested has committed it. The rationale behind lawful arrests,
without warrant, was stated by this Court in the case of People vs. Kagui Malasugui 1 thus:

"To hold that no criminal can, in any case, be arrested and searched for the evidence and tokens of his crime
without a warrant, would be to leave society, to a large extent, at the mercy of the shrewdest, the most expert,
and the most depraved of criminals, facilitating their escape in many instances."

The record of the instant cases would show that the persons in whose behalf these petitions for habeas corpus
have been filed, had freshly committed or were actually committing an offense, when apprehended, so that
their arrests without a warrant were clearly justified, and that they are, further, detained by virtue of valid
informations filed against them in court.

A brief narration of the facts and events surrounding each of the eight (8) petitions is in order.
I

In G.R. No. 81567 (Umil vs. Ramos), the record shows that, on 1 February 1988, the Regional Intelligence
Operations Unit of the Capital Command (RIOU-CAPCOM) received confidential information about a member
of the NPA Sparrow Unit (liquidation squad) being treated for a gunshot wound at the St. Agnes Hospital in
Roosevelt Avenue, Quezon City. Upon verification, it was found that the wounded person, who was listed in
the hospital records as Ronnie Javelon, is actually Rolando Dural, a member of the NPA liquidation squad,
responsible for the killing of two (2) CAPCOM soldiers the day before, or on 31 January 1988, in Macanining
Street, Bagong Barrio, Caloocan City. In view of this verification, Rolando Dural was transferred to the
Regional Medical Services of the CAPCOM, for security reasons. While confined thereat, or on 4 February
1988, Rolando Dural was positively identified by eyewitnesses as the gunman who went on top of the hood of
the CAPCOM mobile patrol car, and fired at the two (2) CAPCOM soldiers seated inside the car identified as
T/Sgt. Carlos Pabon and CIC Renato Manligot.

As a consequence of this positive identification, Rolando Dural was referred to the Caloocan City Fiscal who
conducted an inquest and thereafter filed with the Regional Trial Court of Caloocan City an information
charging Rolando Dural alias Ronnie Javelon with the crime of "Double Murder with Assault Upon Agents of
Persons in Authority." The case was docketed therein as Criminal Case No. C-30112 and no bail was
recommended. On 15 February 1988, the information was amended to include, as defendant, Bernardo Itucal,
Jr. who, at the filing of the original information, was still unidentified. cdphil

Meanwhile, on 6 February 1988, a petition for habeas corpus was filed with this Court on behalf of Roberto
Umil, Rolando Dural, and Renato Villanueva. The Court issued the writ of habeas corpus on 9 February 1988
and the respondents filed a Return of the Writ on 12 February 1988. Thereafter, the parties were heard on 15
February 1988.

On 26 February 1988, however, Roberto Umil and Renato Villanueva posted bail before the Regional Trial
Court of Pasay City where charges for violation of the Anti-Subversion Act had been filed against them, and
they were accordingly released. The petition for habeas corpus, insofar as Umil and Villanueva are concerned,
is now moot and academic and is accordingly dismissed, since the writ of habeas corpus does not lie in favor
of an accused in a criminal case who has been released on bail. 2

As to Rolando Dural,it clearly appears that he was not arrested while in the act of shooting the two (2)
CAPCOM soldiers aforementioned. Nor was he arrested just after the commission of the said offense for his
arrest came a day after the said shooting incident. Seemingly, his arrest without warrant is unjustified.

However, Rolando Dural was arrested for being a member of the New Peoples Army (NPA), an outlawed
subversive organization. Subversion being a continuing offense, the arrest of Rolando Dural without warrant is
justified as it can be said that he was committing an offense when arrested. The crimes of rebellion,
subversion, conspiracy or proposal to commit such crimes, and crimes or offenses committed in furtherance
thereof or in connection therewith constitute direct assaults against the State and are in the nature of
continuing crimes. As stated by the Court in an earlier case:

"From the facts as above-narrated, the claim of the petitioners that they were initially arrested illegally is,
therefore, without basis in law and in fact. The crimes of insurrection or rebellion, subversion, conspiracy or
proposal to commit such crimes, and other crimes and offenses committed in the furtherance, on the occasion
thereof, or incident thereto, or in connection therewith under Presidential Proclamation No. 2045, are all in the
nature of continuing offenses which set them apart from the common offenses, aside from their essentially
involving a massive conspiracy of nationwide magnitude. Clearly then, the arrest of the herein detainees was
well within the bounds of the law and existing jurisprudence in our jurisdiction.

2. The arrest of persons involved in the rebellion whether as its fighting armed elements, or for committing non-
violent acts but in furtherance of the rebellion, is more an act of capturing them in the course of an armed
conflict, to quell the rebellion, than for the purpose of immediately prosecuting them in court for a statutory
offense. The arrest, therefore, need not follow the usual procedure in the prosecution of offenses which
requires the determination by a judge of the existence of probable cause before the issuance of a judicial
warrant of arrest and the granting of bail if the offense is bailable. Obviously, the absence of a judicial warrant
is no legal impediment to arresting or capturing persons committing overt acts of violence against government
forces, or any other milder acts but equally in pursuance of the rebellious movement. The arrest or capture is
thus impelled by the exigencies of the situation that involves the very survival of society and its government
and duly constituted authorities. If killing and other acts of violence against the rebels find justification in the
exigencies of armed hostilities which is of the essence of waging a rebellion or insurrection, most assuredly so
in case of invasion, merely seizing their persons and detaining them while any of these contingencies continue
cannot be less justified. . . ." 3

The record, moreover, shows that the criminal case filed against Rolando Dural and Bernardo Itucal, Jr. for
"Double Murder, etc." was tried in the court below and at the conclusion thereof, or on 17 August 1988,
Rolando Dural and Bernardo Itucal, Jr. were found guilty of the charge and sentenced accordingly. Rolando
Dural is now serving the sentence imposed upon him by the trial court. Thus, the writ of habeas corpus is no
longer available to him. For, as held in the early case of U.S. vs. Wilson: 4

"In this case, whatever may be said about the manner of his arrest, the fact remains that the defendant was
actually in court in the custody of the law on March 29, when a complaint sufficient in form and substance was
read to him. To this he pleaded not guilty. The trial followed, in which, and in the judgment of guilty pronounced
by the court, we find no error. Whether, if there were irregularities in bringing him personally before the court,
he could have been released on a writ of habeas corpus or now has a civil action for damages against the
person who arrested him we need not inquire. It is enough to say that such irregularities are not sufficient to set
aside a valid judgment rendered upon a sufficient complaint and after a trial free from error."

II

In G.R. Nos. 84581-82 (Roque vs. De Villa), the arrest of Amelia Roque and Wilfredo Buenaobra, without
warrant, is also justified. When apprehended at the house of Renato Constantino in Marikina Heights,
Marikina, Metro Manila, Wilfredo Buenaobra admitted that he was an NPA courier and he had with him letters
to Renato Constantino and other members of the rebel group. Amelia Roque, upon the other hand, was a
member of the National United Front Commission, in charge of finance, and admitted ownership of subversive
documents found in the house of her sister in Caloocan City. She was also in possession of ammunition and a
fragmentation grenade for which she had no permit or authority to possess. LLpr

The record of these two (2) cases shows that on 27 June 1988, one Rogelio Ramos y Ibanes, a member of the
NPA, who had surrendered to the military authorities, told military agents about the operations of the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New Peoples Army (NPA) in Metro Manila. He identified
some of his former comrades as "Ka Mong", a staff member of the Communications and Transportation
Bureau; "Ka Nelia" a staff member in charge of finance; "Ka Miller", an NPA courier from Sorsogon and Lopez,
Quezon; "Ka Ted", and "Ka Totoy". He also pointed to a certain house occupied by Renato Constantino
located in the Villaluz Compound, Molave St., Marikina Heights, Marikina, Metro Manila, which is used as a
safehouse of the National United Front Commission (NUFC) of the CPP-NPA.

In view of these revelations, the Constantino house was placed under military surveillance and on 12 August
1988, pursuant to a search warrant issued by Judge Eutropio Migrino of the Regional Trial Court of Pasig, a
search of the house was conducted at about 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon, by a combined team of the Criminal
Investigation Service, National Capital District (CIS-NCD) and the Constabulary Security Group (CSG). In the
course of the search, the following articles were found and taken under proper receipt:

a) One (1 ) Colt M1 6A1 long rifle with defaced serial number;

b) One (1) Cal. .380 ACT/9mm Model PPK 8 SN: 260577 & 2605778;

c) Two (2) fragmentation hand grenades;

d) Fifty-six (56) live ammunition for Cal. 5.56mm;

e) Five (5) live ammunition for Cal. .380;

f) One (1) ICOM VHF FM Radio Transceiver SN: 14903

g) One (1) Regulated power supply 220V AC;

h) One (1) Antennae (adjustable);

i) One (1 ) Speaker with cord ALEXAR;

j) Voluminous Subversive documents.

When confronted, Renato Constantino could not produce any permit or authority to possess the firearms,
ammunition, radio and other communications equipment. Hence, he was brought to the CIS Headquarters for
investigation. When questioned, he refused to give a written statement, although he admitted that he was a
staff member of the executive committee of the NUFC and a ranking member of the International Department
of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

At about 8:00 o'clock in the evening of the same day (12 August 1988), Wilfredo Buenaobra arrived at the
house of Renato Constantino in the Villaluz Compound. When accosted, he readily admitted to the military
agents that he is a regular member of the CPP/NPA and that he went to the place to deliver letters to "Ka
Mong", referring to Renato Constantino, and other members of the rebel group. On further questioning, he also
admitted that he is known as "Ka Miller" and that he was from Barangay San Pedro, Lopez, Quezon. Among
the items taken from him were the following:

(1) Handwritten letter addressed to "Ka Bing & Co. from A & Co." dated August 11, 1988;

(2) Handwritten letter addressed to "ROD from VIC (Schell datre)" dated August 11, 1988;

(3) Handwritten letter addressed to "Suzie" from "Vic", dated August 11, 1988.

Also found in Buenaobra's possession was a piece of paper containing a written but jumbled telephone
number of Florida M. Roque, sister of Amelia Roque alias "Ka Nelia", at 69 Geronimo St., Caloocan City.
Acting on the lead provided as to the whereabouts of Amelia Roque, the military agents went to the given
address the next day (13 August 1988). They arrived at the place at about 11:00 o'clock in the morning. After
identifying themselves as military agents and after seeking permission to search the place, which was granted,
the military agents conducted a search in the presence of the occupants of the house and the barangay
captain of the place, one Jesus D. Olba.

The military agents found the place to be another safehouse of the NUFC/CPP. They found ledgers, journals,
vouchers, bank deposit books, folders, computer diskettes, and subversive documents as well as live
ammunition for a .38 SPL Winchester, 11 rounds of live ammunition for a cal. .45, 19 rounds of live ammunition
for an M16 Rifle, and a fragmentation grenade. As a result, Amelia Roque and the other occupants of the
house were brought to the PC-CIS Headquarters at Camp Crame, Quezon City, for investigation. Amelia
Roque admitted to the investigators that the voluminous documents belonged to her and that the other
occupants of the house had no knowledge of them. As a result, the said other occupants of the house were
released from custody.

On 15 August 1988, Amelia Roque was brought to the Caloocan City Fiscal for inquest after which an
information charging her with violation of PD 1866 was filed with the Regional Trial Court of Caloocan City. The
case is docketed therein as Criminal Case No. C-1196. Another information for violation of the Anti-Subversion
Act was filed against Amelia Roque before the Metropolitan Trial Court of Caloocan City, which is docketed
therein as Criminal Case No. C-150458.
An information for violation of the Anti-Subversion Act was filed against Wilfredo Buenaobra before the
Metropolitan Trial Court of Marikina, Metro Manila. The case is docketed therein as Criminal Case No. 23715.
Bail was set at P4,000.00.

On 24 August 1988, a petition for habeas corpus was filed before this Court on behalf of Amelia Roque and
Wilfredo Buenaobra. At the hearing of the case, however, Wilfredo Buenaobra manifested his desire to stay in
the PC-INP Stockade at Camp Crame, Quezon City. Accordingly, the petition for habeas corpus filed on his
behalf is now moot and academic. Only the petition of Amelia Roque remains for resolution. LLjur

The contention of respondents that petitioners Roque and Buenaobra are officers and or members of the
National United Front Commission (NUFC) of the CPP was not controverted or traversed by said petitioners.
The contention must be deemed admitted. 5 As officers and/ or members of the NUFC-CPP, their arrest,
without warrant, was justified for the same reasons earlier stated vis-a-vis Rolando Dural. The arrest without
warrant of Roque was additionally justified as she was, at the time of apprehension, in possession of
ammunitions without license to possess them.

III

In G.R. Nos. 84583-84 (Anonuevo vs. Ramos), the arrest of Domingo Anonuevo and Ramon Casiple, without
warrant, is also justified under the rules. Both are admittedly members of the standing committee of the NUFC
and, when apprehended in the house of Renato Constantino, they had a bag containing subversive materials,
and both carried firearms and ammunition for which they had no license to possess or carry.

The record of these two (2) cases shows that at about 7:30 o'clock in the evening of 13 August 1988, Domingo
T. Anonuevo and Ramon Casiple arrived at the house of Renato Constantino at Marikina Heights, Marikina,
which was still under surveillance by military agents. The military agents noticed bulging objects on their waist
lines. When frisked, the agents found them to be loaded guns. Anonuevo and Casiple were asked to show
their permit or license to possess or carry firearms and ammunition, but they could not produce any. Hence,
they were brought to PC Headquarters for investigation. Found in their possession were the following articles:

a) Voluminous subversive documents

b) One (1) Cal. 7.65 MOD 83 2C Pistol SN: 001412 with one (1) magazine for Cal. 7.65 containing ten (10) live
ammunition of same caliber;

c) One (1) Cal. 7.65 Pietro Barreta SN; A18868 last digit tampered with one (1) magazine containing five (5)
live ammunition of same caliber.

At the PC Stockade, Domingo Anonuevo was identified as "KaTed", and Ramon Casiple as "Ka Totoy" of the
CPP, by their comrades who had previously surrendered to the military.

On 15 August 1988, the record of the investigation and other documentary evidence were forwarded to the
Provincial Fiscal at Pasig, Metro Manila, who conducted an inquest, after which Domingo Anonuevo and
Ramon Casiple were charged with violation of Presidential Decree No. 1866 before the Regional Trial Court of
Pasig, Metro Manila. The cases are docketed therein as Criminal Cases Nos. 74386 and 74387, respectively.
No bail was recommended.

On 24 August 1988, a petition for habeas corpus was filed with this Court on behalf of Domingo Anonuevo and
Ramon Casiple, alleging that the said Anonuevo and Casiple were unlawfully arrested without a warrant and
that the informations filed against them are null and void for having been filed without prior hearing and
preliminary investigation. On 30 August 1988, the Court issued the writ of habeas corpus, and after the
respondents had filed a Return of the Writ, the parties were heard.

The petitioners' (Anonuevo and Casiple) claim that they were unlawfully arrested because there was no
previous warrant of arrest, is without merit. The record shows that Domingo Anonuevo and Ramon Casiple
were carrying unlicensed firearms and ammunition in their person when they were apprehended.
There is also no merit in the contention that the informations filed against them are null and void for want of a
preliminary investigation. The filing of an information, without a preliminary investigation having been first
conducted, is sanctioned by the Rules. Sec. 7, Rule 112 of the Rules of Court, as amended, reads:

"Sec. 7. When accused lawfully arrested without a warrant. — When a person is lawfully arrested without a
warrant for an offense cognizable by the Regional Trial Court the complaint or information may be filed by the
offended party, peace officer or fiscal without a preliminary investigation having been first conducted, on the
basis of the affidavit of the offended party or arresting officer or person.

However, before the filing of such complaint or information, the person arrested may ask for a preliminary
investigation by a proper officer in accordance with this Rule, but he must sign a waiver of the provisions of
Article 125 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended, with the assistance of a lawyer and in case of non-
availability of a lawyer, a responsible person of his choice. Notwithstanding such waiver, he may apply for bail
as provided in the corresponding rule and the investigation must be terminated within fifteen (15) days from its
inception.

If the case has been filed in court without a preliminary investigation having been first conducted, the accused
may within five (5) days from the time he learns of the filing of the information, ask for a preliminary
investigation with the same right to adduce evidence in his favor in the manner prescribed in this Rule."

The petitioners Domingo Anonuevo and Ramon Casiple, however, refused to sign a waiver of the provisions of
Article 125 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended. In the informations filed against them, the prosecutor
made identical certifications, as follows:

"This is to certify that the accused has been charged in accordance with Sec. 7, Rule 112 of the 1985 Rules on
Criminal Procedure, that no preliminary investigation was conducted because the accused has not made and
signed a waiver of the provisions of Art. 125 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended; that based on the
evidence presented, there is reasonable ground to believe that the crime has been committed, and that the
accused is probably guilty thereof."

Nor did petitioners ask for a preliminary investigation after the informations had been filed against them in
court. Petitioners cannot now claim that they have been deprived of their constitutional right to due process.

IV

In G.R. No. 83162 (Ocaya vs. Aguirre), the arrest without warrant, of Vicky Ocaya is justified under the Rules,
since she had with her an unlicensed ammunition when she was arrested. The record of this case shows that
on 12 May 1988, agents of the PC Intelligence and Investigation of the Rizal PC-INP Command, armed with a
search warrant issued by Judge Eutropio Migrino of the Regional Trial Court of Pasig, Metro Manila, conducted
a search of a house located at Block 19, Phase II, Marikina Green Heights, Marikina, Metro Manila, believed to
be occupied by Benito Tiamson, head of the CPP-NPA. In the course of the search, Vicky Ocaya armed in a
car driven by Danny Rivera. Subversive documents and several rounds of ammunition for a .45 cal. pistol were
found in the car of Vicky Ocaya. As a result, Vicky Ocaya and Danny Rivera were brought to the PC
Headquarters for investigation. When Vicky Ocaya could not produce any permit or authorization to possess
the ammunition, an information charging her with violation of PD 1866 was filed with the Regional Trial Court of
Pasig, Metro Manila. The case is docketed therein as Criminal Case No. 73447. Danny Rivera, on the other
hand, was released from custody.

On 17 May 1988, a petition for habeas corpus was filed, with this Court on behalf of Vicky Ocaya and Danny
Rivera. It was alleged therein that Vicky Ocaya was illegally arrested and detained, and denied the right to a
preliminary investigation.

It would appear, however, that Vicky Ocaya was arrested in flagranti delicto so that her arrest without a warrant
is justified. No preliminary investigation was conducted because she was arrested without a warrant and she
refused to waive the provisions of Article 125 of the Revised Penal Code, pursuant to Sec. 7, Rule 112 of the
Rules of Court, as amended.

The petitioners Vicky Ocaya, Domingo Anonuevo, Ramon Casiple, and Amelia Roque claim that the firearms,
ammunition and subversive documents alleged to have been found in their possession when they were
arrested, did not belong to them, but were "planted" by the military agents to justify their illegal arrest.

The petitioners, however, have not introduced any evidence to support their aforesaid claim. On the other
hand, no evil motive or ill-will on the part of the arresting officers that would cause the said arresting officers in
these cases to accuse the petitioners falsely, has been shown. Besides, the arresting officers in these cases
do not appear to be seekers of glory and bounty hunters for, as counsel for the petitioners Anonuevo and
Casiple say, "there is absolutely nothing in the evidence submitted during the inquest that petitioners are on
the 'AFP Order of Battle with a reward of P15,000.00 on each on their heads.' " 6 On the other hand, as
pointed out by the Solicitor General, the arrest of the petitioners is not a product of a witch hunt or a fishing
expedition, but the result of an in-depth surveillance of NPA safehouses pointed to by no less than former
comrades of the petitioners in the rebel movement. LexLib

The Solicitor General, in his Consolidated Memorandum, aptly observes:

". . . To reiterate, the focal point in the case of petitioners Roque, Buenaobra, Anonuevo and Casiple, was the
lawful search and seizure conducted by the military at the residence of Renato Constantino at Villaluz
Compound, Molave St., Marikina Heights, Marikina, Metro Manila. The raid at Constantino's residence, was
not a witch hunting or fishing expedition on the part of the military. It was a result of an in-depth military
surveillance coupled with the leads provided by former members of the underground subversive organizations.
That raid produced positive results. To date, nobody has disputed the fact that the residence of Constantino
when raided yielded communication equipment, firearms and ammunitions, as well as subversive documents.

The military agents working on the information provided by Constantino that other members of his group were
coming to his place, reasonably conducted a 'stake-out' operation whereby some members of the raiding team
were left behind the place. True enough, barely two hours after the raid and Constantino's arrest, petitioner
Buenaobra arrived at Constantino's residence. He acted suspiciously and when frisked and searched by the
military authorities, found in his person were letters. They are no ordinary letters, as even a cursory reading
would show. Not only that, Buenaobra admitted that he is a NPA courier and was there to deliver the letters to
Constantino.

Subsequently, less than twenty four hours after the arrest of Constantino and Buenaobra, petitioners
Anonuevo and Casiple arrived at Constantino's place. Would it be unreasonable for the military agents to
believe that petitioners Anonuevo and Casiple are among those expected to visit Constantino's residence
considering that Constantino's information was true, in that Buenaobra did come to that place? Was it
unreasonable under the circumstances, on the part of the military agents, not to frisk and search anyone who
should visit the residence of Constantino, such as petitioners Anonuevo and Casiple? Must this Honorable
Court yield to Anonuevo and Casiple's flimsy and bare assertion that they went to visit Constantino, who was
to leave for Saudi Arabia on the day they were arrested thereat?.

As to petitioner Roque, was it unreasonable for the military authorities to effect her arrest without warrant
considering that it was Buenaobra who provided the leads on her identity? It cannot be denied that Buenaobra
had connection with Roque. Because the former has the phone number of the latter. Why the necessity of
jumbling Roque's telephone number as written on a piece of paper taken from Buenaobra's possession?
Petitioners Roque and Buenaobra have not offered any plausible reason so far.

In all the above incidents, respondents maintain that they acted reasonably, under the time, place and
circumstances of the events in question, especially considering that at the time of petitioners' arrest,
incriminatory evidence, i.e, firearms, ammunitions and/or subversive documents were found in their
possession.
Petitioners, when arrested, were neither taking their snacks nor innocently visiting a camp, but were arrested in
such time, place and circumstances, from which one can reasonably conclude that they were up to a sinister
plot, involving utmost secrecy and comprehensive conspiracy.".

VI

In G.R. No. 85727 (Espiritu vs. Lim), the release on habeas corpus of the petitioner Deogracias Espiritu, who is
detained by virtue of an Information for Violation of Article 142 of the Revised Penal Code (Inciting to Sedition)
filed with the Regional Trial Court of Manila, is similarly not warranted.

The record of the case shows that the said petitioner is the General Secretary of the Pinagkaisahang Samahan
ng Tsuper at Operators Nationwide (PISTON), an association of drivers and operators of public service
vehicles in the Philippines, organized for their mutual aid and protection. cdll

Petitioner claims that at about 5:00 o'clock in the morning of 23 November 1988, while he was sleeping in his
home located at 363 Valencia St., Sta. Mesa, Manila, he was awakened by his sister Maria Paz Lalic who told
him that a group of persons wanted to hire his jeepney. When he went down to talk to them, he was
immediately put under arrest. When he asked for the warrant of arrest arrest, the men, headed by Col. Ricardo
Reyes, bodily lifted him and placed him in their owner-type jeepney. He demanded that his sister, Maria Paz
Lalic, be allowed to accompany him, but the men did not accede to his request and hurriedly sped away.

He was brought to Police Station No. 8 of the Western Police District at Blumentritt, Manila where he was
interrogated and detained. Then, at about 9:00 o'clock of the same morning, he was brought before the
respondent Lim and, there and then, the said respondent ordered his arrest and detention. He was thereafter
brought to the General Assignment Section, Investigation Division of the Western Police District under Police
Capt. Cresenciano A. Cabasal where he was detained, restrained and deprived of his liberty. 7

The respondents claim however, that the detention of the petitioner is justified in view of the Information filed
against him before the Regional Trial Court of Manila, docketed therein as Criminal Case No. 88-683-85,
charging him with violation of Art. 142 of the Revised Penal Code (Inciting to Sedition).

The respondents also claim that the petitioner was lawfully arrested without a judicial warrant of arrest since
petitioner when arrested had in fact just committed an offense in that in the afternoon of 22 November 1988,
during a press conference at the National Press Club.

"Deogracias Espiritu through tri-media was heard urging all drivers and operators to go on nationwide strike on
November 23, 1988, to force the government to give in to their demands to lower the prices of spare parts,
commodities, water and the immediate release from detention of the president of the PISTON (Pinag-isang
Samahan ng Tsuper Operators Nationwide). Further, we heard Deogracias Espiritu taking the place of
PISTON president Medardo Roda and also announced the formation of the Alliance Drivers Association to go
on nationwide strike on November 23, 1988." 8

Policemen waited for petitioner outside the National Press Club in order to investigate him, but he gave the
lawmen the slip. 9 He was next seen at about 5:00 o'clock that afternoon at a gathering of drivers and
sympathizers at the corner of Magsaysay Blvd. and Valencia Street, Sta. Mesa, Manila where he was heard to
say:

"Bukas tuloy ang welga natin, sumagot na ang Cebu at Bicol na kasali sila, at hindi tayo titigil hanggang hindi
binibigay ng gobyerno ni Cory ang gusto nating pagbaba ng halaga ng spare parts, bilihin at ang pagpapalaya
sa ating pinuno na si Ka Roda hanggang sa magkagulo na." 10 (emphasis supplied).

The police finally caught up with the petitioner on 23 November 1988. He was invited for questioning and
brought to police headquarters after which an Information for violation of Art. 142 of the Revised Penal Code
was filed against him before the Regional Trial Court of Manila. 11
Since the arrest of the petitioner without a warrant was in accordance with the provisions of Rule 113, Sec.
5(b) of the Rules of Court and that the petitioner is detained by virtue of a valid information filed with the
competent court, he may not be released on habeas corpus. He may, however be released upon posting bail
as recommended. However, we find the amount of the recommended bail (P60,000.00) excessive and we
reduce it to P10,000.00 only.

VII

In G.R. No. 86332 (Nazareno vs. Station Commander), we also find no merit in the submission of Narciso
Nazareno that he was illegally arrested and is unlawfully detained. The record of this case shows that at about
8:30 o'clock in the morning of 14 December 1988, one Romulo Bunye II was killed by a group of men near the
corner of T. Molina and Mendiola Streets in Alabang, Muntinlupa, Metro Manila. One of the suspects in the
killing was Ramil Regala who was arrested by the police on 28 December 1988. Upon questioning, Regala
pointed to Narciso Nazareno as one of his companions in the killing of the said Romulo Bunye II. In view
thereof, the police officers, without warrant, picked up Narciso Nazareno and brought him to the police
headquarters for questioning. Obviously, the evidence of petitioner's guilt is strong because on 3 January
1989, an information charging Narciso Nazareno, Ramil Regala, and two (2) others, with the killing of Romulo
Bunye II was filed with the Regional Trial Court of Makati, Metro Manila. The case is docketed therein as
Criminal Case No. 731. cdphil

On 7 January 1989, Narciso Nazareno filed a motion to post bail, but the motion was denied by the trial court in
an order dated 10 January 1989, even as the motion to post bail, earlier filed by his co-accused, Manuel
Laureaga, was granted by the same trial court.

On 13 January 1989, a petition for habeas corpus was filed with this Court on behalf of Narciso Nazareno and
on 13 January 1989, the Court issued the writ of habeas corpus, returnable to the Presiding Judge of the
Regional Trial Court of Biñan, Laguna, Branch 24, ordering said court to hear the case on 30 January 1989
and thereafter resolve the petition.

At the conclusion of the hearing, or on 1 February 1989, the Presiding Judge of the Regional Trial Court of
Biñan, Laguna issued a resolution denying the petition for habeas corpus, it appearing that the said Narciso
Nazareno is in the custody of the respondents by reason of an information filed against him with the Regional
Trial Court of Makati, Metro Manila which had taken cognizance of said case and had, in fact, denied the
motion for bail filed by said Narciso Nazareno (presumably because of the strength of the evidence against
him).

The findings of the Presiding Judge of the Regional Trial Court of Biñan, Laguna are based upon the facts and
the law. Consequently, we will not disturb the same. Evidently, the arrest of Nazareno was effected by the
police without warrant pursuant to Sec. 5 (b), Rule 113, Rules of Court after he was positively implicated by his
co-accused Ramil Regala in the killing of Romulo Bunye II; and after investigation by the police authorities. As
held in People vs. Ancheta: 12

"The obligation of an agent of authority to make an arrest by reason of a crime, does not presuppose as a
necessary requisite for the fulfillment thereof, the indubitable existence of a crime. For the detention to be
perfectly legal, it is sufficient that the agent or person in authority making the arrest has reasonably sufficient
grounds to believe the existence of an act having the characteristics of a crime and that the same grounds
exist to believe that the person sought to be detained participated therein."

VIII

It is to be noted that, in all the petitions here considered, criminal charges have been filed in the proper courts
against the petitioners. The rule is, that if a person alleged to be restrained of his liberty is in the custody of an
officer under process issued by a court or judge, and that the court or judge had jurisdiction to issue the
process or make the order, or if such person is charged before any court, the writ of habeas corpus will not be
allowed. Section 4, Rule 102, Rules of Court, as amended is quite explicit in providing that:
"Sec. 4. When writ is not allowed or discharge authorized. - If it appears that the person alleged to be
restrained of his liberty is in the custody of an officer under process issued by a court or judge or by virtue of a
judgment or order of a court of record, and that the court or judge had jurisdiction to issue the process, render
the judgment, or make the order, the writ shall not be allowed; or if the jurisdiction appears after the writ is
allowed, the person shall not be discharged by reason of any informality or defect in the process, judgment, or
order. Nor shall anything in this rule be held to authorize the discharge of a person charged with or convicted of
an offense in the Philippines or of a person suffering imprisonment under lawful judgment." (emphasis
supplied)

At this point, we refer to petitioners' plea for the Court to re-examine and, thereafter, abandon its
pronouncement in Ilagan vs. Enrile, 13 that a writ of habeas corpus is no longer available after an information
is filed against the person detained and a warrant of arrest or an order of commitment is issued by the court
where said information has been filed. 14 The petitioners claim that the said ruling, which was handed down
during the past dictatorial regime to enforce and strengthen said regime, has no place under the present
democratic dispensation and collides with the basic, fundamental, and constitutional rights of the people.
Petitioners point out that the said doctrine makes possible the arrest and detention of innocent persons despite
lack of evidence against them, and, most often, it is only after a petition for habeas corpus is filed before the
court that the military authorities file the criminal information in the courts of law to be able to hide behind the
protective mantle of the said doctrine. This, petitioners assert, stands as an obstacle to the freedom and liberty
of the people and permits lawless and arbitrary State action.

We find, however, no compelling reason to abandon the said doctrine. It is based upon express provision of
the Rules of Court and the exigencies served by the law. The fears expressed by the petitioners are not really
unremediable. As the Court sees it, re-examination or reappraisal, with a view to its abandonment, of the
Ilagan case doctrine is not the answer. The answer and the better practice would be, not to limit the function of
habeas corpus to a mere inquiry as to whether or not the court which issued the process, judgment or order of
commitment or before whom the detained person is charged, had jurisdiction or not to issue the process,
judgment or order or to take cognizance of the case, but rather, as the Court itself states in Morales, Jr. vs.
Enrile, 15 "in all petitions for habeas corpus the court must inquire into every phase and aspect of petitioner's
detention — from the moment petitioner was taken into custody up to the moment the court passes upon the
merits of the petition;" and "only after such a scrutiny can the court satisfy itself that the due process clause of
our Constitution has in fact been satisfied." This is exactly what the Court has done in the petitions at bar. This
is what should henceforth be done in all future cases of habeas corpus. In short, all cases involving deprivation
of individual liberty should be promptly brought to the courts for their immediate scrutiny and disposition. LLpr

WHEREFORE, the petitions are hereby DISMISSED, except that in G.R. No. 85727 (Espiritu vs. Lim), the bail
bond for petitioner's provisional liberty is hereby ordered reduced from P60,000.00 to P10,000.00. No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan, C.J, Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera, Gutierrez, Jr., Paras, Gancayco, Padilla, Bidin, Griño-Aquino,
Medialdea and Regalado, JJ., concur.

Separate Opinions

CRUZ, J., dissenting and concurring:

I dissent insofar as the ponencia affirms the ruling in Garcia-Padilla v. Enrile that subversion is a continuing
offense, to justify the arrest without warrant of any person at any time as long as the authorities say he has
been placed under surveillance on suspicion of the offense. That is a dangerous doctrine. A person may be
arrested when he is doing the most innocent acts, as when he is only washing his hands, or taking his supper,
or even when he is sleeping, on the ground that he is committing the "continuing" offense of subversion.
Libertarians were appalled when that doctrine was imposed during the Marcos regime. I am alarmed that even
now this new Court is willing to sustain it. I strongly urge my colleagues to discard it altogether as one of the
disgraceful vestiges of the past dictatorship and uphold the rule guaranteeing the right of the people against
unreasonable searches and seizures. We can do no less if we are really to reject the past oppression and
commit ourselves to the true freedom. Even if it be argued that the military should be given every support in
our fight against subversion, I maintain that that fight must be waged honorably, in accordance with the Bill of
Rights. I do not believe that in fighting the enemy we must adopt the ways of the enemy, which are precisely
what we are fighting against. I submit that our more important motivation should be what are we fighting for.

Except for this reservation and appeal, I concur with the decision.

FELICIANO, J., concurring:

I concur in the result reached in each of the eight (8) consolidated Petitions for Habeas Corpus. At the same
time, I have some reservations concerning certain statements made by the Court in G.R. No. 81567 (Umil, et
al. v. Ramos) (Part I of the Decision) and in G.R. No. 85727 (Espiritu v. Lim) (Part VI of the Decision).

In G.R. No. 81567 (Umil, et al. v. Ramos), the per curiam opinion states categorically that: "the crimes of
rebellion, subversion, conspiracy or proposal to commit such crimes, and crimes or offenses committed in
furtherance thereof or in connection therewith constitute direct assaults against the State and are in the nature
of continuing crimes." The majority here relies upon Garcia-Padilla v. Enrile (121 SCRA 472 [1983]). The
majority there made the same equally broad statement but without any visible effort to examine the basis,
scope and meaning of such a sweeping statement. Garcia-Padilla did not even identify the specific offenses
which it regarded as "in the nature of continuing offenses which set them apart from the common offenses"
(121 SCRA at 489). It appears to me that in G.R. No. 85727 (Espiritu v. Lim) (Part VI of the Decision), the per
curiam opinion has in effect included the offense of "inciting to sedition" penalized under Article 142 of the
Revised Penal Code as a "continuing offense" under the capacious blanket of the majority opinion in Garcia-
Padilla, at least for purposes of determining the legality of the arrest without a warrant of petitioner Deogracias
Espiritu.

I would respectfully recall to my learned colleagues in the Court that "inciting to sedition" is defined in Article
142 of the Revised Penal Code in terms of speech 1 and that consequently it is important constantly to
distinguish between speech which is protected by the constitutional guaranty of freedom of speech and of the
press and speech which may constitutionally be regarded as violative of Article 142 of the Revised Penal
Code. Precisely because speech which the police authorities might regard as seditious or as criminal inciting to
sedition may well turn out to be only an exercise of a constitutionally guaranteed freedom, I would submit that
we must apply the concept of "continuing offense" narrowly for purposes of application of Section 5 (b), Rule
113 of the Revised Rules of Court.

In my view, the very broad statement made about "continuing crimes" in G.R. No. 81567 (Umil, et al. v.
Ramos) constitutes dictum, considering that Rolando Dural and Bernardo Itucal, Jr. had already been tried in
the court below for "double murder, etc." and found guilty of the offense charged, sentenced accordingly, and
at least in the case of Rolando Dural, service of the sentence imposed upon him by the trial court had already
begun. llcd

Similarly, in G.R. No. 85727 (Espiritu v. Lim) the statement that the arrest of petitioner Espiritu without a
warrant was in accordance with the provisions of Section 5 (b), Rule 113 of the Revised Rules of Court does
not appear strictly necessary, considering that the petitioner had already been charged in a valid information
filed with the competent court, which court had presumably issued an order for his commitment, and
considering further that he is entitled to bail.

There is thus no obstacle, to my mind, to a careful examination of the doctrine of "continuing crimes" as
applied to such offenses as subversion and inciting to sedition and possibly other offenses, in some future
case where that issue is raised squarely and is unavoidable.

Cortes, J., concurs.

SARMIENTO, J., dissenting:

I beg to differ from my brethren. I submit that habeas corpus lies in all eight cases.
G.R. No. 81567

The majority says that Rolando Dural's arrest without a warrant is lawful under the Rules of Court, which reads:

SEC. 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful. — A peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant,
arrest a person:

(a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to
commit an offense;

(b) When an offense has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that
the person to be arrested has committed it and

(c) When the person to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped from a penal establishment or place where
he is serving final judgment or temporarily confined while his case is pending, or has escaped while being
transferred from one confinement to another.

In cases falling under paragraphs (a) and (b) hereof, the person arrested without a warrant shall be forthwith
delivered to the nearest police station or jail, and he shall be proceeded against in accordance with Rule 112,
Section 7. 1

"Rolando Dural," so states the majority, "was arrested for being a member of the New People's Army (NPA),
an outlawed subversive organization," 2 and that "[s]ubversion being a continuing offense, the arrest of
Rolando Dural without a warrant is justified as it can be said that he was committing an offense when
arrested." 3

As I said, I beg to differ.

First, Rolando Dural was charged with "Double Murder with Assault upon Agents of Authority." 4 If he had
been guilty of subversion — the offense for which he was supposedly arrested via a warrantless arrest —
subversion was the logical crime with which he should have been charged.

The authorities could not have rightly arrested him for subversion on account of the slay of the two CAPCOM
soldiers, a possible basis for violation of the Anti-Subversion Act, because as the majority points out, "he was
not arrested while in the act of shooting [them] .. [n]or was he arrested just after the commission of the said
offense for his arrest came a day after the said shooting incident." 5

Second, I do not believe that a warrantless (or citizen's) arrest is possible in case of subversion — in the
absence of any overt act that would justify the authorities to act. "Subversion," as the term is known in law,
means "knowingly, wilfully and by overt acts affiliat[ing] [oneself] with, becom[ing] or remain[ing] a member of
the Communist Party of the Philippines and or its successor or of any subversive association as defined in
sections two and three hereof . . ." 6 Logically, the military could not have known that Dural, at the time he was
taken, was a member of the New People's Army because he was not performing any overt act that he was
truly, a rebel. Indeed, it had to take a "verification" before he could be identified as allegedly a member of the
underground army. Under these circumstances, I am hard put to say that he was committing subversion when
he was arrested, assuming that he was guilty of subversion, for purposes of a warrantless arrest. llcd

"Overt act" is made up of "[e]very act, movement, deed and word of the [accused]," 7 indicating intent to
accomplish a criminal objective. Dural, at the time he was arrested, was lying in a hospital bed. This is not the
overt act contemplated by law.

Under the Rule above-quoted, the person must have either been apprehended in flagranti (first paragraph) or
after the act, provided that the peace officer has "personal knowledge" that he, the suspect, is guilty. (second
paragraph.) As I stated, Dural was not caught in the act. Moreover, what the Regional Intelligence Operations
Unit of the Capital Command (RIOU-CAPCOM) had in its hands was a mere "confidential information." I do not
think that this is the personal knowledge referred to by the second paragraph. 8 Plainly and simply, it is
hearsay.

The rule, furthermore, on warrantless arrest is an exceptional one. By its language, it may be exercised only in
the most urgent cases and when the guilt of an offender is plain and evident. What I think we have here is
purely and simply, the military taking the law in its hands.

By stamping validity to Rolando Dural's warrantless arrest, I am afraid that the majority has set a very
dangerous precedent. With all due respect, my brethren has accorded the military a blanket authority to pick up
any Juan, Pedro, and Maria without a warrant for the simple reason that subversion is supposed to be a
continuing offense.

That Rolando Dural was arrested for being a member of the New People's Army" 9 is furthermore to me, a
hasty statement. It has yet to be established that Dural is indeed a member of the Communist Party's military
arm. And unless proven guilty, he is presumed, and must be presumed most of all by this Court, to be
innocent.

The majority also says that habeas corpus is moot and academic because Dural has been convicted and is
serving sentence. I likewise take exception. It has been held that: "The writ may be granted upon a judgment
already final." 10

The writ of liberty is a high prerogative writ. 11 Vindication of due process is its historic office. 12

G.R. Nos. 84581-82

In the case of Wilfredo Buenaobra, the majority avers that he had "manifested his desire to stay in the PC-INP
stockade," 13 for which habeas corpus has supposedly become moot and academic. I am not convinced that
that is reason enough to dismiss habeas corpus as moot and academic. It is the duty of this Court, in my
opinion, to make sure that Buenaobra has made his choice freely and voluntarily. Personally, I find it indeed
strange why he should prefer to stay in jail than go scotfree.

There is further no doubt that Buenaobra's petition is one impressed with a public interest. In one case 14 we
denied a motion to withdraw a petition for habeas corpus in view of its far-reaching importance to the nation, I
do not see how we should act differently, perhaps even insouciantly, here, especially since it involves persons
who think and believe differently from the rest of us.

Both Buenaobra and Amelia Roque supposedly admitted that they were ranking officers of the Communist
Party of the Philippines. According to the majority, Buenaobra and Roque are bound by their admissions. 15

That both parties had admitted to be members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (the National United
Front Commission) is a naked contention of the military. The fact that it has not been controverted, in my view,
does not justify the couple's arrest without a warrant. Worse, by relying on the bare word of the military, this
very Court has, to all intents and purposes, condemned the duo for a crime (subversion and/or illegal
possession of firearms) the bone of contention, precisely, below.

G.R. Nos. 84583-84

I also find the warrantless arrests of Domingo Añonuevo and Ramon Casiple to be contrary to law. That they
are "admittedly members of the standing committee of the NUFC" 16 and that "subversive materials" 17 and
unlicensed firearms were found in their possession, are, like Buenaobra's and Roque's cases, barren claims of
the military. I also fear that by the majority's strong language (that Añonuevo and Casiple are admitted NUCF
officers) the majority has pronounced the petitioners guilty, when the lower courts have yet to sit in judgment. I
think we should be the last to preempt the decision of the trial courts. We would have set to naught the
presumption of innocence accused persons enjoy. prcd

G.R. No. 83162

With respect to the case of Vicky Ocaya, I am afraid that I am inclined towards the same conclusion. There
was no basis — at the outset — to say that Ocaya was probably guilty of illegal possession of firearms. As I
have observed, a warrantless arrest must be predicated upon the existence of a crime being actually
committed or having been committed. What I find here, rather, is nothing less than a successful fishing
expedition conducted by the military upon an unwary citizen. I am quite distressed to note that this is still
possible under a supposed democracy.

G.R. No. 85727

Deogracias Espiritu was fast asleep in his house when he was placed under arrest. For the life of me, I can not
figure out how one can be picked upon in one's own home and held moments later without a warrant of arrest.

Espiritu was allegedly guilty of inciting to sedition as a result of a speech delivered in a press conference at the
National Press Club on November 21, 1988. He was, however, arrested the day after, November 22, 1988.
Under these circumstances, it eludes me how an arrest without a warrant could be justified, either under
paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of the Rule on warrantless arrests.

The majority avers that since an information had been filed with the court, Espiritu's detention, is allegedly
justifiable. The question is whether or not an information is an authority to hold a person in custody. Under the
Rules, an information means "an accusation in writing charging a person with an offense subscribed by the
fiscal and filed with the court." 18 It is not, however, an order to keep one under detention.

G.R. No. 86332

The offense for which Narciso Nazareno is being held — the fatal shooting of Romulo Bunye II — was
committed on December 14, 1988. It was, however, only on December 28, 1988 that the police collared a
suspect, Ramil Regala, who subsequently pointed to Nazareno as his accomplice. It also escapes me how
Nazareno, under these circumstances, could have been validly put under arrest without a warrant or the
existence of the circumstance described under either paragraph (a) or (b) of the Rule above-quoted: The crime
had long been committed prior to the arrest.

G.R. Nos. 81567; 84581-82; 84583-84; 83162;

85727 & 86332; Postscripts

The majority has disposed of these cases on the bedrock of what I view as doctrines that have lost their luster:

1. The teaching of Garcia-Padilla v. Enrile, 19 which held that subversion is a continuing offense;

2. The ruling in Ilagan v. Enrile; 20

I also find, for reasons to be set forth hereinafter, a glossing over of the fundamental rights of the petitioners
under the Constitution in the authorities' handling of the petitioners' cases.

I hold that Garcia-Padilla is no longer good law under the present Constitution. Two reasons persuade me.
First, it is repugnant to due process of law. ("The arrest, therefore, need not follow the usual procedure in the
prosecution of offenses which require the determination by a judge of the existence of probable cause before
the issuance of a judicial warrant of arrest and the granting of bail if the offense is bailable." 21 Under the 1987
Constitution, not even "[a] state of martial law suspend[s] the operation of [the Charter] . . ." 22 Second, it
leaves the liberty of citizens to the whim of one man ("On these occasions [the existence of a state of
emergency]), the President takes absolute command, for the very life of the Nation and its government, which,
incidentally, includes the courts, is in grave peril. In so doing, the President is answerable only to his
conscience, the people and to God. For their part, in giving him the supreme mandate as their President, the
people can only trust and pray that, giving him their own loyalty and without patriotism, the President will not
fail them." 23 Under the Charter now prevailing, the Chief Executive shares, to a certain extent, the exercise of
emergency powers, with Congress. 24
As a law advocate under the regime of Marcos, I had challenged the soundness of Garcia-Padilla. I doubted
whether it could stand up under the aegis of the 1973 Constitution. I still doubt whether it can withstand
scrutiny under the 1987 Constitution. LLjur

The majority also fails to point out that six days after Garcia-Padilla was handed down, the Court promulgated
Morales, Jr. v. Enrile, 25 a case that in my view has significantly whittled down Garcia-Padilla's very esse. In
that case, Mr. Justice Hermogenes Concepcion, Jr. wrote for the majority:

xxx xxx xxx

16. After a person is arrested . . . without a warrant . . . the proper complaint or information against him must
be filed with the courts of justice within the time prescribed by law . . .

17. Failure of the public officer to do so without any valid reason would constitute a violation of Art. 125,
Revised Penal Code, as amended. And the person detained would be entitled to be released on a writ of
habeas corpus, unless he is detained under subsisting process issued by a competent court. 26

I also gather from the records that none of the petitioners had been: (1) informed of their right to remain silent;
and (2) to have competent and independent counsel. 27

As I said, the majority is denying habeas corpus on self-serving claims of the military that the petitioners (Dural,
Buenaobra, Roque, Añonuevo, and Casiple) are members of the Communist Party of the Philippines — and
that they have supposedly confessed to be in fact members of the outlawed organization. The question that
has not been answered is whether or not these supposed confessions are admissible, for purposes of a
warrantless arrest, as evidence of guilt, in the absence of any showing that they were apprised of their
constitutional rights. I am perturbed by the silence of the majority. I am distressed because as we held in one
case, violation of the Constitution divests the court of jurisdiction and entitles the accused to habeas corpus. 28

According to the majority, a "re-examination or re-appraisal . . . of the Ilagan doctrine is not the answer." 29 In
my considered opinion, Ilagan v. Enrile 30 does not rightfully belong in the volumes of Philippine jurisprudence.
In that case, the petitioners, three Davao-based lawyers, were held by virtue of a simple information ("the
petition herein has been rendered moot and academic by virtue of the filing of an Information against them for
Rebellion . . . and the issuance of a Warrant of Arrest against them" 31 ) without any preliminary investigation
(examination) having been previously conducted (to justify the issuance of a warrant). As I have stated, an
information is not a warrant of arrest. The fact that an information exists does not mean that a warrant will be
issued.

Accused persons have the right of preliminary investigation (examination). 32 It forms part and parcel of due
process of law. 33

I find the majority's reliance on U.S. v. Wilson, 34 an ancient (1905) decision, inapt and untenable. In that case,
the accused had been served with a warrant and thereafter taken into custody. The question that faced the
Court was whether or not the warrant was valid, amid the accused's charges that the judge who issued it did
not examine the complainant under oath. We held that the query was academic, because the accused had
already pleaded, and the case had entered the trial stage. prcd

The cases at bar are not on all fours. Here, no warrant has been issued. I submit that in that event, the
petitioners are entitled to freedom by way of the writ of liberty.

xxx xxx xxx

The apprehensions in question chronicle in my mind the increasing pattern of arrests and detention in the
country without the sanction of a judicial decree. Four years ago at "EDSA", and many years before it, although
with much fewer of us, we valiantly challenged a dictator and all the evils his regime had stood for: repression
of civil liberties and trampling on of human rights. We set up a popular government, restored its honored
institutions, and crafted a democratic constitution that rests on the guideposts of peace and freedom. I feel that
with this Court's ruling, we have frittered away, by a stroke of the pen, what we had so painstakingly built in
four years of democracy, and almost twenty years of struggle against tyranny. cdll

It also occurs to me that I am interposing what looms as a quixotic outlook of Philippine law on warrantless
arrests and its implications on liberty. It is an impression that does not surprise me. Quixotic as they may
seem, and modesty aside, my views reflect a strong bias on my part — forged by years of experience and
sharpened by a painful and lonely struggle for freedom and justice — toward men and women who challenge
settled beliefs. If this dissent cannot gain any adherent for now, let it nevertheless go on record as a plea to
posterity and an appeal for tolerance of opinions with which we not only disagree, but opinions we loathe.

I feel it is my duty to articulate this dissent.

EN BANC

[G.R. No. 81567. October 3, 1991.]

IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF ROBERTO UMIL, ROLANDO DURAL
and RENATO VILLANUEVA, MANOLITA O. UMIL and NICANOR P. DURAL, FELICITAS V. SESE,
petitioners, vs.FIDEL V. RAMOS, MAJ. GEN. RENATO DE VILLA, BRIG. GEN. RAMON MONTANO, BRIG.
GEN. ALEXANDER AGUIRRE, respondents.

[G.R. Nos. 84581-82. October 3, 1991.]

AMELIA ROQUE and WILFREDO BUENAOBRA, petitioners,vs. GEN. RENATO DE VILLA and GEN.
RAMON MONTANO,respondents.

[G.R. Nos. 84583-84. October 3, 1991.]

IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF ATTY. DOMINGO T. ANONUEVO and
RAMON CASIPLE: DOMINGO T. ANONUEVO and RAMON CASIPLE, petitioners,vs. HON. FIDEL V.
RAMOS, GEN. RENATO S. DE VILLA, COL. EVARISTO CARIÑO, LT. COL. REX D. PIAD, T/SGT.
CONRADO DE TORRES, S/SGT. ARNOLD DURIAN, and Commanding Officer, PC-INP Detention Center,
Camp Crame, Quezon City,respondents.

[G.R. No. 83162. October 3, 1991.]

IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF VICKY A. OCAYA AND DANNY
RIVERA: VIRGILIO A. OCAYA, petitioner,vs. BRIG. GEN. ALEXANDER AGUIRRE, COL. HERCULES
CATALUNA, COL. NESTOR MARIANO,respondents.

[G.R. No. 85727. October 3, 1991.]

IN THE MATTER OF APPLICATION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF: DEOGRACIAS ESPIRITU, petitioner,vs.
BRIG. GEN. ALFREDO S. LIM, COL. RICARDO REYES,respondents.

[G.R. No. 86332. October 3, 1991.]

IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF NARCISO B. NAZARENO: ALFREDO
NAZARENO, petitioner,vs. THE STATION COMMANDER OF THE MUNTINLUPA POLICE STATION,
Muntinlupa, Metro Manila, P/SGT. JACINTO MEDINA, P/SGT. ELADIO TAGLE, P/SGT. LEVI SOLEDAD,
and P/SGT. MAURO AROJADO,respondents.

Efren H. Mercado for petitioners in G.R. No. 81567 and G.R. No. 83162.

Ricardo C. Valmonte for petitioners in G.R. Nos. 84581-82.

Josefina G. Campbell-Castillo for petitioners in G.R. Nos. 84583-84.

Potenciano A. Flores, Jr. for petitioner in G.R. No. 85727.

The Solicitor General for the respondents.

SYLLABUS

1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW; BILL OF RIGHTS; CAN NOT BE SUPPRESSED BY THE EXIGENCIES OF AN

ARMED CONFLICT; GARCIA-PADILLA v ENRILE (121 SCRA 472) CITED. — The treatment of persons
apprehended for the continuing offense of Rebellion suggested in Garcia-Padilla v. Enrile, 121 SCRA 472
envisions an actual state of war and is justified only when a recognition of belligerency is accorded by the
legitimate government to the rebels, resulting in the application of the laws of war in the regulation of their
relations. The rebels are then considered alien enemies — to be treated as prisoners of war when captured —
and cannot invoke the municipal law of the legitimate government they have disowned. It is in such a situation
that the processes of the local courts are not observed and the rebels cannot demand the protection of the Bill
of Rights that they are deemed to have renounced by their defiance of the government. But as long as that
recognition has not yet been extended, the legitimate government must treat the rebels as its citizens, subject
to its municipal law and entitled to all the rights provided thereunder, including and especially those guaranteed
by the Constitution. Principal among these — in our country — are those embodied in the Bill of Rights,
particularly those guaranteeing due process, prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, allowing bail,
and presuming the innocence of the accused. The legitimate government cannot excuse the suppression of
these rights by the "exigencies" of an armed conflict that at this time remains an internal matter governed
exclusively by the laws of the Republic of the Philippines. Treatment of the rebels as if they were foreign
invaders — or combatants — is not justified in the present situation as our government continues to prosecute
them as violators of our own laws. Under the doctrine announced in Garcia-Padilla, however, all persons
suspected as rebels are by such suspicion alone made subject to summary arrest no different from the
unceremonious capture of an enemy soldier in the course of a battle. The decision itself says that the arrest
"need not follow the usual procedure in the prosecution of offenses" and "the absence of a judicial warrant is
no impediment" as long as the person arrested is suspected by the authorities of the "continuing offense" of
subversion or rebellion or other related crimes. International law is thus substituted for municipal law in
regulating the relations of the Republic with its own citizens in a purely domestic matter.

2. REMEDIAL LAW; CRIMINAL PROCEDURE; WARRANTLESS ARREST; PROBABLE 'CAUSE';MUST BE

DETERMINED BY JUDGE ISSUING THE WARRANT, NOT THE ARRESTING OFFICER WHO SAYS IT IS
NOT NECESSARY. — In the case of Dural, the arrest was made while he was engaged in the passive and
innocuous act of undergoing medical treatment. The fiction was indulged that he was even then, as he lay
supine in his sickbed, engaged in the continuing offense of rebellion against the State. In further justification,
the Court says that the arresting officers acted on "confidential information" that he was in the hospital, which
information "was found to be true." This is supposed to have validated the determination of the officers that
there was "probable cause" that excused the absence of a warrant. Justice Cruz's own impression is that
probable cause must be established precisely to justify the issuance of a warrant, not to dispense with it;
moreover, probable cause must be determined by the judge issuing the warrant, not the arresting officer who
says it is not necessary.

3. ID.; ID.; ID.; REQUISITE THAT OFFENSE "HAS IN FACT JUST BEEN COMMITTED"; REQUIRES
IMMEDIACY AFTER THE COMMISSION OF THE ACT. — In the case of Espiritu, the arrest was made while
he was actually sleeping,and for allegedly seditious remarks made by him the day before. The Court says his
case is not covered by the Garcia-Padilla doctrine but approves the arrest just the same because the remarks
were supposed to continue their effects even to the following day. The offense was considered as having been
just committed (to make it come under Rule 113, Section 5, of the Rules of Court) despite the considerable
time lapse. It was worse in the case of Nazareno, who was also arrested without warrant, and no less than
fourteen days after the killing. In sustaining this act, the Court says that it was only on the day of his arrest that
he was identified as one of the probable killers, thus suggesting that the validity of a warrantless arrest is
reckoned not from the time of the commission of an offense but from the time of the identification of the
suspect. Section 5 of Rule 113 says that a peace officer may arrest a person without a warrant if the latter "has
committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense" or when an offense "has in fact just
been committed." The requirement of immediacy is obvious from the word "just," which, according to Webster,
means "a very short time ago." The arrest must be made almost immediately or soon after these acts, not at
any time after the suspicion of the arresting officer begins, no matter how long ago the offense was committed.

FELICIANO, J.,concurring and dissenting opinion:

1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW; BILL OF RIGHTS; ARREST MADE WITHOUT A WARRANT ISSUED BY A

JUDGE AFTER COMPLYING WITH THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROCEDURE; PRIMA FACIE
UNREASONABLE SEIZURE OF PERSON. — Under the Article III Section 2 of the Constitution, arrests, i.e.,
the constraint and seizure of the persons of individual members of society, must, as a general rule, be
preceded by the securing of a warrant of arrest, the rendition of which complies with the constitutional
procedure specified in Article III Section 2. Arrests made without a warrant issued by a judge after complying
with the constitutional procedure, are prima facie unreasonable seizures of persons within the meaning of
Article III Section 2.

2. ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; EXCEPTIONS. — Well-recognized exception to the norm that warrantless arrests are
unreasonable seizures of persons. Those exceptions are, in our day, essentially found in Section 5(a) and (b)
of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court. Section 5(a) and (b) mark out the situations where an officer of the law, or a
private person for that matter, may lawfully arrest a person without previously securing a warrant of arrest.

3. ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; MUST BE STRICTLY CONSTRUED; REASONS THEREFOR. — Section 5(a) and (b)
of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court it is important to recall that judicial interpretation and application of Section
5(a) and (b) must take those provision for what they are: they are exceptions to a vital constitutional norm
enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Exceptions to such a norm must be strictly construed so as not to render futile
and meaningless the constitutional rule requiring warrants of arrests before the persons of individuals may be
lawfully constrained and seized. The ordinary rule generally applicable to statutory provisions is that exceptions
to such provisions must not be stretched beyond what the language in which they are cast fairly warrants, and
all doubts should be resolved in favor of the general provision, rather than the exception. This rule must apply
with special exigency and cogency where we deal, not with an ordinary statutory provision, but with a
constitutional guarantee. Exceptions to such a guarantee must be read with especial care and sensitivity and
kept within the limits of their language so as to keep vital and significant the general constitutional norm against
warrantless arrests.

4. REMEDIAL LAW; CRIMINAL PROCEDURE; WARRANTLESS ARREST; CRIME IS COMMITTED OR

ATTEMPTED TO BE COMMITTED IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ARRESTING OFFICER; MUST BE
PROPERLY AND RESPECTIVELY CONSTRUED TO RELATE TO ACTS TAKING PLACE WITHIN THE
OPTICAL OR PERHAPS THE AUDITORY PERCEPTION OF THE ARRESTING OFFICER. — Section 5(a) of
Rule 113 of the Rules of Court relates to situations where a crime is committed or attempted to be committed
in the presence of the arresting officer. The fact of the occurrence of the offense, or of the attempt to commit
an offense, in the presence of the arresting officer, may be seen to be the substitute, under the circumstances,
for the securing of a warrant of arrest. In such a situation, there is an obvious need for immediate, even
instantaneous, action on the part of the arresting officer to suppress the breach of public order and to prevent
further breaches then and there. Section 5(a) may, moreover, be seen to refer to overt acts constitutive of a
crime taking place in the presence of the arresting officer. The term "presence" in this connection is properly
and restrictively construed to relate to acts taking place within the optical or perhaps auditory perception of the
arresting officer. If no overt, recognizably criminal, acts occur which are perceptible through the senses of the
arresting officer, such officer could not, of course, become aware at all that a crime is being committed or
attempted to be committed in his presence. It is elementary that purely mental or psychological phenomena,
not externalized in overt physical acts of a human person, cannot constitute a crime in our legal system. For a
crime to exist in our legal law, it is not enough that mens rea be shown, there must also be an actus reus. If no
such overt acts are actually taking place in the presence or within the sensory perception of the arresting
officer, there would, in principle, be ample time to go to a magistrate and ask for a warrant of arrest. There
would, in other words, not be that imperious necessity for instant action to prevent an attempted crime, to
repress the crime being committed, or to capture the doer of the perceived criminal act, the necessity which
serves as the justification in law of warrantless arrests under Section 5(a).

5. ID.; ID.; ID.; OFFENSE MUST HAVE JUST BEEN COMMITTED AND PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF
ARRESTING OFFICER OF FACTS INDICATING THAT THE PERSON TO BE ARRESTED HAS
COMMITTED THE OFFENSE; CONSTRUED . — Section 5(b) of Rule 113 of the Revised Rules of Court, two
(2) elements must be coincide before a warrantless arrest may be sustained under this subsection: (1) the
offense must have "just been committed" when the arresting officer arrived in the scene; and 2) the officer
must have "personal knowledge" of facts indicating that the person to be arrested has committed the offense.
In somewhat different terms, the first requirement imports that the effects of corpus of the offense which has
just been committed are still visible: e.g. a person sprawled on the ground, dead of a gunshot wound; or a
person staggering around bleeding profusely from stab wounds. The arresting officer may not have seen the
actual shooting or stabbing of the victim, and therefore the offense can not be said to have been committed "in
[his] presence." The requirement of "personal knowledge" on the part of the arresting officer is a requirement
that such knowledge must have been obtained directly from sense perception by the arresting officer. That
requirement would exclude information conveyed by another person, no matter what his reputation for truth
and reliability might be. Thus, where the arresting officer comes upon a person dead on the street and sees a
person running away with a knife from where the victim is sprawled on the ground, he has personal knowledge
of facts which rendered it highly probable that the person fleeing was the doer of the criminal deed. The
arresting officer must, in other words, perceive through his own senses some act which directly connects the
person to be arrested with the visible effects or corpus of a crime which has "just been committed."

6. ID.;ID.;ID.;THAT THE CRIME "HAS IN FACT JUST BEEN COMMITTED";UNDERSCORES THE

REQUIREMENT THAT THE TIME INTERVAL BETWEEN THE ACTUAL COMMISSION OF THE CRIME AND
THE ARRIVAL OF THE ARRESTING OFFICER MUST BE BRIEF; CASE AT BAR. — The use of the words
"has in fact just been committed" underscores the requirement that the time interval between the actual
commission of the crime and the arrival of the arresting officer must be brief indeed. In the first place, the word
"just" was fairly recently inserted in Section 5(b) by the 1985 Rules on Criminal Procedures, no doubt in order
to underscore the point here being made. In the second place, a latitudinarian view of the phrase "has in fact
just been committed" would obviously render pointless the requirement in Section 5 (a) that the crime must
have been committed "[in] the presence" of the arresting officer. In G.R. No. 86332, the warrantless arrest of
Alfredo Nazareno 14-days after the occurrence of the killing with which he was charged along with other
persons, cannot by any standard be justified under Section 5(b).In G.R. No. 81567, Dural was arrested without
warrant while being treated in a hospital the day after the shooting of the policemen in which he was suspected
to have been a participant. While 1-day may be substantially different from 14-days, still it must be pointed out
that at the time Dural was arrested in the hospital, the killing of the two (2) policemen in Caloocan City far away
from the St. Agnes Hospital in Quezon City could not reasonably be said to have been just committed. There
was no showing, nor did the Court require it, that the arresting officers had been in "hot pursuit" of Dural
beginning at the scene of the killing and ending the next day in the hospital.

7. ID.; ID.; ID.; REQUIREMENT OF PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF ARRESTING OFFICER; MORE

EXACTING THAN THE STANDARD IMPOSED BY THE CONSTITUTION UPON A JUDGE ISSUING A
WARRANT; REASONS THEREFOR. — It is worth noting that the requisite of "personal knowledge" on the
part of the arresting officer who is determining "probable cause" right at the scene of the crime, is in a sense
more exacting than the standard imposed by the Constitution upon the judge who, in the seclusion of his
chambers, ascertains "probable cause" by examining the evidence submitted before him. The arresting officer
must himself have "personal knowledge";the magistrate may rely upon the personal knowledge of the
witnesses examined by or for him in issuing a warrant of arrest. In the present Resolution, the majority begins
with noting the requirement of "personal knowledge" in Section 5(b),but winds up in the next page with a very
diluted standard of "reasonable belief" and "good faith" on the part of the arresting officers. The stricter
standard is properly applicable to the officers seizing a person without a warrant of arrest, for they are acting in
derogation of a constitutional right.That the person unlawfully arrested without a warrant may later turn out to
be guilty of the offense he was suspected of in the first place is, of course, quite beside the point. Even a
person secretly guilty of some earlier crime is constitutionally entitled to be secure from warrantless arrest,
unless he has in fact committed physically observable criminal acts in the presence of the arresting officer, or
had just committed such acts when the arresting officer burst upon the scene.

8. ID.;ID.;ID.;DOCTRINE OF CONTINUING CRIMES; DOES NOT DISPENSE THE REQUIREMENT THAT

OVERT ACTS RECOGNIZABLY CRIMINAL IN CHARACTER MUST TAKE PLACE IN THE PRESENCE OF
THE ARRESTING OFFICER OR MUST HAVE BEEN COMMITTED WHEN THE ARRESTING OFFICER
ARRIVED. — Examination of the utilization in the majority Resolution of the doctrine of "continuing crimes,"
shows that doctrine is here being used as a substitute for the requirement under Section 5(a) that the crime
must have been committed in the presence of the arresting officer, and to loosen up the strict standard
established in Section 5(b) that the offense "has in fact just been committed" at the time the arresting officers
arrived. But relaxing the standards established in Section 5(a) and (b) for lawful warrantless arrests necessarily
means the eroding of the protection afforded by the constitutional provision against unreasonable seizures of
persons. Moreover, the majority may be seen to be using the "continuing crime" doctrine to justify a
warrantless arrest, not because an offense has been committed in the presence of the arresting officer or
because an offense has in fact just been committed when the arresting officer arrived, but rather because the
person to be arrested in suspected of having committed a crime in the past and will, it is conclusively
presumed, commit a similar crime in the future. I respectfully submit that an examination of the "continuing
crimes" doctrine as actually found in our case law offers no reasonable basis for such use of the doctrine. More
specifically, that doctrine, in my submission, does not dispense with the requirement that overt acts
recognizably criminal in character must take place in the presence of the arresting officer, or must have just
been committed when the arresting officer arrived, if the warrantless arrest is to be lawful. The "continuing
crimes" doctrine in our case law before rendition of Garcia-Padilla v. Enrile does not sustain warrantless
arrests of person who, at the time of the actual arrests, were performing ordinary acts of day-to-day life, upon
the ground that the person to be arrested is, as it were, merely resting in between specific lawless and violent
acts which, the majority conclusively presumes, he will commit the moment he gets an opportunity to do so.

9. ID.;ID.;ID.;ID.;APPLICATION. — Our case law shows that the "continuing crimes" doctrine has been used
basically in relation to two (2) problems: the first problem is that of determination of whether or not a particular
offense was committed within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court; the second problem is that of
determining whether a single crime or multiple crimes were committed where the defense of double jeopardy is
raised. In respect of the first problem, the gist of our case law is that where some of the ingredients or
elements of an offense take place within the territorial jurisdiction of one court and some other ingredients or
elements of the same offense occur in the territory of another court, (e.g.,estafa or malversation) either one of
the two courts has jurisdiction to try the offense. Where all of the essential elements of a crime take place
within the territory of one court but "by reason of the very nature of the offense committed" the violation of the
law is deemed to be "continuing",then the court within whose territorial jurisdiction the offense continues to be
committed, has jurisdiction to try a person charged with such offense. In the latter case, the offense is deemed
to be continuing because some or all of the elements constituting the offense occurred within jurisdiction of the
second court (e.g.,kidnapping and illegal detention; libel; evasion of service of sentence).The criminal acts are
regarded as repeated or as continuing within the province or city where the defendant was found and arrested.
Clearly, overt acts of the accused constituting elements of the crime charged must be shown to have been
committed within territorial jurisdiction of the court where he is charged. Turning to the second type of problem,
the question is normally presented in terms of whether one crime or multiple crimes were committed by the
accused. Where the series of acts actually alleged and proven to have been committed by the accused
constituted only one and the same crime, the defense of double jeopardy becomes available where a second
information is filed covering acts later in the series. Upon the other hand, where the acts of the accused
constituted discrete, multiple offenses, each act comprising a distinct and separate offense, the double
jeopardy defense is non-available. The point worth stressing is that in passing upon the issue relating to the
unity or multiplicity of offenses committed, the overt acts of the accused constitutive either of the single offense
or of the plural offenses, must be shown.

10. ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; CANNOT BE INVOKED FOR WEAKENING AND DISSOLVING THE CONSTITUTIONAL
GUARANTEE AGAINST WARRANTLESS ARREST. — My final submission, is that, the doctrine of "continuing
crimes", which has its own legitimate function to serve in our criminal law jurisprudence, cannot be invoked for
weakening and dissolving the constitutional guarantee against warrantless arrests. Where no overt acts
comprising all or some of the elements of the offense charged are shown to have been committed by the
person arrested without warrant, the "continuing crime" doctrine should not be used to dress up the pretense
that a crime, begun or committed elsewhere, continued to be committed by the person arrested in the
presence of the arresting officer. The capacity for mischief of such a utilization of the "continuing crimes"
doctrine, is infinitely increased where the crime charged does not consists of unambiguous criminal acts with a
definite beginning and end in time and space (such as the killing or wounding of a person or kidnapping and
illegal detention or arson) but rather of such problematic offenses as membership in or affiliation with or
becoming a member of, a subversive association or organization. For in such cases, the overt constitutive acts
may be morally natural in themselves, and the unlawfulness of the acts a function of the aims or objectives of
the organization involved. Note, for instance, the following acts which constitute prima facie evidence of
"membership in any subversive association."

FERNAN, C.J.,concurring and dissenting opinion:

1. REMEDIAL LAW; CRIMINAL PROCEDURE; WARRANTLESS ARREST; NOT LAWFUL WHEN LAW
ENFORCEMENT AGENT HAD TIME TO SECURE A WARRANT. — In the words of the resolution, Espiritu
"was arrested without warrant, not for subversion or any 'continuing offense, but for uttering" the following:
"Bukas tuloy ang welga natin ...hanggang sa magkagulo na." Apparently, such statement was, in the
perception of the arresting officers, inciting to sedition. While not conceding the validity of such perception,
realizing that it is indeed possible that Espiritu was merely exercising his right to free speech, the resolution
nonetheless supports the authority of peace officers "only for purposes of the arrest." Chief Justice Fernan
finds this position to be adverse to the very essence of the resolution which sanctions warrantless arrests
provided they are made in accordance with law. In the first place, Espiritu may not be considered as having
"just committed" the crime charged. He allegedly first uttered seditious remarks at the National Press Club in
the afternoon of November 22, 1988. The second allegedly seditious remark aforequoted was made at around
5:00 o'clock in the same afternoon. Under these circumstances, the law enforcement agents had time, short
though it might seem, to secure a warrant for his arrest. Espiritu's apprehension may not therefore be
considered as covered by Section 5(b) of Rule 113 which allows warrantless arrests "when an offense has in
fact just been committed." The same observation applies with greater force in the case of Nazareno who was
arrested 14 days after the commission of the crime imputed to him.

2. ID.;ID.;ID.;MAY NOT BE ALLOWED IF THE ARRESTING OFFICERS ARE NOT SURE WHAT
PARTICULAR PROVISION OF LAW HAD BEEN VIOLATED BY THE PERSON ARRESTED. — Warrantless
arrests may not be allowed if the arresting officers are not sure what particular provision of law had been
violated by the person arrested. True it is that law enforcement agents and even prosecutors are not all adept
at the law. However, erroneous perception, not to mention ineptitude among their ranks, especially if it would
result in the violation of any right of a person, may not be tolerated. That the arrested person has the "right to
insist during the pre-trial or trial on the merits" (Resolution, p. 18) that he was exercising a right which the
arresting officer considered as contrary to law, is beside the point. No person should be subjected to the ordeal
of a trial just because the law enforcers wrongly perceived his action.

3. ID.; ID.; ID.; INCITING TO SEDITION, NOT A CONTINUOUS CRIME FOR WHICH THE OFFENDER MAY
BE ARRESTED WITHOUT A WARRANT. — Inciting to sedition is not a continuous crime for which the
offender may be arrested without a warrant duly issued by the proper authority. By its nature, a single act of
urging others to commit any of the acts enumerated in Article 142 of the Revised Penal Code may suffice to
hold anyone liable for inciting to sedition. While the crime is aimed at anarchy and radicalism and presents
largely a question of policy (Espuelas vs.People, 90 Phil. 524 [1951]),it should be remembered that any of the
prohibited acts in Article 142 may infringe upon the fundamental freedoms of speech and expression. There
arises, therefore, the necessity of balancing interests: those of the State as against those of its individual
citizen. Here lies the urgency of judicial intervention before an arrest is made. Added to this is the subjectivity
of the determination of what may incite other people to sedition. Hence, while the police should act swiftly
when a seditious statement has been uttered in view of the jeopardy it may cause the government, speedy
action should consist not in warrantless arrests but in securing warrants for such arrests.
4. ID.; ID.; ID.; IN CASE OF VIOLATION OF ANTI-SUBVERSION LAW; VIOLATORS MUST BE KNOWN
MEMBER THEREOF. — On the legality of warrantless arrests of violators of the Anti-Subversion Law, it
should be underscored that anyone who undertakes such arrest must see to it that the alleged violator is a
knowing member of a subversive organization as distinguished from a nominal one (People vs. Ferrer, L-
32613-14, December 27, 1972, 48 SCRA 382).Thus, a subversive may be arrested even if he has not
committed overt acts of overthrowing the government such as the bombing of government offices or the
assassination of government officials provided there is probable cause to believe that he is in the roll of
members of a subversive organization. It devolves upon the accused to prove membership by force or
coercion. Certainly, one may not be in such a roll without undergoing the conscious act of enlistment.

5. ID.;ID.;ID.;REQUIRES THAT AS OFFENSE HAS IN FACT JUST BEEN COMMITTED. — It bears repeating
that warrantless arrest are governed by law and subject to stringent application. Section 5, Rule 113 of the
Rules on Criminal Procedure now requires that an offense "has in fact just been committed." According to the
late Chief Justice Teehankee, this "connotes immediacy in point of time and excludes cases under the old rule
where an offense 'has in fact been committed no matter how long ago.' Similarly, the arrestor must have
'personal knowledge of the facts indicating that the [arrestee] has committed it' (instead of just 'reasonable
ground to believe that the [arrestee] has committed it' under the old rule)." (Dissenting opinion in Ilagan vs.
Enrile, G.R. No. 70748, October 21, 1985, 139 SCRA 349, 408).

6. ID.;ID.;ID.;GUIDELINES IN EFFECTING THEREOF. — Chief Justice deems it apt herein to recall other
Court rulings providing guidelines in effecting arrests without warrants. In People vs. Burgos (G.R. No. 68955,
September 4, 1986, 144 SCRA 1),the Court considered as illegal the warrantless arrest of a subversive not
based on the arresting officer's personal knowledge of such subversion and held that any rule on arrests
without warrants must be strictly construed. We categorically stated therein that warrantless arrests should
"clearly fall within the situations when securing a warrant would be absurd or is manifestly unnecessary as
provided by the Rules" (144 SCRA at 14). Moreover, "it is not enough that there is reasonable ground to
believe that the person to be arrested has committed a crime. A crime must in fact or actually (has just) been
committed first. That a crime has actually been committed is an essential precondition. It is not enough to
suspect that a crime may have been committed. The fact of the commission of the offense must be undisputed.
The test of reasonable ground applies only to the identity of the perpetrator."

7. ID.;ID.;ID.;PROCEDURE. — Earlier, in Morales, Jr. vs. Enrile (G.R. No. 61016, April 26, 1983, 121 SCRA
538),the Court laid out the procedure to be observed the moment a person is arrested: "At the time a person is
arrested, it shall be the duty of the arresting officer to inform him of the reason for the arrest and he must be
shown the warrant of arrest, if any. He shall be informed of his constitutional rights to remain silent and to
counsel, and that any statement he might make could be used against him. The person arrested shall have the
right to communicate with his lawyer, a relative, or anyone he chooses by the most expedient means — by
telephone if possible — or by letter or messenger. It shall be the responsibility of the arresting officer to see to
it that this is accomplished. No custodial investigation shall be conducted unless it be in the presence of
counsel engaged by the person arrested, by any person on his behalf, or appointed by the court upon petition
on his behalf, or appointed by the court upon the petition either of the detainee himself or by anyone on his
behalf. The right to counsel may be waived but the waiver shall not be valid unless made with the assistance of
counsel. Any statement obtained in violation of the procedure herein laid down, whether exculpatory or
inculpatory, in whole or in part shall be inadmissible in evidence." These judicial pronouncements must be
observed by everyone concerned: the military and civilian components of the government tasked with law
enforcement as well as the ordinary citizen who faces a situation wherein civic duty demands his intervention
to preserve peace in the community.

GUTIERREZ, JR.,J.,concurring and dissenting opinion:

1. REMEDIAL LAW; CRIMINAL PROCEDURE; WARRANTLESS ARREST; GROUNDS PROVIDED IN SEC.

5(a) and (b) OF RULE 113 OF THE RULES OF COURT; MUST BE STRICTLY APPLIED. — Justice Gutierrez
vote for the strict application of Section 5 (a) and (b) of Rule 113 on arrests without warrant. Only in the cases
found in the Rule should we allow arrests without warrants. In case of doubt, the tendency should be to declare
the warrantless arrest illegal.
2. ID.;ID.;ID.;VALID, IF A PERSON WAS ARRESTED AFTER HAVING BEEN APPREHENDED WHILE IN
POSSESSION OF ILLEGAL FIREARMS OR AMMUNITION. — Insofar as G.R. Nos. 84581-82, G.R. Nos.
84583-84 and G.R. No. 83162 involving Amelia Roque, Wilfredo Buenaobra, Domingo Anonuevo, Ramon
Casiple, and Vicky Ocaya are concerned, the petitioners were arrested after having been apprehended while in
possession of illegal firearms and ammunitions. They were actually committing a crime when arrested.

3. ID.;ID.;ID.;DOCTRINE OF CONTINUING OFFENSE; NOT A SUFFICIENT GROUND TO EFFECT

THEREOF; REASONS THEREFOR. — Insofar as G.R. No. 81567 is concerned, Justice Gutierrez joins the
other dissenting Justices in their observations regarding "continuing offenses." To base warrantless arrests on
the doctrine of continuing offense is to give a license for the illegal detention of persons on pure suspicion.
Rebellion, insurrection, or sedition are political offenses where the line between overt acts and simple
advocacy or adherence to a belief is extremely thin. If a court has convicted an accused of rebellion and he is
found roaming around, he may be arrested. But until a person is proved guilty, He fails to see how anybody
can jump to a personal conclusion that the suspect is indeed a rebel and must be picked up on sight whenever
seen. The grant of authority in the majority opinion is too broad. If warrantless searches are to be validated, it
should be Congress and not this Court which should draw strict and narrow standards. Otherwise, the non-
rebels who are critical, noisy, or obnoxious will be indiscriminately lumped up with those actually taking up
arms against the Government.

4. ID.; ID.; ID.; SUBSEQUENT CONVICTION OF PERSON ARRESTED; DOES NOT VALIDATE AN ILLEGAL
ARREST. — The belief of law enforcement authorities, no matter how well grounded on past events, that the
petitioner would probably shoot other policemen whom he may meet does not validate warrantless arrests. He
cannot understand why the authorities preferred to bide their time, await the petitioner's surfacing from
underground, and pounce on him with no legal authority instead of securing warrants of arrest for his
apprehension. The subsequent conviction of a person arrested illegally does not validate the warrantless
arrest. The subsequent conviction of a person arrested illegally does not reach back into the past and render
legal what was illegal. The violation of the constitutional right against illegal seizures is not cured by the fact
that the arrested person is indeed guilty of the offense for which he was seized. A government of laws must
abide by its own Constitution.

5. CRIMINAL LAW; INCITING TO SEDITION; NOT PRESENT WHEN A PERSON URGED JEEPNEY AND
BUS DRIVERS TO JOIN A STRIKE OF TRANSPORT WORKERS; REASONS THEREFOR. — Justice
Gutierrez votes to grant the motion for reconsideration in G.R. No. 85727 where Deogracias Espiritu was
arrested while urging jeepney and bus drivers to join a strike of transport workers on the ground that he was
inciting to sedition. This impresses him as Court validation of a clear infringement of an individual's freedom of
speech. "Inciting to sedition" is a term over which the most learned writers and jurists will differ when applied to
actual cases. He doubts if there are more than a handful of policemen in the whole country who would know
the full dimensions of the fine distinctions which separate the nation's interest in the liberty to fully and freely
discuss matters of national importance on one hand and the application of the clear and present danger rule as
the test when claims of national security and public safety are asserted, on the other. In fact, the percentage of
knowledgeability would go down further if we consider that "inciting to sedition" requires the ability to define,
among others, (1) what kinds of speeches or writings fall under the term "inciting"; (2) the meaning of rising
publicly and tumultuously;(3) when does a certain effort amount to force, intimidation, or illegal method;(4) what
constitute the five objects or ends of sedition;and (5) what is a scurrilous libel against the Philippines. If we
allow public speakers to be picked up simply because what they say is irritating or obnoxious to the ears of a
peace officer or critical of government policy and action, we will undermine all pronouncements of this Court on
the need to protect that matrix of all freedoms, which is freedom of expression. At the very least, a warrant of
arrest after a preliminary examination by a Judge is essential in this type of offense.

REGALADO, J.,dissenting opinion:

1. REMEDIAL LAW; CRIMINAL PROCEDURE; WARRANTLESS ARREST; REQUIREMENT THAT THE

PERSON MAKING THE ARREST MUST HAVE HAD PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF FACTUAL
INDICATIONS REGARDING THE COMPLICITY OR LIABILITY OF THE ARRESTEE FOR THE CRIME;
PURPOSE. — The requirement in Section 5(b) of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court that the person making the
arrest must have had personal knowledge of factual indications regarding the complicity or liability of the
arrestee for the crime. Yet, that amendment requiring such personal knowledge must have been designed to
obviate the practice in the past of warrantless arrests being effected on the basis of or supposed reliance upon
information obtained from third persons who merely professed such knowledge or, worse, concocted such
reports for variant reasons not necessarily founded on truth.

2. ID.;ID.;ID.;REQUIREMENT THAT THE CRIME HAVE BEEN COMMITTED; CONTEMPLATES THE

RECENCY OF TIME WHEN THE CRIME WAS IN FACT COMMITTED. — As an added deterrent to the
possibility that such arrest without a warrant may result from imputations based on dubious motives, it is now
required that the crime must have just been committed. The recency contemplated here, in relation to the
making of the warrantless arrest, is the time when the crime was in fact committed, and not the time when the
person making the arrest learned or was informed of such commission. Otherwise, at the risk of resorting to
reductio ad absurdum, such warrantless arrests could be validly made even for a crime committed, say, more
than a year ago but of which the arresting officer received information only today.

3. ID.;ID.;ID.;INTERVAL OF TIME BETWEEN THE COMMISSION OF THE CRIME AND THE ARREST;
CONSTRUED. — The brevity in the interval of time between the commission of the crime and the arrest, as
now required by Section 5(b),must have been dictated by the consideration, among others, that by reason of
such recency of the criminal occurrence, the probability of the arresting officer acquiring personal and/or
reliable knowledge of such fact and the identity of the offender is necessarily enhanced, if not assured. The
longer the interval, the more attenuated are the chances of his obtaining such verifiable knowledge. In the case
under consideration, the obtention of information of a crime committed fourteen (14) days earlier necessarily
undermines the capacity of the arresting officer to ascertain the reliability of the information he is acting upon
and to acquire personal knowledge thereof after such verification.

SARMIENTO, J.,dissenting opinion:

1. REMEDIAL LAW; CRIMINAL PROCEDURE; WARRANTLESS ARREST; TO JUSTIFY THEREOF, THE

OVERT ACT OF SUBVERSION SHOULD BE VISIBLE TO THE EYES OF THE POLICE OFFICER MAKING
THE ARREST. — Subversion, as an offense punished by Executive Order No. 167, as amended by Executive
Order No. 276, in relation to Republic Act No. 1700, is made up of "overt acts." In People v. Ferrer, Nos. L-
32613-14, December 27, 1972, 48 SCRA 382, this Court defined "overt acts" as follows: . . . Indeed, were the
Anti-Subversion Act a bill of attainder, it would be totally unnecessary to charge Communists in court, as the
law alone, without more would suffice to secure their punishment. But the undeniable fact is that their guilt still
has to be judicially established. The Government has yet to prove at the trial that the accused joined the Party
knowingly, willfully and by overt acts, and that they joined the Party, knowing its subversive character and with
specific intent to further its basic objective, i.e., to overthrow the existing government by force, deceit, and
other illegal means and place the country under the control and domination of a foreign power. As Ferrer held,
the above "overt acts" constitute the essence of "subversion", and as Ferrer has taken pains to explain, the law
requires more than mere membership in a subversive organization to make the accused liable. Justice
Sarmiento respectfully submits that for purposes of arrest without a warrant, the above "overt acts" should be
visible to the eyes of the police officers (if that is possible), otherwise the accused can not be said to be
committing any offense within the contemplation of the Rules of Court, to justify police action, and otherwise,
we would have made "subversion" to mean mere "membership" when, as Ferrer tells us subversion means
more than mere membership.

2. ID.; ID.; ID.; PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MUST BE COUPLED WITH GOOD FAITH. — Justice Sarmiento
finds strained the majority's interpretation of "personal knowledge", as the majority would interpret it, as no
more than "actual belief or reasonable suspicion," that is, "suspicion . . . based on actual facts . . . [and]
founded on probable cause, coupled with good faith . . ." He submits that personal knowledge means exactly
what it says - that the peace officer is aware that the accused has committed an offense, in this case,
membership in a subversive organization with intent to further the objectives thereof. It is to be noted that prior
to their amendment, the Rules (then Section 6) spoke of simple "reasonable ground" - which would have
arguably encompassed "actual belief or suspicion . . . coupled with good faith" referred to by the majority.
Section 5 (b) as amended, however, speaks of "personal knowledge"; He respectfully submits that to give to
"personal knowledge" the same meaning as "reasonable ground" is to make the amendment a useless
exercise.
3. ID.;ID.;ID.;REQUIREMENT OF PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE; NOT SATISFIED WHEN ACQUIRED SOLELY
FROM CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. — A mere "confidential information" that a "sparrow man" had been
wounded and was recuperating in the hospital, and that person was Rolando Dural. Clearly, what we have is
second-hand, indeed, hearsay, information, and needless to say, not personal knowledge. He would like to
point out that in the case of People v. Burgos, G.R. No. 68955, September 4, 1986, 144 SCRA 1, this Court
rejected a similar arrest because of lack of personal knowledge, and, as the Court held, "[w]hatever knowledge
was possessed by the arresting officers came in its entirety from the information furnished by [another] . . . He
does not see how they can act differently here. As far as the information leading to the arrest of Dural is
concerned, the majority would quite evidently swallow the version of the military as if in the first place, there
truly was an information, and that it was reliable, and that "it was found to be true"; and as if, in the second
place, the hospital authorities (the alleged informants could have legally tipped the military under existing laws.
We have, it should be noted, previously rejected such a species of information because of the lack of
"compulsion for [the informant] to state truthfully his charges under pain of criminal prosecution. Here it is
worse, because we do not even know who that informant was.

4. ID.; ID.; ID.; NOT JUSTIFIED WHEN THE ACCUSED WAS NEITHER ON THE VERGE OF FLIGHT OR
ESCAPE NOR THERE WAS AN IMPEDIMENT FOR THE PUBLIC OFFICER TO GO THROUGH THE
JUDICIAL PROCESSES. — Justice Sarmiento is concerned that if the military were truly armed with reliable
information and if it did have personal knowledge to believe that Dural had committed an offense, there was no
reason for the military to ignore the courts, to which the Constitution after all, gives the authority to issue
warrants. As People v. Burgos held: More important, we find no compelling reason for the haste with which the
arresting officers sought to arrest the accused. We fail to see why they failed to first go through the process of
obtaining a warrant of arrest, if indeed they had reasonable ground to believe that the accused had truly
committed a crime. There is no showing that there was a real apprehension that the accused was on the verge
of flight or escape. Likewise, there is no showing that the whereabouts of the accused were unknown. In the
case of Espiritu, he was picked up the following day, and in no way is "the following day" "soon thereafter."
Second, we would have stretched the authority of peace officers to make warrantless arrests for acts done
days before. He does not think this is the contemplation of the Rules of Court. As in the case of Burgos in
People v. Burgos, Espiritu was neither "on the verge of flight or escape" and there was no impediment for the
military to go through the judicial processes, as there was none in the case of Burgos. In the case of People v.
Aminnudin, this Court held that unless there "was a crime about to be committed or had just been committed,"
and unless there existed an urgency as where a moving vehicle is involved, instant police action can not be
justified.

5. ID.;ID.;ID.;NOT JUSTIFIED BY SUBSEQUENT ADMISSION OF THE ACCUSED THAT THEY WERE

MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL PEOPLE'S ARMY; CASE AT BAR. — Justice Sarmiento does not likewise
see how the petitioners Amelia Roque, Wilfredo Buenaobra, Domingo Añonuevo, Ramon Casiple, and Vicky
Ocaya (G.R. Nos. 84581-82; 83162) could have been lawfully picked up under similar circumstances. As the
majority points out, the military had (again) acted on a mere tip — the military had no personal knowledge (as
he elaborated what personal knowledge means).Second, I do not think that the majority can say that since
Amelia Roque, et al. "were NPA's anyway" (as Roque, et al. allegedly admitted),immediate arrests were
"prudent" and necessary. As I said, that Roque, et al. were admitted "NPA's" is (was) the question before the
trial court and precisely, the subject of controversy. Justice Sarmiento thinks it is imprudent for this Court to
pass judgment on the guilt of the petitioners--since after all, and as the majority points out, we are talking
simply of the legality of the petitioners' arrests. More important, that Roque, et al. "ere NPA's anyway" is
evidently, a mere say-so of the military, and evidently, the Court is not bound by bare say-so's. Evidently, we
can not approve an arrest simply because the military says it is a valid arrest (the accused being 'NPA's
anyway")--that would be abdication of judicial duty and when, moreover, the very basis of the claim rests on
dubious "confidential information." According to the majority, we are speaking of simple arrests; we are not
talking of the guilt or innocence of the accused. Justice Sarmiento certainly hopes not, after the majority
referred to Rolando Dural as a "sparrow man" and having Amelia Roque, et al. admit to being "NPA's."

6. ID.;ID.;ID.;GUILT OF THE ACCUSED; IMMATERIAL IN THE DETERMINATION OF THE LEGALITY

THEREOF. — It is to gloss over at any rate, the nature of arrest as a restraint on liberty. It is to me immaterial
that the guilt of the accused still has to be established, since meanwhile, the accused are in fact being deprived
of liberty. Arrest to me, is something to crow about, even if in the opinion of the majority, it is nothing to crow
about (a mere "administrative measure").

7. ID.;ID.;ID.;ISSUED AGAINST PERSON INCITING TO SEDITION; NOT PROPER IN CASE AT BAR. —

Justice Sarmiento can not, again, accept the validity of the arrests of Deogracia Espiritu or Narciso Nazareno
(G.R. Nos. 85727; 86332).Espiritu was supposedly picked up for inciting to sedition, in uttering supposedly, on
November 22, 1988, the following: Bukas tuloy ang welga natin ...hanggang sa magkagula na. Espiritu
however was arrested on November 23, 1988, a day later — and in no way is "inciting to sedition" a continuing
offense. And obviously, the majority is concerned about whether or not Espiritu's speech was after all,
protected speech but apparently, that is also of no moment, since: (1) that is a matter of defense; (2) we are
talking of mere arrests, and as far as arrests are concerned, "the Court has, in this case titled in favor of
authority," and (3) we have anyway, given a reduced bail to the accused. First, that the accused's statement is
in the category of free speech is not only plain to my mind, it is a question He does not think the majority can
rightly evade in these petitions without shirking the Court's constitutional duty. It is to my mind plain, because it
does not contain enough "fighting words" recognized to be seditious. Secondly, it is the very question before
the Court — whether or not the statement in question constitutes an offense for purposes of a warrantless
arrest. It is a perfectly legal question to my mind and He is wondering why we can not answer it. What the
majority has not answered, as He indicated is that inciting to sedition is in no way a continuing offense, and as
He said, the majority is not apparently convinced that it is, either. Of course, the majority would any way force
the issue: "But the authority of the peace officers to make the arrest, without warrant, at the time the words
were uttered, or soon thereafter, is still another thing."

8. ID.; ID.; ID.; REQUIREMENT THAT OFFENSE HAS BEEN JUST COMMITTED AND PERSONAL
KNOWLEDGE; NOT SATISFIED WHEN THE ARREST WAS MADE FOURTEEN DAYS AFTER THE CRIME
WAS IN FACT COMMITTED. — With all due respect, Justice Sarmiento does not think that the majority is
aware of the serious implications of its pronouncement on individual rights (and statutory construction in
general), and He feels He is appropriately concerned because as a member of the Court, He is co-responsible
for the acts of His colleagues and He is afraid that He may, rightly or wrongly, be in time made to defend such
an indefensible pronouncement. Section 5 (b) of Rule 113 is clear and categorical: the offense must have been
"just committed" and the authorities must have "personal knowledge." In no way can an offense be said to
have been "just committed" fourteen days after it was in fact (allegedly) committed. In no way can the
authorities be said to have "personal knowledge" two weeks thereafter; whatever "personal knowledge" they
have can not possibly be "personal knowledge" of a crime that had "just been committed"; whatever "personal
knowledge" they have is necessarily "personal knowledge" of a crime committed two weeks before. As it is, the
majority has enlarged the authority of peace officers to act, when the Rules have purposely limited it by way of
an exception, precisely, to the general rule, mandated by the Constitution no less, that arrests may be done
only through a judicial warrant. As it is, the majority has in fact given the military the broadest discretion to act,
a discretion the law denies even judges — today it is fourteen days, tomorrow, one year, and sooner, a
decade. He submits that a year, a decade, would not be in fact unreasonable, following the theory of the
majority, since the military can claim anytime that it "found out only later," as the majority did not find it
unreasonable for the Capital Command to claim that it "came to know that Nazareno was probably one of
those guilty in the killing of Bunye — and none of us can possible dispute it.

9. ID.;ID.;ID.;NEITHER COMMUNIST THREAT NOR NATIONAL SECURITY ARE VALID GROUNDS

THEREOF. — Justice Sarmiento respectfully submits that the cases Garcia v. Padilla, G.R. No 61388, April
20, 1983, 121 SCRA 472 and Ilagan v. Enrile, G.R. No. 70748, October 21, 1985, 139 SCRA 349, have seen
better days. Justice Sarmiento does not see how this Court can continuously sustain them "where national
security and stability are still directly challenged perhaps with greater vigor from the communist rebels. First
and foremost, and as the majority has conceded, we do not know if we are in fact dealing here with
"Communists." The case of Deogracias Espiritu, for one, hardly involves subversion. Second, "Communism"
and "national security" are old hat — the dictator's own excuses to perpetuate tyranny, and He is genuinely
disappointed that we would still fall for old excuses. Third, Garcia and Ilagan rested on supposed grounds that
can not be possibly justified in a regime that respects the rule of law — that the Presidential Commitment
Order (PCO) is a valid presidential document (Garcia) and that the filing of an information cures a defective
arrest (Ilagan). Fourth and finally, it is evident that neither "Communist threat" nor "national security" are valid
grounds for warrantless arrests under Section 5 (b) of Rule 113.
RESOLUTION

PER CURIAM p:

Before the Court are separate motions filed by the petitioners in the above-entitled petitions, seeking
reconsideration of the Court's decision promulgated on 9 July 1990 (the decision, for brevity) which dismissed
the petitions, with the following dispositive part:

"WHEREFORE, the petitions are hereby DISMISSED, except that in G.R. No. 85727 (Espiritu vs. Lim),the bail
bond for petitioner's provisional liberty is hereby ordered reduced from P60,000.00 to P10,000.00. No costs."

The Court avails of this opportunity to clarify its ruling and begins with the statement that the decision did not
rule — as many misunderstood it to do — that mere suspicion that one is a Communist Party or New People's
Army member is a valid ground for his arrest without warrant. Moreover, the decision merely applied long
existing laws to the factual situations obtaining in the several petitions. Among these laws are those outlawing
the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and similar organizations and penalizing membership therein (to
be dealt with shortly).It is elementary, in this connection, that if these laws no longer reflect the thinking or
sentiment of the people, it is Congress as the elected representative of the people — not the Court — that
should repeal, change or modify them.

In their separate motions for reconsideration, petitioners, in sum, maintain:

1. That the assailed decision, in upholding the validity of the questioned arrests made without warrant, and in
relying on the provisions of the Rules of Court, particularly Section 5 of Rule 113 (Arrest), disregards the fact
that such arrests violated the constitutional rights of the persons arrested;

2. That the doctrine laid down in Garcia vs. Enrile 1 and Ilagan vs. Enrile 2 should be abandoned;

3. That the decision erred in considering the admissions made by the persons arrested as to their membership
in the Communist Party of the Philippines New People's Army, and their ownership of the unlicensed firearms,
ammunitions and subversive documents found in their possession at the time of arrest, inasmuch as those
confessions do not comply with the requirements on admissibility of extrajudicial admissions;

4. That the assailed decision is based on a misappreciation of facts;

5. That G.R. No. 81567 (the Umil case) should not be deemed moot and academic.

We find no merit in the motions for reconsideration.

It can not be overlooked that these are petitions for the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus, filed by
petitioners under the Rules of Court. 3 The writ of habeas corpus exists as a speedy and effective remedy to
relieve persons from unlawful restraint. 4 Therefore, the function of the special proceedings of habeas corpus
is to inquire into the legality of one's detention, 5 so that if detention is illegal, the detainee may be ordered
forthwith released.

In the petitions at bar, to ascertain whether the detention of petitioners was illegal or not, the Court before
rendering the decision dated 9 July 1990, looked into whether their questioned arrests without warrant were
made in accordance with law. For, if the arrests were made in accordance with law, it would follow that the
detention resulting from such arrests is also in accordance with law.

There can be no dispute that, as a general rule,no peace officer or person has the power or authority to arrest
anyone without a warrant of arrest, except in those cases expressly authorized by law. 6 The law expressly
allowing arrests without warrant is found in Section 5, Rule 113 of the Rules of Court which states the grounds
upon which a valid arrest, without warrant,can be conducted.
In the present cases, the focus is understandably on Section 5, paragraphs (a) and (b) of the said Rule 113,
which read:

"SEC. 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful.— A peace officer or a private person may, without a
warrant,arrest a person:

(a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to
commit an offense;

(b) When an offense has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that
the person to be arrested has committed it; and

..." (emphasis supplied).

The Court's decision of 9 July 1990 rules that the arrest of Rolando Dural (G.R. No. 81567) without warrant is
justified as it can be said that, within the contemplation of Section 5(a),Rule 113, he (Dural) was committing an
offense, when arrested, because Dural was arrested for being a member of the New People's Army, an
outlawed organization, where membership is penalized, 7 and for subversion which, like rebellion is, under the
doctrine of Garcia vs. Enrile, 8 a continuing offense, thus:

"The crimes of insurrection or rebellion, subversion, conspiracy or proposal to commit such crimes, and other
crimes and offenses committed in the furtherance (sic) on the occasion thereof, or incident thereto, or in
connection therewith under Presidential Proclamation No. 2045, are all in the nature of continuing offenses
which set them apart from the common offenses, aside from their essentially involving a massive conspiracy of
nationwide magnitude . . ."

Given the ideological content of membership in the CPP/NPA which includes armed struggle for the overthrow
of organized government, Dural did not cease to be, or became less of a subversive, FOR PURPOSES OF
ARREST, simply because he was, at the time of arrest, confined in the St. Agnes Hospital. Dural was identified
as one of several persons who the day before his arrest, without warrant, at the St. Agnes Hospital, had shot
two (2) CAPCOM policemen in their patrol car. That Dural had shot the two (2) policemen in Caloocan City as
part of his mission as a "sparrow" (NPA member) did not end there and then. Dural, given another opportunity,
would have shot or would shoot other policemen anywhere as agents or representatives of organized
government. It is in this sense that subversion like rebellion (or insurrection) is perceived here as a continuing
offense.Unlike other so-called "common" offenses, i.e. adultery, murder, arson, etc.,which generally end upon
their commission, subversion and rebellion are anchored on an ideological base which compels the repetition
of the same acts of lawlessness and violence until the overriding objective of overthrowing organized
government is attained.

Nor can it be said that Dural's arrest was grounded on mere suspicion by the arresting officers of his
membership in the CPP/NPA. His arrest was based on "probable cause," as supported by actual facts that will
be shown hereafter.

Viewed from another but related perspective, it may also be said, under the facts of the Umil case, that the
arrest of Dural falls under Section 5, paragraph (b),Rule 113 of the Rules of Court, which requires two (2)
conditions for a valid arrest without warrant: first,that the person to be arrested has just committed an offense,
and second,that the arresting peace officer or private person has personal knowledge of facts indicating that
the person to be arrested is the one who committed the offense. Section 5(b),Rule 113, it will be noted, refers
to arrests without warrant, based on "personal knowledge of facts" acquired by the arresting officer or private
person.

It has been ruled that "personal knowledge of facts," in arrests without warrant must be based upon probable
cause, which means an actual belief or reasonable grounds of suspicion. 9

The grounds of suspicion are reasonable when, in the absence of actual belief of the arresting officers, the
suspicion that the person to be arrested is probably guilty of committing the offense, is based on actual facts,
i.e., supported by circumstances sufficiently strong in themselves to create the probable cause of guilt of the
person to be arrested. 10 A reasonable suspicion therefore must be founded on probable cause, coupled with
good faith on the part of the peace officers making the arrest. 11

These requisites were complied with in the Umil case and in the other cases at bar.

In G.R. No. 81567 (Umil case), military agents, on 1 February 1988, were dispatched to the St. Agnes Hospital,
Roosevelt Avenue, Quezon City, to verify a confidential information which was received by their office, about a
"sparrow man" (NPA member) who had been admitted to the said hospital with a gunshot wound; that the
information further disclosed that the wounded man in the said hospital was among the five (5) male
"sparrows" who murdered two (2) Capcom mobile patrols the day before, or on 31 January 1988 at about
12:00 o'clock noon, before a road hump along Macanining St., Bagong Barrio, Caloocan City; that based on
the same information, the wounded man's name was listed by the hospital management as "Ronnie Javellon,"
twenty-two (22) years old of Block 10, Lot 4, South City Homes, Biñan, Laguna. 12

Said confidential information received by the arresting officers, to the effect that an NPA member ("sparrow
unit") was being treated for a gunshot wound in the named hospital, is deemed reasonable and with cause as it
was based on actual facts and supported by circumstances sufficient to engender a belief that an NPA
member was truly in the said hospital. The actual facts supported by circumstances are: first — the day before,
or on 31 January 1988, two (2) CAPCOM soldiers were actually killed in Bagong Barrio, Caloocan City by five
(5) "sparrows" including Dural; second — a wounded person listed in the hospital records as "Ronnie Javellon"
was actually then being treated in St. Agnes Hospital for a gunshot wound; third — as the records of this case
disclosed later, "Ronnie Javellon" and his address entered in the hospital records were fictitious and the
wounded man was in reality Rolando Dural.

In fine, the confidential information received by the arresting officers merited their immediate attention and
action and, in fact, it was found to be true. Even the petitioners in their motion for reconsideration, 13 believe
that the confidential information of the arresting officers to the effect that Dural was then being treated in St.
Agnes Hospital was actually received from the attending doctor and hospital management in compliance with
the directives of the law, 14 and, therefore, came from reliable sources.

As to the condition that "probable cause" must also be coupled with acts done in good faith by the officers who
make the arrest, the Court notes that the peace officers who arrested Dural are deemed to have conducted the
same in good faith, considering that law enforcers are presumed to regularly perform their official duties. The
records show that the arresting officers did not appear to have been ill-motivated in arresting Dural. 15 It is,
therefore clear that the arrest, without warrant, of Dural was made in compliance with the requirements of
paragraphs (a) and (b) of Section 5, Rule 113.

Parenthetically, it should be mentioned here that a few days after Dural's arrest, without warrant, an
information charging double murder with assault against agents of persons in authority was filed against Dural
in the Regional Trial Court of Caloocan City (Criminal Case No. C-30112).He was thus promptly placed under
judicial custody (as distinguished from custody of the arresting officers).On 31 August 1988, he was convicted
of the crime charged and sentenced to reclusion perpetua.The judgment of conviction is now on appeal before
this Court in G.R. No. 84921.

As to Amelia Roque and Wilfredo Buenaobra (G.R. Nos. 84581-82),Domingo Anonuevo and Ramon Casiple
(G.R. Nos. 84583-84) and Vicky Ocaya (G.R. No. 83162),their arrests, without warrant, are also justified. They
were searched pursuant to search warrants issued by a court of law and were found with unlicensed firearms,
explosives and/or ammunition in their persons. They were, therefore, caught in flagrante delicto which justified
their outright arrests without warrant, under Sec. 5(a), Rule 113, Rules of Court. Parenthetically, it should be
mentioned here that a few days after their arrests without warrant, informations were filed in court against said
petitioners, thereby placing them within judicial custody and disposition. Furthermore, Buenaobra mooted his
own petition for habeas corpus by announcing to this Court during the hearing of these petitions that he had
chosen to remain in detention in the custody of the authorities.

More specifically, the antecedent facts in the "in flagrante" cases are:
1. On 27 June 1988. the military agents received information imparted by a former NPA about the operations of
the CPP and NPA in Metro Manila and that a certain house occupied by one Renato Constantino, located in
the Villaluz Compound, Molave St.,Marikina Heights, Marikina, Metro Manila was being used as their
safehouse; that in view of this information, the said house was placed under military surveillance and on 12
August 1988, pursuant to a search warrant duly issued by court,a search of the house was conducted; that
when Renato Constantino was then confronted he could not produce any permit to possess the firearms,
ammunitions, radio and other communications equipment, and he admitted that he was a ranking member of
the CPP. 16

2. In the case of Wilfredo Buenaobra,he arrived at the house of Renato Constantino in the evening of 12
August 1988, and admitted that he was an NPA courier and he had with him letters to Renato Constantino and
other members of the rebel group.

3. On the other hand, the arrest of Amelia Roque was a consequence of the arrest of Buenaobra who had in
his possession papers leading to the whereabouts of Roque; 17 that, at the time of her arrest, the military
agent found subversive documents and live ammunitions, and she admitted then that the documents belonged
to her. 18

4. As regards Domingo Anonuevo and Ramon Casiple they were arrested without warrant on 13 August 1988,
when they arrived at the said house of Renato Constantino in the evening of said date; that when the agents
frisked them, subversive documents, and loaded guns were found in the latter's possession but failing to show
a permit to possess them. 19

5. With regard to Vicky Ocaya,she was arrested, without warrant when she arrived (on 12 May 1988) at the
premises of the house of one Benito Tiamzon who was believed to be the head of the CPP/NPA, and whose
house was subject of a search warrant duly issued by the court.At the time of her arrest without warrant the
agents of the PC-Intelligence and Investigation found ammunitions and subversive documents in the car of
Ocaya. 20

It is to be noted in the above cases (Roque, Buenaobra, Anonuevo, Casiple and Ocaya) that the reason which
compelled the military agents to make the arrests without warrant was the information given to the military
authorities that two (2) safehouses (one occupied by Renato Constantino and the other by Benito Tiamzon)
were being used by the CPP/NPA for their operations, with information as to their exact location and the
names of Renato Constantino and Benito Tiamzon as residents or occupants thereof.

And at the time of the actual arrests, the following circumstances surrounded said arrests (of Roque,
Buenaobra, Anonuevo and Casiple),which confirmed the belief of the military agents that the information they
had received was true and the persons to be arrested were probably guilty of the commission of certain crimes:
first:search warrant was duly issued to effect the search of the Constantino safehouse; second:found in the
safehouse was a person named Renato Constantino, who admitted that he was a ranking member of the CPP,
and found in his possession were unlicensed firearms and communications equipment; third:at the time of their
arrests, in their possession were unlicensed firearms, ammunitions and/or subversive documents, and they
admitted ownership thereof as well as their membership in the CPP/NPA. And then, shortly after their arrests,
they were positively identified by their former comrades in the organization as CPP/NPA members. In view of
these circumstances, the corresponding informations were filed in court against said arrested persons. The
records also show that, as in the case of Dural, the arrests without warrant made by the military agents in the
Constantino safehouse and later in the Amelia Roque house, do not appear to have been ill-motivated or
irregularly performed.

With all these facts and circumstances existing before, during and after the arrest of the afore-named persons
(Dural, Buenaobra, Roque, Anonuevo, Casiple and Ocaya),no prudent man can say that it would have been
better for the military agents not to have acted at all and made any arrest. That would have been an
unpardonable neglect of official duty and a cause for disciplinary action against the peace officers involved.
For, one of the duties of law enforcers is to arrest lawbreakers in order to place them in the hands of executive
and judicial authorities upon whom devolves the duty to investigate the acts constituting the alleged violation of
law and to prosecute and secure the punishment therefor. 21 An arrest is therefore in the nature of an
administrative measure. The power to arrest without warrant is without limitation as long as the requirements of
Section 5, Rule 113 are met. This rule is founded on an overwhelming public interest in peace and order in our
communities.

In ascertaining whether the arrest without warrant is conducted in accordance with the conditions set forth in
Section 5, Rule 113, this Court determines not whether the persons arrested are indeed guilty of committing
the crime for which they were arrested. 22 Not evidence of guilt, but "probable cause" is the reason that can
validly compel the peace officers, in the performance of their duties and in the interest of public order, to
conduct an arrest without warrant. 23

The courts should not expect of law-enforcers more than what the law requires of them. Under the conditions
set forth in Section 5, Rule 113, particularly paragraph (b) thereof, even if the arrested persons are later found
to be innocent and acquitted, the arresting officers are not liable. 24 But if they do not strictly comply with the
said conditions, the arresting officers can be held liable for the crime of arbitrary detention, 25 for damages
under Article 32 of the Civil Code 26 and/or for other administrative sanctions.

In G.R. No. 85727, Espiritu,on 23 November 1988, was arrested without warrant, on the basis of the attestation
of certain witnesses: that about 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon of 22 November 1988, at the corner of Magsaysay
Boulevard and Valencia St.,Sta. Mesa, Manila, Espiritu spoke at a gathering of drivers and sympathizers,
where he said, among other things:

"Bukas tuloy ang welga natin ...hanggang sa magkagulo na." 27 (emphasis supplied).

and that the police authorities were present during the press conference held at the National Press Club (NPC)
on 22 November 1988 where Espiritu called for a nationwide strike (of jeepney and bus drivers) on 23
November 1988. 28 Espiritu was arrested without warrant, not for subversion or any "continuing offense," but
for uttering the above-quoted language which, in the perception of the arresting officers, was inciting to
sedition.

Many persons may differ as to the validity of such perception and regard the language as falling within free
speech guaranteed by the Constitution. But, then, Espiritu had not lost the right to insist, during the pre-trial or
trial on the merits, that he was just exercising his right to free speech regardless of the charged atmosphere in
which it was uttered. But, the authority of the peace officers to make the arrest, without warrant, at the time the
words were uttered, or soon thereafter, is still another thing. In the balancing of authority and freedom, which
obviously becomes difficult at times, the Court has, in this case, tilted the scale in favor of authority but only for
purposes of the arrest (not conviction).Let it be noted that the Court has ordered the bail for Espiritu's release
to be reduced from P60,000.00 to P10,000.00.

Let it also be noted that supervening events have made the Espiritu case moot and academic. For Espiritu had
before arraignment asked the court a quo for re-investigation, the peace officers did not appear. Because of
this development, the defense asked the court a quo at the resumption of the hearings to dismiss the case.
Case against Espiritu (Criminal Case No. 88-68385) has been provisionally dismissed and his bail bond
cancelled.

In G.R. No. 86332 (Nazareno), the records show that in the morning of 14 December 1988, Romulo Bunye II
was killed by a group of men in Alabang, Muntinlupa, Metro Manila; that at about 5:00 o'clock in the morning of
28 December 1988, Ramil Regala, one of the suspects in the said killing, was arrested and he pointed to
Narciso Nazareno as one of his companions during the killing of Bunye II; that at 7:20 of the same morning (28
December 1988), the police agents arrested Nazareno, without warrant, for investigation. 29

Although the killing of Bunye II occurred on 14 December 1988, while Nazareno's arrest without warrant was
made only on 28 December 1988, or 14 days later, the arrest falls under Section 5(b) of Rule 113, since it was
only on 28 December 1988 that the police authorities came to know that Nazareno was probably one of those
guilty in the killing of Bunye II and the arrest had to be made promptly, even without warrant, (after the police
were alerted) and despite the lapse of fourteen (14) days to prevent possible flight.

As shown in the decision under consideration, this Court, in upholding the arrest without warrant of Nazareno
noted several facts and events surrounding his arrest and detention, as follows:

"...on 3 January 1989 (or six (6) days after his arrest without warrant),an information charging Narciso
Nazareno, Ramil Regala, and two (2) others, with the killing of Romulo Bunye II was filed with the Regional
Trial Court of Makati, Metro Manila. The case is docketed therein as Criminal Case No. 731.

On 7 January 1989, Narciso Nazareno filed a motion to post bail, but the motion was denied by the trial court in
an order dated 10 January 1989, even as the motion to post bail, earlier filed by his co-accused, Manuel
Laureaga, was granted by the same trial court.

On 13 January 1989, a petition for habeas corpus was filed with this Court on behalf of Narciso Nazareno and
on 13 January 1989, the Court issued the writ of habeas corpus, returnable to the Presiding Judge of the
Regional Trial Court of Biñan, Laguna, Branch 24, ordering said court to hear the case on 30 January 1989
and thereafter resolve the petition.

At the conclusion of the hearing, or on 1 February 1989, the Presiding Judge of the Regional Trial Court of
Biñan, Laguna issued a resolution denying the petition for habeas corpus, it appearing that the said Narciso
Nazareno is in the custody of the respondents by reason of an information filed against him with the Regional
Trial Curt of Makati, Metro Manila which had taken cognizance of said case and had, in fact, denied the motion
for bail filed by said Narciso Nazareno (presumably because of the strength of the evidence against him)."

This Court reiterates that shortly after the arrests of Espiritu and Nazareno, the corresponding informations
against them were filed in court. The arrests of Espiritu and Nazareno were based on probable cause and
supported by factual circumstances. They complied with the conditions set forth in Section 5(b) of Rule 113.
They were not arbitrary or whimsical arrests.

Parenthetically, it should be here stated that Nazareno has since been convicted by the court a quo for murder
and sentenced to reclusion perpetua. He has appealed the judgment of conviction to the Court of Appeals
where it is pending as of this date (CA-G.R. No. still undocketed).

Petitioners contend that the decision of 9 July 1990 ignored the constitutional requisites for the admissibility of
an extrajudicial admission.

In the case of Buenaobra (G.R. Nos. 84581-82), he admitted 30 that he was an NPA courier. On the other
hand, in the case of Amelia Roque, she admitted 31 that the unlicensed firearms, ammunition and subversive
documents found in her possession during her arrest, belonged to her.

The Court, it is true, took into account the admissions of the arrested persons of their membership in the
CPP/NPA, as well as their ownership of the unlicensed firearms, ammunitions and documents in their
possession. But again, these admissions, as revealed by the records, strengthen the Court's perception that
truly the grounds upon which the arresting officers based their arrests without warrant, are supported by
probable cause, i.e. that the persons arrested were probably guilty of the commission of certain offenses, in
compliance with Section 5, Rule 113 of the Rules of Court. To note these admissions, on the other hand, is not
to rule that the persons arrested are already guilty of the offenses upon which their warrantless arrests were
predicated. The task of determining the guilt or innocence of persons arrested without warrant is not proper in
a petition for habeas corpus. It pertains to the trial of the case on the merits.

As to the argument that the doctrines in Garcia vs. Enrile, and Ilagan vs. Enrile should be abandoned, this
Court finds no compelling reason at this time to disturb the same, particularly in the light of prevailing
conditions where national security and stability are still directly challenged perhaps with greater vigor from the
communist rebels. What is important is that every arrest without warrant be tested as to its legality via habeas
corpus proceedings. This Court will promptly look into — and all other appropriate courts are enjoined to do the
same — the legality of the arrest without warrant so that if the conditions under Sec. 5 of Rule 113, Rules of
Court, as elucidated in this Resolution, are not met, the detainee shall forthwith be ordered released; but if
such conditions are met, then the detainee shall not be made to languish in his detention but must be promptly
tried to the end that he may be either acquitted or convicted, with the least delay, as warranted by the
evidence.

A Final Word.

This Resolution ends as it began, reiterating that mere suspicion of being a Communist Party member or a
subversive is absolutely not a ground for the arrest without warrant of the suspect. The Court predicated the
validity of the questioned arrests without warrant in these petitions, not on mere unsubstantiated suspicion, but
on compliance with the conditions set forth in Section 5, Rule 113, Rules of Court, a long existing law, and
which, for stress, are probable cause and good faith of the arresting peace officers, and, further, on the basis
of, as the records show, the actual facts and circumstances supporting the arrests. More than the allure of
popularity or palatability to some groups, what is important is that the Court be right.

ACCORDINGLY, the motions for reconsideration of the decision dated 9 July 1990, are DENIED. This denial is
FINAL.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera, Paras, Padilla, Bidin, Griño-Aquino, Medialdea and Davide, Jr.,JJ., concur.

Separate Opinions

FERNAN, C.J.,concurring and dissenting:

After a deep and thorough reexamination of the decision of July 9, 1990 and an exhaustive evaluation of the
motions for reconsideration of the said decision, I am inclined to agree with the majority's resolution on said
motions for reconsideration except for the legality of the warrantless arrests of petitioner Deogracias Espiritu
for the crime of inciting to sedition and petitioner Alfredo Nazareno for the crime of murder.

In the words of the resolution, Espiritu "was arrested without warrant, not for subversion or any 'continuing
offense,' but for uttering" the following: "Bukas tuloy ang welga natin ...hanggang sa magkagulo na."
Apparently, such statement was, in the perception of the arresting officers, inciting to sedition. While not
conceding the validity of such perception, realizing that it is indeed possible that Espiritu was merely exercising
his right to free speech, the resolution nonetheless supports the authority of peace officers "only for purposes
of the arrest."

I find this position to be adverse to the very essence of the resolution which sanctions warrantless arrests
provided they are made in accordance with law. In the first place, Espiritu may not be considered as having
"just committed" the crime charged. He allegedly first uttered seditious remarks at the National Press Club in
the afternoon of November 12, 1988. The second allegedly seditious remark aforequoted was made at around
5:00 o'clock in the same afternoon (Decision, pp. 23-24).Under these circumstances, the law enforcement
agents had time, short though it might seem, to secure a warrant for his arrest. Espiritu's apprehension may
not therefore be considered as covered by Section 5(b) of Rule 113 which allows warrantless arrests "when an
offense has in fact just been committed."

The same observation applies with greater force in the case of Nazareno who was arrested 14 days after the
commission of the crime imputed to him.

Secondly, warrantless arrests may not be allowed if the arresting officers are not sure what particular provision
of law had been violated by the person arrested. True it is that law enforcement agents and even prosecutors
are not all adept at the law. However, erroneous perception, not to mention ineptitude among their ranks,
especially if it would result in the violation of any right of a person, may not be tolerated. That the arrested
person has the "right to insist during the pre-trial or trial on the merits" (Resolution, p. 18) that he was
exercising a right which the arresting officer considered as contrary to law, is beside the point. No person
should be subjected to the ordeal of a trial just because the law enforcers wrongly perceived his action.

Thirdly, inciting to sedition is not a continuous crime for which the offender may be arrested without a warrant
duly issued by the proper authority. By its nature, a single act of urging others to commit any of the acts
enumerated in Article 142 of the Revised Penal Code may suffice to hold anyone liable for inciting to sedition.
While the crime is aimed at anarchy and radicalism and presents largely a question of policy (Espuelas vs.
People, 90 Phil. 524 [1961]), it should be remembered that any of the prohibited acts in Article 142 may
infringe upon the fundamental freedoms of speech and expression. There arises, therefore, the necessity of
balancing interests; those of the State as against those of its individual citizen. Here lies the urgency of judicial
intervention before an arrest is made. Added to this is the subjectivity of the determination of what may incite
other people to sedition. Hence, while the police should act swiftly when a seditious statement has been
uttered in view of the jeopardy it may cause the government, speedy action should consist not in warrantless
arrests but in securing warrants for such arrests.

On the legality of warrantless arrests of violators of the Anti-Subversion Law, it should be underscored that
anyone who undertakes such arrest must see to it that the alleged violator is a knowing member of a
subversive organization as distinguished from a nominal one (People vs. Ferrer, L-32613-14, December 27,
1972, 48 SCRA 382).Thus, a subversive may be arrested even if he has not committed overt acts of
overthrowing the government such as the bombing of government offices or the assassination of government
officials provided there is probable cause to believe that he is in the roll of members of a subversive
organization. It devolves upon the accused to prove membership by force or coercion. Certainly, one may not
be in such a roll without undergoing the conscious act of enlistment.

It bears repeating that warrantless arrests are governed by law and subject to stringent application. Section 6,
Rule 113 of the Rules on Criminal Procedure now requires that an offense has in fact just been committed."
According to the late Chief Justice Teehankee, this "connotes immediacy in point of time and excludes cases
under the old rule where an offense 'has in fact been committed' no matter how long ago. Similarly, the arrestor
must have ' personal knowledge of the facts indicating that the [arrestee] has committed it' (instead of just
'reasonable ground to believe that the [arrestee] has committed it' under the old rule)." (Dissenting opinion in
Ilagan vs. Enrile, G.R. No. 70748, October 21, 1985, 139 SCRA 349, 408).

I deem it apt herein to recall other Court rulings providing guidelines in effecting arrests without warrants. In
People vs. Burgos (G.R. No. 68955, September 4, 1986, 144 SCRA 1),the Court considered as illegal the
warrantless arrest of a subversive not based on the arresting officer's personal knowledge of such subversion
and held that any rule on arrests without warrants must be strictly construed. We categorically stated therein
that warrantless arrests should "clearly fall within the situations when securing a warrant be absurd or is
manifestly unnecessary as provided by the Rules" (144 SCRA at 14). Moreover, "it is not enough that there is
reasonable ground to believe that the person to be arrested has committed a crime. A crime must in fact or
actually (has just) been committed first. That a crime has actually been committed is an essential precondition.
It is not enough to suspect that a crime may have been committed. The fact of the commission of the offense
must be undisputed. The test of reasonable ground applies only to the identity of the perpetrator." (Supra, at p.
15).

Earlier, in Morales, Jr. vs. Enrile (G.R. No. 61016, April 26, 1983, 121 SCRA 538),the Court laid out the
procedure to be observed the moment a person is arrested:

"At the time a person is arrested, it shall be the duty of the arresting officer to inform him of the reason for the
arrest and he must be shown the warrant of arrest, if any. He shall be informed of his constitutional rights to
remain silent and to counsel, and that any statement he might make could be used against him. The person
arrested shall have the right to communicate with his lawyer, a relative, or anyone he chooses by the most
expedient means — by telephone if possible — or by letter or messenger. It shall be the responsibility of the
arresting officer to see to it that this is accomplished. No custodial investigation shall be conducted unless it be
in the presence of counsel engaged by the person arrested, by any person on his behalf, or appointed by the
court upon petition on his behalf, or appointed by the court upon the petition either of the detainee himself or by
anyone on his behalf. The right to counsel may be waived but the waiver shall not be valid unless made with
the assistance of counsel. Any statement obtained in violation of the procedure herein laid down, whether
exculpatory or inculpatory, in whole or in part shall be inadmissible in evidence." (121 SCRA at 554).

These judicial pronouncements must be observed by everyone concerned: the military and civilian components
of the government tasked with law enforcement as well as the ordinary citizen who faces a situation wherein
civic duty demands his intervention to preserve peace in the community.

I am not unmindful of the fact that abuses occur in arrests especially of offenders of crimes with a political or
ideological element. Such abuses are more often than not, triggered by the difficulty in finding evidence that
could stand judicial scrutiny — to pinpoint a subversive, police officers usually have to make long persistent
surveillance. However, for the orderly administration of government and the maintenance of peace and order in
the country, good faith should be reposed on the officials implementing the law. After all, we are not wanting in
laws to hold any offending peace officer liable both administratively and criminally for abuses in the
performance of their duties. Victims of abuses should resort to legal remedies to redress their grievances.

If existing laws are inadequate, the policy-determining branches of the government may be exhorted peacefully
by the citizenry to effect positive changes. This Court, mandated by the Constitution to uphold the law, can only
go as far as interpreting existing laws and the spirit behind them. Otherwise, we shall be entering the
dangerous ground of judicial legislation.

GUTIERREZ, JR.,J.,concurring and dissenting:

The philosophy adopted in our Constitution is that liberty is an essential condition for order. It is disturbing
whenever the Court leans in the direction of order instead of liberty in hard cases coming before us.

People all over the world are fast accepting the theory that only as a society encourages freedom and permits
dissent can it have lasting security and real progress, the theory that enhancing order through constraints on
freedom is deceptive because restrictions on liberty corrode the very values Government pretends to promote.
I believe we should move with the peoples of the world who are fast liberating themselves.

I, therefore, vote for the strict application of Section 6 (a) and (b) of Rule 113 on arrests without warrant, to wit:

"SECTION 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful.— A peace officer or a private person may, without a
warrant, arrest a person:

(a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to
commit an offense;

(b) When an offense has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that
the person to be arrested has committed it.

xxx xxx xxx

Only in the cases found in the Rule should we allow arrests without warrants. In case of doubt, the tendency
should be to declare the warrantless arrest illegal.

Insofar as G.R. Nos. 84581-82, G.R. Nos. 84583-84 and G.R. No. 83162 involving Amelia Roque, Wilfredo
Buenaobra, Domingo Anonuevo, Ramon Casiple, and Vicky Ocaya are concerned, the petitioners were
arrested after having been apprehended while in possession of illegal firearms and ammunitions.They were
actually committing a crime when arrested. I concur in the denial of their motions for reconsideration.

I vote to grant the motion for reconsideration in G.R. No. 85727 where Deogracias Espiritu was arrested while
urging jeepney and bus drivers to join a strike of transport workers on the ground that he was inciting to
sedition.
This impresses me as Court validation of a clear infringement of an individual's freedom of speech. "Inciting to
sedition" is a term over which the most learned writers and jurists will differ when applied to actual cases. I
doubt if there are more than a handful of policemen in the whole country who would know the full dimensions
of the fine distinctions which separate the nation's interest in the liberty to fully and freely discuss matters of
national importance on one hand and the application of the clear and present danger rule as the test when
claims of national security and public safety are asserted, on the other. In fact, the percentage of
knowledgeability would go down further if we consider that "inciting to sedition" requires the ability to define,
among others, (1) what kinds of speeches or writings fall under the term "inciting";(2) the meaning of rising
publicly and tumultuously; (3) when does a certain effort amount to force, intimidation, or illegal method; (4)
what constitute the five objects or ends of sedition; and (5) what is a scurrilous libel against the Philippines. If
we allow public speakers to be picked up simply because what they say is irritating or obnoxious to the ears of
a peace officer or critical of government policy and action, we will undermine all pronouncements of this Court
on the need to protect that matrix of all freedoms, which is freedom of expression. At the very least, a warrant
of arrest after a preliminary examination by a Judge is essential in this type of offense.

Insofar as G.R. No. 81567 is concerned, I join the other dissenting Justices in their observations regarding
"continuing offenses." To base warrantless arrests on the doctrine of continuing offense is to give a license for
the illegal detention of persons on pure suspicion. Rebellion, insurrection, or sedition are political offenses
where the line between overt acts and simple advocacy or adherence to a belief is extremely thin. If a court
has convicted an accused of rebellion and he is found roaming around, he may be arrested. But until a person
is proved guilty, I fail to see how anybody can jump to a personal conclusion that the suspect is indeed a rebel
and must be picked up on sight whenever seen. The grant of authority in the majority opinion is too broad. If
warrantless searches are to be validated, it should be Congress and not this Court which should draw strict
and narrow standards. Otherwise, the non-rebels who are critical, noisy, or obnoxious will be indiscriminately
lumped up with those actually taking up arms against the Government.

The belief of law enforcement authorities, no matter how well grounded on past events, that the petitioner
would probably shoot other policemen whom he may meet does not validate warrantless arrests. I cannot
understand why the authorities preferred to bide their time, await the petitioner's surfacing from underground,
and pounce on him with no legal authority instead of securing warrants of arrest for his apprehension. The
subsequent conviction of a person arrested illegally does not validate the warrantless arrest.

In G.R. No. 86332, Romulo Bunye was killed on December 14, 1988. The information that Narciso Nazareno
was one of the killers came to the attention of peace officers only on December 28, 1988 or fourteen (14) days
later. To say that the offense "has in fact just been committed" even if 14 days have lapsed is to stretch Rule
113 on warrantless arrests into ridiculous limits. A warrant of arrest is essential in this case. I vote to grant the
motion for reconsideration.

The subsequent conviction of a person arrested illegally does not reach back into the past and render legal
what was illegal. The violation of the constitutional right against illegal seizures is not cured by the fact that the
arrested person is indeed guilty of the offense for which he was seized. A government of laws must abide by its
own Constitution.

CONSIDERING THE FOREGOING, I VOTE TO:

(1) DENY the motions for reconsideration in G.R. Nos. 84581-82; G.R. No. 84583-84; and G.R. No. 83162;

(2) GRANT the motion for reconsideration in G.R. No. 85727;

(3) GRANT the motion for reconsideration in G.R. No. 86332; and

(4) GRANT the motion for reconsideration in G.R. No. 81567.

CRUZ, J.,concurring and dissenting:

I reiterate my concurrence with the ponencia insofar as it dismissed the petitions of those who were arrested in
flagrante, or subsequently posted bail or chose to remain in the custody of the military, or voluntarily permitted
the search of the house without warrant. I do not think that under the applicable circumstances the petitioners
can validly complain that they are being unlawfully detained.

But I must again express may dissent to the continued observance of Garcia-Padilla vs. Enrile, 121 SCRA 472,
to justify the warrantless arrest and detention of the other petitioners on the ground that they were
apprehended for the continuing offenses of rebellion and other allied crimes.

We find in the said decision this particularly disturbing observation, which was quoted with approval in the
original ponencia:

The arrest of persons involved in the rebellion, whether as its fighting armed elements, or for committing non-
violent acts but in furtherance of the rebellion, is more an act of capturing them in the course of an armed
conflict, to quell the rebellion, than for the purpose of immediately prosecuting them in court for a statutory
offense. The arrest, therefore, need not follow the usual procedure in the prosecution of offenses which
requires the determination by a judge of the existence of probable cause before the issuance of a judicial
warrant of arrest and the granting of bail of the offense is bailable. Obviously, the absence of a judicial warrant
is no legal impediment to arresting or capturing persons committing overt acts of violence against government
forces, or any other milder acts but equally in pursuance of the rebellious movement. (Emphasis supplied.)

The treatment suggested envisions an actual state of war and is justified only when a recognition of
belligerency is accorded by the legitimate government to the rebels, resulting in the application of the laws of
war in the regulation of their relations. The rebels are then considered alien enemies — to be treated as
prisoners of war when captured — and cannot invoke the municipal law of the legitimate government they have
disowned. It is in such a situation that the processes of the local courts are not observed and the rebels cannot
demand the protection of the Bill of Rights that they are deemed to have renounced by their defiance of the
government.

But as long as that recognition has not yet been extended, the legitimate government must treat the rebels as
its citizens, subject to its municipal law and entitled to all the rights provided thereunder, including and
especially those guaranteed by the Constitution. Principal among these — in our country — are those
embodied in the Bill of Rights, particularly those guaranteeing due process, prohibiting unreasonable searches
and seizures, allowing bail, and presuming the innocence of the accused. The legitimate government cannot
excuse the suppression of these rights by the "exigencies" of an armed conflict that at this time remains an
internal matter governed exclusively by the laws of the Republic of the Philippines.

Treatment of the rebels as if they were foreign invaders — or combatants — is not justified in the present
situation as our government continues to prosecute them as violators of our own laws. Under the doctrine
announced in Garcia-Padilla, however, all persons suspected as rebels are by such suspicion alone made
subject to summary arrest no different from the unceremonious capture of an enemy soldier in the course of a
battle. The decision itself says that the arrest "need not follow the usual procedure in the prosecution of
offenses" and "the absence of a judicial warrant is no impediment" as long as the person arrested is suspected
by the authorities of the "continuing offense" of subversion or rebellion or other related crimes. International law
is thus substituted for municipal law in regulating the relations of the Republic with its own citizens in a purely
domestic matter.

As for the duration of the offenses, the decision contained the following pronouncement which this Court has
also adopted as its own:

. . . The crimes of insurrection or rebellion, subversion, conspiracy or proposal to commit such crimes, and
other crimes and offenses committed in the furtherance on the occasion thereof, or incident thereto, or in
connection therewith under Presidential Proclamation No. 2045, are all in the nature of continuing offenses
which set them apart from the common offenses, aside from their essentially involving a massive conspiracy of
nationwide magnitude. (Emphasis supplied.)
The beginning of the "continuing offense" may be arbitrarily fixed by the authorities, usually by simply placing
the suspect "under surveillance," to lay the basis for his eventual apprehension. Once so placed, he may at
any time be arrested without warrant on the specious pretext that he is in the process of committing the
"continuing offense," no matter that what he may be actually doing at the time is a perfectly innocent act.

In the case of Dural, the arrest was made while he was engaged in the passive and innocuous act of
undergoing medical treatment. The fiction was indulged that he was even then, as he lay supine in his sickbed,
engaged in the continuing offense of rebellion against the State. In further justification, the Court says that the
arresting officers acted on "confidential information" that he was in the hospital, which information "was found
to be true." This is supposed to have validated the determination of the officers that there was "probable
cause" that excused the absence of a warrant.

My own impression is that probable cause must be established precisely to justify the issuance of a warrant,
not to dispensewith it; moreover, probable cause must be determined by the judge issuing the warrant, not the
arresting officer who says it is not necessary.

In the case of Espiritu, the arrest was made while he was actually sleeping,and for allegedly seditious remarks
made by him the day before. The Court says his case is not covered by the Garcia-Padilla doctrine but
approves the arrest just the same because the remarks were supposed to continue their effects even to the
following day. The offense was considered as having been just committed (to make it come under Rule 113,
Section 5, of the Rules of Court) despite the considerable time lapse.

It was worse in the case of Nazareno, who was also arrested without warrant, and no less than fourteen days
after the killing. In sustaining this act, the Court says that it was only on the day of his arrest that he was
identified as one of the probable killers, thus suggesting that the validity of a warrantless arrest is reckoned not
from the time of the commission of an offense but from the time of the identification of the suspect.

Section 5 of Rule 113 says that a peace officer may arrest a person without a warrant if the latter "has
committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense" or when an offense "has in fact just
been committed." The requirement of immediacy is obvious from the word "just," which, according to Webster,
means "a very short time ago." The arrest must be made almost immediately or soon after these acts, not at
any time after the suspicion of the arresting officer begins, no matter how long ago the offense was committed.

I am also uneasy over the following observations in the present resolution which I hope will not be the start of
another dangerous doctrine:

The Court, it is true, took into account the admissions of the arrested persons of their membership in the
CPP/NPA, as well as their ownership of the unlicensed firearms, ammunitions and documents in their
possession. But again, these admissions, as revealed by the records, strengthen the Court's perception that
truly the grounds upon which the arresting officers based their arrests without warrant, are supported by
probable cause, i.e., that the persons arrested were probably guilty of the commission of certain offenses, in
compliance with Section 5, Rule 113 of the Rules of Court.

I can only repeat my own misgivings when I dissented in the recent case of People vs. Malmstedt, G.R. No.
91107, June 19, 1991, where I noted: "The conclusion that there was probable cause may have been
influenced by the subsequent discovery that the accused was carrying a prohibited drug. This is supposed to
justify the soldier's suspicion. In other words, it was the fact of illegal possession that retroactively established
the probable cause that validated the illegal search and seizure. It was the fruit of the poisonous tree that
washed clean the tree itself."

I submit that the affirmation by this Court of the Garcia-Padilla decision to justify the illegal arrests made in the
cases before us is a step back to that shameful past when individual rights were wantonly and systematically
violated by the Marcos dictatorship. It seems some of us have short memories of that repressive regime, but I
for one am not one to forget so soon. As the ultimate defender of the Constitution, this Court should not gloss
over the abuses of those who, out of mistaken zeal, would violate individual liberty in the dubious name of
national security. Whatever their ideology and even if it be hostile to ours, the petitioners are entitled to the
protection of the Bill of Rights, no more and no less than any other person in this country. That is what
democracy is all about.

FELICIANO, J.,concurring and dissenting:

I concur in the result reached by the majority in the Resolution disposing of the Motion for Reconsideration.

At the same time, however, I feel compelled to dissent from certain statements made by the majority principally
concerning the applicability of the "continuing crimes" doctrine to the problem of arrests without warrants. It
seems clear that these statements are really obiter dicta, since they are quite unnecessary for sustaining the
actual results reached in the majority Resolution. This was summarily pointed out in my very brief statement
concurring in the result reached in the original Decision of the Court dated 9 July 1990. The subsequent
developments in several of the cases here consolidated, which are carefully detailed in the majority Resolution,
make this even clearer. Nonetheless, the majority Resolution has taken the time and trouble expressly to
reiterate the "continuing crimes" doctrine as applicable in respect of warrantless arrests. Although the above
statements are obiter, they have been made and, I believe, need to be addressed to some extent and the inter-
relation of the "continuing crimes" doctrine with constitutional rights explored.

1. We start at the beginning, that is, the constitutional guarantee against unreasonable seizures of persons.
Article III Section 2 of the Constitution reads:

"Section 2. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against
unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever nature and for any purpose shall be inviolable, and no
search warrant or warrant of arrest shall issue except upon probable cause to be determined personally by the
judge after examination under oath or affirmation of the complainant and the witnesses he may produce, and
particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized." (Emphasis supplied)

Under the above provision, arrests, i.e.,the constraint and seizure of the persons of individual members of
society, must, as a general rule, be preceded by the securing of a warrant of arrest, the rendition of which
complies with the constitutional procedure specified in Article III Section 2. Arrests made without a warrant
issued by a judge after complying with the constitutional procedure, are prima facie unreasonable seizures of
persons within the meaning of Article III Section 2.

2. There are, however, certain well-recognized exceptions to the norm that warrantless arrests are
unreasonable seizures of persons. Those exceptions are, in our day, essentially found in Section 5(a) and (b)
of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court. Section 5(a) and (b) mark out the situations where an officer of the law, or a
private person for that matter, may lawfully arrest a person without previously securing a warrant of arrest. The
full text of Section 5, Rule 113 follows:

"Section 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful.— A peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant,
arrest a person:

(a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to
commit an offense;

(b) When an offense has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that
the person to be arrested has committed it; and

(c) When the person to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped from a penal establishment or place where
he is serving final judgment or temporarily confined while his case is pending, or has escaped while being
transferred from one confinement to another.

In cases falling under paragraphs (a) and (b) hereof, the person arrested without a warrant shall be forthwith
delivered to the nearest police station or jail, and he shall be proceeded against in accordance with Rule 112,
Section 7."
3. Before examining the scope and implications of Section 5(a) and (b),it is important to recall that judicial
interpretation and application of Section 5(a) and (b) must take those provision for what they are: they are
exceptions to a vital constitutional norm enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Exceptions to such a norm must be
strictly construed so as not to render futile and meaningless the constitutional rule requiring warrants of arrests
before the persons of individuals may be lawfully constrained and seized. The ordinary rule generally
applicable to statutory provisions is that exceptions to such provisions must not be stretched beyond what the
language in which they are cast fairly warrants, and all doubts should be resolved in favor of the general
provision, rather than the exception. 1 This rule must apply with special exigency and cogency where we deal,
not with an ordinary statutory provision, but with a constitutional guarantee. 2 Exceptions to such a guarantee
must be read with special care and sensitivity and kept within the limits of their language so to keep vital and
significant the general constitutional norm against warrantless arrests. In Alvarez vs. Court of First Instance, 3
this Court, stressing that:

"II. As the protection of the citizen and the maintenance of his constitutional rights is one of the highest duties
and privileges of the court, these constitutional guaranties should be given a liberal construction or a strict
construction in favor of the individual, to prevent stealthy encroachment upon, or gradual depreciation of, the
rights secured by them (state vs. Custer County, 198 Pac.,362; State vs. McDaniel, 231 Pac.,965; 237
Pac.,373).Since the proceeding is a drastic one, it is the general rule that statutes authorizing searches and
seizures or search warrants must be strictly construed (Rose vs. St. Clair, 28 Fed. [2d],189; Leonard vs. U.S.,6
Fed. [2d],353; Perry vs. U.S.,14 Fed. [2d],88; Cofer vs. State, 118 So.,613." (Emphasis supplied)

held that:

"...All illegal searches and seizures are unreasonable while lawful ones are reasonable. 4

In People vs. Burgos, 5 this Court reiterated the above rule in the following terms:

"There is no such personal knowledge in this case. Whatever knowledge was possessed by the arresting
officers, it came in its entirety from the information furnished by Cesar Masamlok. The location of the firearm
was given by the appellant's wife.

At the time of the appellant's arrest, he was not in actual possession of any firearm or subversive document.
Neither was he committing any act which could be described as subversive. He was, in fact, plowing his field at
the time of the arrest.

The right of a person to be secure against any unreasonable seizure of his body and any deprivation of his
liberty is a most basic and fundamental one. The statute or rule which allows exceptions to the requirement of
warrants of arrest is strictly construed.Any exception must clearly fall within the situations when securing a
warrant would be absurd or is manifestly unnecessary as provided by the Rule. We cannot liberally construe
the rule on arrests without warrant or extend its application beyond the cases specifically provided by law. To
do so would infringe upon personal liberty and set back a basic right so often violated and so deserving of full
protection." 6 (emphasis supplied)

4. Section 5(a) relates to situations where a crime is committed or attempted to be committed in the presence
of the arresting officer. The fact of the occurrence of the offense, or of the attempt to commit an offense, in the
presence of the arresting officer, may be seen to be the substitute, under the circumstances, for the securing of
a warrant of arrest. In such a situation, there is an obvious need for immediate, even instantaneous, action on
the part of the arresting officer to suppress the breach of public order and to prevent further breaches then and
there. Section 5(a) may, moreover, be seen to refer to overt acts constitutive of a crime taking place in the
presence of the arresting officer. The term "presence" in this connection is properly and restrictively construed
to relate to acts taking place within the optical or perhaps auditory perception of the arresting officer. 7 If no
overt, recognizably criminal, acts occur which are perceptible through the senses of the arresting officer, such
officer could not, of course, become aware at all that a crime is being committed or attempted to be committed
in his presence. 8 It is elementary that purely mental or psychological phenomena, not externalized in overt
physical acts of a human person, cannot constitute a crime in our legal system. For a crime to exist in our legal
law, it is not enough that mens rea be shown; there must also be an actus reus.If no such overt acts are
actually taking place in the presence or within the sensory perception of the arresting officer, there would, in
principle, be ample time to go to a magistrate and ask for a warrant of arrest. There would, in other words, not
be that imperious necessity for instant action to prevent an attempted crime, to repress the crime being
committed, or to capture the doer of the perceived criminal act, the necessity which serves as the justification
in law of warrantless arrests under Section 6(a).5. Turning to Section 5 (b),two (2) elements must coincide
before a warrantless arrest may be sustained under this subsection: 1) the offense must have "just been
committed" when the arresting officer arrived in the scene; and 2) the officer must have "personal knowledge"
of facts indicating that the person to be arrested has committed the offense. In somewhat different terms, the
first requirement imports that the effects or corpus of the offense which has just been committed are still
visible: e.g. a person sprawled on the ground, dead of a gunshot wound; or a person staggering around
bleeding profusely from stab wounds. The arresting officer may not have seen the actual shooting or stabbing
of the victim, and therefore the offense can not be said to have been committed "in [his] presence." The
requirement of "personal knowledge" on the part of the arresting officer is a requirement that such knowledge
must have been obtained directly from sense perception by the arresting officer. That requirement would
exclude information conveyed by another person, no matter what his reputation for truth and reliability might
be. 9 Thus, where the arresting officer comes upon a person dead on the street and sees a person running
away with a knife from where the victim is sprawled on the ground, he has personal knowledge of facts which
rendered it highly probable that the person fleeing was the doer of the criminal deed. The arresting officer
must, in other words, perceive through his own senses some act which directly connects the person to be
arrested with the visible effects or corpus of a crime which has "just been committed."

6. The use of the words "has in fact just been committed" underscores the requirement that the time interval
between the actual commission of the crime and the arrival of the arresting officer must be brief indeed. In the
first place, the word "just" was fairly recently inserted in Section 5(b) by the 1985 Rules on Criminal
Procedures, no doubt in order to underscore the point here being made. In the second place, a latitudinarian
view of the phrase "has in fact just been committed" would obviously render pointless the requirement in
Section 5(a) that the crime must have been committed "[in] the presence" of the arresting officer. In G.R. No.
86332, the warrantless arrest of Alfredo Nazareno 14-days after the occurrence of the killing with which he was
charged along with other persons, cannot by any standard be justified under Section 5(b).In G.R. No. 81567,
Dural was arrested without warrant while being treated in a hospital the day after the shooting of the policemen
in which he was suspected to have been a participant. While 1-day may be substantially different from 14-
days, still it must be pointed out that at the time Dural was arrested in the hospital, the killing of the two (2)
policemen in Caloocan City far away from the St. Agnes Hospital in Quezon City could not reasonably be said
to have been just committed.There was no showing, nor did the Court require it, that the arresting officers had
been in "hot pursuit" of Dural beginning at the scene of the killing and ending the next day in the hospital.

7. It is worth noting that the requisite of "personal knowledge" on the part of the arresting officer who is
determining "probable cause" right at the scene of the crime, is in a sense more exacting than the standard
imposed by the Constitution upon the judge who, in the seclusion of his chambers, ascertains "probable cause"
by examining the evidence submitted before him. The arresting officer must himself have "personal
knowledge";the magistrate may rely upon the personal knowledge of the witnesses examined by or for him in
issuing a warrant of arrest. In the present Resolution, the majority begins with noting the requirement of
"personal knowledge" in Section 5(b),but winds up in the next page with a very diluted standard of "reasonable
belief" and "good faith" on the part of the arresting officers. The stricter standard is properly applicable to the
officers seizing a person without a warrant of arrest, for they are acting in derogation of a constitutional right.
That the person unlawfully arrested without a warrant may later turn out to be guilty of the offense he was
suspected of in the first place is, of course, quite beside the point. Even a person secretly guilty of some earlier
crime is constitutionally entitled to be secure from warrantless arrest, unless he has in fact committedphysically
observable criminal acts in the presence of the arresting officer, or had just committed such acts when the
arresting officer burst upon the scene.

8. Examination of the utilization in the majority Resolution of the doctrine of "continuing crimes," shows that
that doctrine is here being used as a substitute for the requirement under Section 5(a) that the crime must
have been committed in the presence of the arresting officer, and to loosen up the strict standard established
in Section 5(b) that the offense "has in fact just been committed" at the time the arresting officers arrived. But
relaxing the standards established in Section 5(a) and (b) for lawful warrantless arrests necessarily means the
eroding of the protection afforded by the constitutional provision against unreasonable seizures of persons.
Moreover, the majority may be seen to be using the "continuing crime" doctrine to justify a warrantless arrest,
not because an offense has been committed in the presenceof the arresting officer or because an offense has
in fact just been committed when the arresting officer arrived, but rather because the person to be arrested is
suspected of having committed a crime in the past and will, it is conclusively presumed, commit a similar crime
in the future.The pertinent portion of the majority Resolution reads:

"...Dural did not cease to be, or became less of a subversive, FOR PURPOSES OF ARREST, simply because
he was, at the time of arrest, confined in the St. Agnes Hospital ...That Dural had shot the two 2) policemen in
Caloocan City as part of his mission as a 'sparrow' (NPA member) did not end there and then. Dural, given
another opportunity, would have shot or would shoot other policemen anywhere as agents or representatives
of organized government. It is in this sense that subversion like rebellion (or insurrection) is perceived here as
a continuing offense.Unlike other so-called 'common' offenses, i.e.,adultery, murder, arson, etc.,which
generally end upon their commission, subversion and rebellion are anchored on an ideological base which
compels the repetition of the same acts of lawlessness and violence until the overriding objective of
overthrowing organized government is attained." (Emphasis supplied).

9. I respectfully submit that an examination of the "continuing crimes" doctrine as actually found in our case law
offers no reasonable basis for such use of the doctrine. More specifically, that doctrine, in my submission, does
not dispense with the requirement that overt acts recognizably criminal in character must take place in the
presence of the arresting officer, or must have just been committed when the arresting officer arrived, if the
warrantless arrest it to be lawful. The "continuing crimes" doctrine in our case law (before rendition of Garcia-
Padilla vs. Enrile 10 does not sustain warrantless arrests of person who, at the time of the actual arrests, were
performing ordinary acts of day-to-day life, upon the ground that the person to be arrested is, as it were, merely
resting in between specific lawless and violent acts which, the majority conclusively presumes, he will commit
the moment he gets an opportunity to do so.

Our case law shows that the "continuing crimes" doctrine has been used basically in relation to two (2)
problems: the first problem is that of determination of whether or not a particular offense was committed within
the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court; the second problem is that of determining whether a single crime or
multiple crimes were committed where the defense of double jeopardy is raised.

10. In respect of the first problem, the gist of our case law is that where some of the ingredients or elements of
an offense take place within the territorial jurisdiction of one court and some other ingredients or elements of
the same offense occur in the territory of another court, (e.g., estafa or malversation) either one of the two
courts has jurisdiction to try the offense. Where all of the essential elements of a crime take place within the
territory of one court but "by reason of the very nature of the offense committed" the violation of the law is
deemed to be "continuing," then the court within whose territorial jurisdiction the offense continues to be
committed, has jurisdiction to try a person charged with such offense. In the latter case, the offense is deemed
to be continuing because some or all of the elements constituting the offense occurred within jurisdiction of the
second court (e.g., kidnapping and illegal detention; libel; evasion of service of sentence). The criminal acts are
regarded as repeated or as continuing within the province or city where the defendant was found and arrested.
11 Clearly, overt acts of the accused constituting elements of the crime charged must be shown to have been
committed within territorial jurisdiction of the court where he is charged.

11. Turning to the second type of problem, the question is normally presented in terms of whether one crime or
multiple crimes were committed by the accused. Where the series of acts actually alleged and proven to have
been committed by the accused constituted only one and the same crime, the defense of double jeopardy
becomes available where a second information is filed covering acts later in the series. Upon the other hand,
where the acts of the accused constituted discrete, multiple offenses, each act comprising a distinct and
separate offense, the double jeopardy defense is non-available. 12 The point worth stressing is that in passing
upon the issue relating to the unity or multiplicity of offenses committed, the overt acts of the accused
constitutive either of the single offense or of the plural offenses, must be shown.

12. My final submission, is that, the doctrine of "continuing crimes," which has its own legitimate function to
serve in our criminal law jurisprudence, cannot be invoked for weakening and dissolving the constitutional
guarantee against warrantless arrest. Where no overt acts comprising all or some of the elements of the
offense charged are shown to have been committed by the person arrested without warrant, the "continuing
crime" doctrine should not be used to dress up the pretense that a crime, begun or committed elsewhere,
continued to be committed by the person arrested in the presence of the arresting officer. The capacity for
mischief of such a utilization of the "continuing crimes" doctrine, is infinitely increased where the crime charged
does not consist of unambiguous criminal acts with a definite beginning and end in time and space (such as
the killing or wounding of a person or kidnapping and illegal detention or arson) but rather of such problematic
offenses as membership in or affiliation with or becoming a member of, a subversive association or
organization. For in such cases, the overt constitutive acts may be morally neutral in themselves, and the
unlawfulness of the acts a function of the aims or objectives of the organization involved. Note, for instance,
the following acts which constitute prima facie evidence of "membership in any subversive association:" 13

a) Allowing himself to be listed as a member in any book or any of the lists, records, correspondence, or any
other document of the organization;

b) Subjecting himself to the discipline of such association or organization in any form whatsoever;

c) Giving financial contribution to such association or organization in dues, assessments, loans or in any other
forms;

xxx xxx xxx

f) Conferring with officers or other members of such association or organization in furtherance of any plan or
enterprise thereof;

xxx xxx xxx

h) Preparing documents, pamphlets, leaflets, books, or any other type of publication to promote the objectives
and purposes of such association or organization;

xxx xxx xxx

k) Participating in any way in the activities, planning action, objectives, or purposes of such association or
organization.

It may well be, as the majority implies, that the constitutional rule against warrantless arrests and seizures
makes the law enforcement work of police agencies more difficult to carry out. It is not our Court's function,
however, and the Bill of Rights was not designed, to make life easy for police forces but rather to protect the
liberties of private individuals. Our police forces must simply learn to live with the requirements of the Bill of
Rights, to enforce the law by modalities which themselves comply with the fundamental law. Otherwise they
are very likely to destroy, whether through sheer ineptness or excess of zeal, the very freedoms which make
our polity worth protecting and saving.

REGALADO, J.,concurring and dissenting:

While I have heretofore concurred in the ponencia in the above-entitled cases and I reiterate such
concurrence, I wish to unburden myself of some reservations on the rationale adopted in G.R. No. 86332.

It is posited in this resolution that "(a)lthough the killing of Bunye II occurred on 14 December 1988, while
Nazareno's arrest without warrant was made only on 28 December 1988, or 14 days later, the arrest falls
under Section 5(b) of Rule 113, since it was only on 28 December 1988 that the police authorities came to
know that Nazareno was probably one of those guilty in the killing of Bunye II. "I am afraid that there has been
a misapplication of Section 5(b) of Rule 113 which, while authorizing a peace officer or a private person to
effect a warrantless arrest, specifically conditions that grant of authority upon the situation "(w)hen an offense
has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that the person to be
arrested has committed it."
It is significant that when the corresponding provisions of the 1964 Rules of Court were amended in the 1985
Rules of Criminal Procedure, the particular revision of paragraph (b) of the aforesaid section consisted in
imposing the requirements that the person making the arrest has personal knowledge of the facts indicating
that the arrestee is responsible for an offense which has just been committed.

Now, according to the resolution, "the records show that in the morning of 14 December 1988, Romulo Bunye
II was killed by a group of men in Alabang, Muntinlupa, Metro Manila; that at about 5:00 o'clock in the morning
of 28 December 1988, Ramil Regala, one of the suspects in the said killing, was arrested and he pointed to
Narciso Nazareno as one of his companions during the killing of Bunye II; that at 7:20 of the same morning (28
December 1988),the police agents arrested Nazareno, without warrant, for investigation."

Since, clearly, the arresting police agents merely acted upon the information imparted by one of the suspects,
Ramil Regala, the resolution has emasculated the requirement in Section 5(b) that the person making the
arrest must have had personal knowledge of factual indications regarding the complicity or liability of the
arrestee for the crime. Yet, that amendment requiring such personal knowledge must have been designed to
obviate the practice in the past of warrantless arrests being effected on the basis of or supposed reliance upon
information obtained from third persons who merely professed such knowledge or, worse, concocted such
reports for variant reasons not necessarily founded on truth.

Further, and obviously as an added deterrent to the possibility that such arrest without a warrant may result
from imputations based on dubious motives, it is now required that the crime must have just been committed.
The recency contemplated here, in relation to the making of the warrantless arrest, is the time when the crime
was in fact committed, and not the time when the person making the arrest learned or was informed of such
commission. Otherwise, at the risk of resorting to reductio ad absurdum, such warrantless arrests could be
validly made even for a crime committed, say, more than a year ago but of which the arresting officer received
information only today.

The brevity in the interval of time between the commission of the crime and the arrest, as now required by
Section 5(b),must have been dictated by the consideration, among others, that by reason of such recency of
the criminal occurrence, the probability of the arresting officer acquiring personal and/or reliable knowledge of
such fact and the identity of the offender is necessarily enhanced, if not assured. The longer the interval, the
more attenuated are the chances of his obtaining such verifiable knowledge. In the case under consideration,
the obtention of information of a crime committed fourteen (14) days earlier necessarily undermines the
capacity of the arresting officer to ascertain the reliability of the information he is acting upon and to acquire
personal knowledge thereof after such verification.

It may be granted, as an ad hoc proposition, that the arrest of Nazareno was based on probable cause and
that it was not whimsical, at least, in this instance. It is correct to say that prevailing conditions affecting
national security and stability must also be taken into account. However, for the reasons above elucidated, I
take exception to the conclusion that the conditions in Section 5(b) of Rule 113 had been complied with in this
case. It is true that the corresponding information was filed against Nazareno shortly after his arrest but that,
precisely, is another cause for controversy. Definitely, if the rules on arrest are scrupulously observed, there
would be no need for the usual invocation of Ilagan as a curative balm for unwarranted incursions into civil
liberties.

SARMIENTO, J.,dissenting:

I reiterate my dissent. I submit that in spite of its "clarificatory" resolution, 1 the majority has not shown why the
arrests in question should after all be sustained.

According to the majority, Rolando Dural (G.R. No. 815667) was validly arrested without a warrant and that his
arrest was sufficient compliance with the provisions of Section 5, paragraph (b), Rule 113, of the Rules of
Court. According to the majority, he, Dural, was after all committing an offense (subversion being supposedly a
continuing offense) and that the military did have personal knowledge that he had committed it. "Personal
knowledge," according to the majority, is supposedly no more than "actual belief or reasonable grounds . . . of
suspicion," and suspicion is supposedly reasonable:

...when, in the absence of actual belief of the arresting officers, the suspicion that the person to be arrested is
probably guilty of committing the offense, is based on actual facts, i.e.,supported by circumstances sufficiently
strong in themselves to create the probable cause of guilty of the person to be arrested. A reasonable
suspicion therefore must be founded on probable cause, coupled with good faith on the part of the peace
officers making the arrest. 2

As I said, I dissent.

First, and as I held, subversion, as an offense punished by Executive Order No. 167, as amended by Executive
Order No. 276, in relation to Republic Act No. 1700, 3 is made up of "overt acts." 4 In People vs. Ferrer 5 this
Court defined "overt acts" as follows:

. . . . Indeed, were the Anti-Subversion Act a bill of attainder, it would be totally unnecessary to charge
Communists in court, as the law alone, without more would suffice to secure their punishment. But the
undeniable fact is that their guilt still has to be judicially established. The Government has yet to prove at the
trial that the accused joined the Party knowingly, willfully and by overt acts, and that they joined the Party,
knowing its subversive character and with specific intent to further its basic objective, i.e., to overthrow the
existing government by force, deceit, and other illegal means and place the country under the control and
domination of a foreign power.

As Ferrer held, the above "overt acts" constitute the essence of "subversion," and as Ferrer has taken pains to
explain, the law requires more than mere membership in a subversive organization to make the accused liable.
I respectfully submit that for purposes of arrest without a warrant, the above "overt acts" should be visible to
the eyes of the police officers (if that is possible), otherwise the accused can not be said to be committing any
offense within the contemplation of the Rules of Court, to justify police action, and otherwise, we would have
made "subversion" to mean mere "membership" when, as Ferrer tells us, subversion means more than mere
membership.

I find strained the majority's interpretation of "personal knowledge," as the majority would interpret it, as no
more than "actual belief or reasonable suspicion," that is, "suspicion ...based on actual facts ...[and] founded
on probable cause, coupled with good faith . . ." 6 I submit that personal knowledge means exactly what it says
— that the peace officer is aware that the accused has committed an offense, in this case, membership in a
subversive organization with intent to further the objectives thereof. It is to be noted that prior to their
amendment, the Rules (then Section 6) spoke of simple "reasonable ground" — which would have arguably
encompassed "actual belief or suspicion . . . coupled with good faith" referred to by the majority. Section 5(b)
as amended, however, speaks of "personal knowledge";I respectfully submit that to give to "personal
knowledge" the same meaning as "reasonable ground" is to make the amendment a useless exercise.

What, furthermore, we have here was a mere "confidential information" that a "sparrow man" had been
wounded and was recuperating in the hospital, and that that person was Rolando Dural. Clearly, what we have
is second-hand, indeed, hearsay, information, and needless to say, not personal knowledge.

I would like to point out that in the case of People vs. Burgos 7 this Court rejected a similar arrest because of
lack of personal knowledge, and, as the Court held, "[w]hatever knowledge was possessed by the arresting
officers came in its entirety from the information furnished by [another] . . ." 8 I do not see how We can act
differently here.

I do not find the majority's reliance on the case of United States vs. Santos 9 to be well-taken. Santos involved
a prosecution for coercion (against a peace officer for effecting an arrest without a warrant). Santos, however,
did in fact affirm the illegality of the arrest but absolved the peace officer on grounds of good faith. Santos did
not say that so long as he, the peace officer, was acting in good faith, as the majority here says that the military
was acting in good faith, the arrest is valid. Quite to the contrary, Santos suggested that notwithstanding good
faith on the part of the police, the arrest is nevertheless subject to question.
As far as the information leading to the arrest of Dural is concerned, the majority would quite evidently swallow
the version of the military as if in the first place, there truly was an information, and that it was reliable, and that
"it was found to be true;" 10 and as if, in the second place, the hospital authorities (the alleged informants)
could have legally tipped the military under existing laws. We have, it should be noted, previously rejected such
a species of information because of the lack of "compulsion for [the informant] to state truthfully his charges
under pain of criminal prosecution." 11 Here, it is worse, because we do not even know who that informant
was.

The majority is apparently unaware that under Executive Order No. 212, amending Presidential Decree No.
169, hospital establishments are required to report cases of acts of violence to "government health authorities"
— not to the military.

I am concerned that if the military were truly armed with reliable information and if it did have personal
knowledge to believe that Dural had committed an offense, there was no reason for the military to ignore the
courts, to which the Constitution after all, gives the authority to issue warrants. As People vs. Burgos held:

More important, we find no compelling reason for the haste with which the arresting officers sought to arrest
the accused. We fail to see why they failed to first go through the process of obtaining a warrant of arrest, if
indeed they had reasonable ground to believe that the accused had truly committed a crime. There is no
showing that there was a real apprehension that the accused was on the verge of flight or escape. Likewise,
there is no showing that the whereabouts of the accused were unknown. 12

I do not likewise see how the petitioners Amelia Roque, Wilfredo Buenaobra, Domingo Anonuevo, Ramon
Casiple, and Vicky Ocaya (G.R. Nos. 84581-82; 83162) could have been lawfully picked up under similar
circumstances. As the majority points out, the military had (again) acted on a mere tip — the military had no
personal knowledge (as I elaborated what personal knowledge means).Second, I do not think that the majority
can say that since Amelia Roque, et al. "were NPAs anyway" (As Roque, et al. allegedly admitted),immediate
arrests were "prudent" and necessary. As I said, that Roque, et al. were admitted "NPAs" is (was) the question
before the trial court and precisely, the subject of controversy. I think it is imprudent for this Court to pass
judgment on the guilt of the petitioners — since after all, and as the majority points out, we are talking simply of
the legality of the petitioners' arrests.

More important, that Roque, et al. "were NPAs anyway" is evidently, a mere say-so of the military, and
evidently, the Court is not bound by bare say-so's. Evidently, we can not approve an arrest simply because the
military says it is a valid arrest (the accused being "NPA's anyway") — that would be abdication of judicial duty
and when, moreover, the very basis of the claim rests on dubious "confidential information."

According to the majority, we are speaking of simple arrests; we are not talking of the guilt or innocence of the
accused. I certainly hope not, after the majority referred to Rolando Dural as a "sparrow man" and having
Amelia Roque, et al. admit to being NPA's."

It is to gloss over at any rate, the nature of arrest as a restraining on liberty. It is to me immaterial that the guilt
of the accused still has to be established, since meanwhile, the accused are in fact being deprived of liberty.
Arrest to me, is something to crow about, even if in the opinion of the majority, it is nothing to crow about (a
mere "administrative measure").

I can not, again, accept the validity of the arrests of Deogracia Espiritu or Narciso Nazareno (G.R. Nos. 85727;
86332).Espiritu was supposedly picked up for inciting to sedition, in uttering supposedly, on November 22,
1988, the following:

Bukas tuloy ang welga natin ...hanggang sa magkagulo na. 13

Espiritu however was arrested on November 23, 1988, a day later — and in no way is "inciting to sedition" a
continuing offense. Obviously, the majority is not saying that it is either, but that:
. . . Many persons may differ as to the validity of such perception and regard the language as falling within free
speech guaranteed by the Constitution. But, then, Espiritu has not lost the right to insist, during the trial on the
merits, that he was just exercising his right to free speech regardless of the charged atmosphere in which it
was uttered. But, the authority of the peace officers to make the arrest, without warrant, at the time the words
were uttered, or soon thereafter, is still another thing. In the balancing of authority and freedom, which
obviously becomes difficult at times, the Court has, in this case, tilted the scale in favor of authority but only for
purposes of the arrest (not conviction). Let it be noted that the Court has ordered the bail for Espiritu's release
to be reduced from P60,000.00 to P10,000.00. 14

And obviously, the majority is concerned about whether or not Espiritu's speech was after all, protected
speech, but apparently, that is also of no moment, since: (1) that is a matter of defense; (2) we are talking of
mere arrests, and as far as arrests are concerned, "the Court has, in this case, tilted in favor of authority," 15
and (3) we have, anyway, given a reduced bail to the accused.

First, that the accused's statement is in the category of free speech is not only plain to my mind, it is a question
I do not think the majority can rightly evade in these petitions without shirking the Court's constitutional duty. It
is to my mind plain, because it does not contain enough "fighting words" recognized to be seditious. 16
Secondly, it is the very question before the Court — whether or not the statement in question constitutes an
offense for purposes of a warrantless arrest. It is a perfectly legal question to my mind and I am wondering why
we can not answer it.

What the majority has not answered, as I indicated, is that inciting to sedition is in no way a continuing offense,
and as I said, the majority is not apparently convinced that it is, either. Of course, the majority would anyway
force the issue: "But the authority of the peace officers to make the arrest, without warrant, at the time the
words were uttered, or soon thereafter, is still another thing." 17 First, Espiritu was picked up the following day,
end in no way is "the following day" "soon thereafter". Second, we would have stretched the authority of peace
officers to make warrantless arrests for acts done days before. I do not think this is the contemplation of the
Rules of Court.

As in the case of Burgos in People vs. Burgos, 18 Espiritu was neither "on the verge of flight or escape" 19 and
there was no impediment for the military to go through the judicial processes, as there was none in the case of
Burgos.

In the case of People vs. Aminnudin, 20 this Court held that unless there "was a crime about to be committed
or had just been committed," and unless there existed an urgency as where a moving vehicle is involved,
instant police action can not be justified.

"In the balancing of authority and freedom," states the majority, "the Court has, in this case, tilted in favor of
authority but only for purposes of the arrest (not conviction)." 21 It is a strange declaration, first, because it is
supported by no authority (why the Court should "tilt" on the side of Government), and second, because this
Court has leaned, by tradition, on the side of liberty — as the custodian of the Bill of Rights — even if we were
talking of "simple" arrests.

I do not understand why this Court should "tilt . . . the scale in favor of authority . . . in this case," 22 as if to say
that normally, this Court would have tilted the scales the other way. I do not understand why these cases are
apparently, special cases, and apparently, the majority is not telling us either. I am wondering why, apart from
the fact that these cases involve, incidentally, people who think differently from the rest of us.

The majority goes on:

Although the killing of Bunye II occurred on 14 December 1988, while Nazareno's arrest without warrant was
made only on 28 December 1988, or 14 days later, the arrest falls under Section 5(b) of Rule 113, since it was
only on 28 December 1988 that the police authorities came to know that Nazareno was probably one of those
guilty in the killing of Bunye II. 23
With all due respect, I do not think that the majority is aware of the serious implications of its pronouncement
on individual rights (and statutory construction in general),and I feel I am appropriately concerned because as
a member of the Court, I am co-responsible for the acts of my colleagues and I am afraid that I may, rightly or
wrongly, be in time made to defend such an indefensible pronouncement.

Section 5(b) of Rule 113 is clear and categorical: the offense must have been "just committed" and the
authorities must have "personal knowledge."

In no way can an offense be said to have been "just committed" fourteen days after it was in fact (allegedly)
committed. In no way can the authorities be said to have "personal knowledge" two weeks thereafter; whatever
"personal knowledge" they have can not possibly be "personal knowledge" of a crime that had "just been
committed;" whatever "personal knowledge" they have is necessarily "personal knowledge" of a crime
committed two weeks before.

In no way can Nazareno's arrest be said to be an arrest sanctioned by the exceptional provisions of the Rules.

I am not saying that the military can not act in all cases, and it is sheer ignorance to suppose that I am saying
it, (or worse, that I am "coddling criminals").I am not saying that a suspected criminal, if he can not be arrested
without a warrant, can not be arrested at all — but that the military should first procure a warrant from a judge
before effecting an arrest. It is not too much to ask of so-called law enforcers.

As it is, the majority has enlarged the authority of peace officers to act, when the Rules have purposely limited
it by way of an exception, precisely, to the general rule, mandated by the Constitution no less, that arrests may
be done only through a judicial warrant. As it is, the majority has in fact given the military the broadest
discretion to act, a discretion the law denies even judges 24 — today it is fourteen days, tomorrow, one year,
and sooner, a decade. I submit that a year, a decade, would not be in fact unreasonable, following the theory
of the majority, since the military can claim anytime that it "found out only later," as the majority did not find it
unreasonable for the Capital Command to claim that it "came to know that Nazareno was probably one of
those guilty in the killing of Bunye II" 25 — and none of us can possibly dispute it.

I would like to stress strongly that we are not talking of a simple "administrative measure" alone — we are
talking of arrests,of depriving people of liberty — even if we are not yet talking of whether or not people are
guilty. That we are not concerned with guilt or innocence is hardly the point, I respectfully submit, and it will not
minimize the significance of the petitioners' predicament.

With respect to Wilfredo Buenaobra, I submit that the majority has, as in the cases of Amelia Roque, et
al.,ignored the fact that Buenaobra's alleged "admission" (actually, an uncounselled confession) was precisely,
the basis for Buenaobra's arrest. It is to beg the question, I respectfully submit, to approve the military's action
for the reason that Buenaobra confessed, because Buenaobra confessed for the reason that the military,
precisely, pounced on him. I am not to be mistaken for prejudging Buenaobra's innocence (although it is
supposed to be presumed) but I can not imagine that Buenaobra would have voluntarily proclaimed to the
military that he was an NPA courier so that the military could pounce on him.

I respectfully submit that the cases Garcia vs. Padilla 26 and Ilagan vs. Enrile 27 have seen better days. I do
not see how this court can continuously sustain them "where national security and stability are still directly
challenged perhaps with greater vigor from the communist rebels." 28 First and foremost, and as the majority
has conceded, we do not know if we are in fact dealing with "Communists." The case of Deogracias Espiritu,
for one, hardly involves subversion. Second, "communism" and "national security" are old hat — the dictator's
own excuses to perpetuate tyranny, and I am genuinely disappointed that we would still fall for old excuses.
Third, Garcia and Ilagan rested on supposed grounds that can not be possibly justified in a regime that
respects the rule of law — that the Presidential Commitment Order (PCO) is a valid presidential document
(Garcia) and that the filing of an information cures a defective arrest (Ilagan). Fourth and finally, it is evident
that neither "Communist threat" nor "national security" are valid grounds for warrantless arrests under Section
5(b) of Rule 113.
I most respectfully submit that Garcia and Ilagan have not only been diluted by subsequent jurisprudence (e.g.,
People vs. Burgos, supra),they are relics of authoritarian rule that can no longer be defended, if they could
have been defended, in Plaza Miranda or before our own peers in the bar.

"What is important," says the majority, "is that every arrest without warrant be tested as to its legality, via
habeas corpus proceedings." 29 I supposed that goes without saying. But it is also to patronize the petitioners
and simply, to offer a small consolation, when, after all, this Court is validating their continued detention. 30
With all due respect, I submit that it is nothing for which the public should be elated.

A Final Word

As I began my dissent, in this Resolution and the Decision sought to be reconsidered, I reiterate one principle:
The State has no right to bother citizens without infringing their right against arbitrary State action. "The right of
the people, states the Constitution, "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against
unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever nature and for any purpose shall be inviolable . . ." 31 "The
State," the Charter likewise states, "values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for
human rights." 32 The Constitution states the general rule — the majority would make the exception the rule,
and the rule the exception. With all due respect, this is not what constitutionalism is all about.

I submit that the "actual facts and circumstances" the majority refers to are, in the first place, doubtful, the
"actual facts and circumstances" being no more than "confidential information" (manufactured or genuine, we
have no way of telling) and in the second place, any information with which the military (or police) were armed
could no more than be hearsay, not personal, information. I submit that the "actual facts and circumstances"
the majority insists on can not justify the arrests in question under Section 5(b) of Rule 113, the rule the
majority insists is the applicable rule.

Apparently, Section 5(b) is not the applicable rule, as far as Deogracias Espiritu and Narciso Nazareno are
concerned; certainly, it is not the Section 5(b) I know. As I indicated, Espiritu was arrested one day after the
act, allegedly, inciting to sedition; Nazareno was picked up fourteen days after it (allegedly, murder).Yet, the
majority would approve the police's actions nonetheless because the police supposedly "found out only later." I
submit that the majority has read into Section 5(b) a provision that has not been written there.

"More than the allure of popularity or palatability to some groups," concludes the majority, "what is important is
that the Court be right." 33

Nobody has suggested in the first place, that Umil was and is a question of popularity or palatability. Umil is a
question, on the contrary, of whether or not the military (or police),in effecting the arrests assailed, had
complied with the requirements of law on warrantless arrests. Umil is a question of whether or not this Court, in
approving the military's actions, is right.

In spite of "EDSA",a climate of fear persists in the country, as incidences of disappearances, torture,
hamletting, bombings, saturation drives, and various human rights violations increase in alarming rates. In its
update for October, 1990, the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines found:

An average of 209 arrested for political reasons monthly since 1988, 94% of them illegally;

Four thousand four hundred eight (4.408) political detentions from January, 1989 to September, 1990, 4,419,
illegally;

Of those arrested, 535 showed signs of torture; 280 were eventually salvaged, 40, of frustrated salvage, and
109 remained missing after their arrest;

Forty (40) cases of massacres, with 218 killed; 54 cases of frustrated massacre, in which 157 were wounded;

The victims belonged to neighborhood and union organizations;

Since February, 1986, 532 of those illegally arrested were women;

From January to June 1990, 361 children were detained for no apparent reason;

One million ten thousand four hundred nine (1,010,409) have been injured as a consequence of bombings,
shellings, and food blockades undertaken by the military since 1988. 34

It is a bleak picture, and I am disturbed that this Court should express very little concern. I am also
disappointed that it is the portrait of the Court I am soon leaving. Nonetheless, I am hopeful that despite my
departure, it will not be too late.

Footnotes

1.G.R. No. 61388, April 20, 1983, 121 SCRA 472.

2.G.R. No. 70748, October 21, 1985, 139 SCRA 349.

3.Section 1, Rule 102: "To what habeas corpus extends. — Except otherwise expressly provided by law, the
writ of habeas corpus shall extend to all cases of illegal confinement or detention by which any person is
deprived of his liberty, or by which the rightful custody of any person is withheld from the person entitled
thereto."

4.Villavicencio vs. Lukban, 39 Phil. 778.

5.Ilagan vs. Enrile, G.R. No. 70748, October 21, 1985, 139 SCRA 349.

6.Sayo vs. Chief of Police, 80 Phil. 859 (1948).

7.Republic Act No. 1700 known as the "Anti-Subversion Act" entitled "An Act to outlaw the CPP and similar
associations, penalizing membership therein and for other purposes." (1957); and the subsequent related
decrees such as Presidential Decree No. 885 entitled "Outlawing subversive organizations, penalizing
membership therein, and for other purposes." (1976); and Presidential Decree No. 1835 entitled "Codifying the
various laws on anti-subversion and increasing the penalties for membership in subversive organizations."

8.G.R. No. 61388, April 20, 1983, 121 SCRA 472.

9.US vs. Santos, 36 Phil. 851 (1917).

10.Ibid.

11.Ibid.

12.Records of G.R. No. 81567, affidavit dated 4 February 1988.

13.Rollo, pp. 311-312 (G.R. No. 81567).

14.Presidential Decree No. 169 requires attending physicians and/or persons treating injuries from any form of
violence, to report such fact to the Philippine Constabulary and prescribing penalties for any violation thereof.

15.Decision dated 9 July 1990, pp. 19-20.

16.Decision, pp. 10-11.

17.Ibid.,p. 12.
18.Ibid.,pp. 12-13.

19.Ibid.,pp. 14-15.

20.Decision, p. 18.

21.United States vs. Sanchez, No. 9294, March 30, 1914, 27 Phil. 442.

22.Ibid:"The legality of the detention does not depend upon the fact of the crime, but ...upon the nature of the
deed, wherefrom such characterization may reasonably be inferred by the officer or functionary to whom the
law at that moment leaves the decision for the urgent purpose of suspending the liberty of the citizen."

In People vs. Ancheta,it was held that "the legality of detention made by a person in authority or an agent
thereof ...does not depend upon the juridical and much less the judicial fact of crime which, at the time of its
commission, is not and cannot definitively be determined for the lack of necessary data and for Jurisdiction but
upon the nature of the deed ..."

23.United States vs. Santos, supra.

24.Ibid.

25.Article 124 of the Revised Penal Code provides:

"ART. 124. Arbitrary detention.— Any public officer or employee who, without legal grounds, detains a
person, shall suffer:

1. The penalty of arresto mayor in its maximum period to prision correccional in its maximum period, if the
detention has not exceeded three days ..."

26.Damages for the impairment of rights and liberties of another person.

27.Affidavit of Avelino Faustino dated 23 November 1988; Return of the Writ dated 25 November 1988;
Decision dated 9 July 1990, pp. 23-24.

28.Joint Affidavit of 5 police agents, dated 23 November 1988; Decision, supra.

29.Affidavit of police agents, dated 28 December 1988, marked Exhibit "A" at the RTC, Bin, Branch 24.

30.Decision of 9 July 1990, pp. 9 and 12.

31.Decision of 9 July 1990, p. 13.

FELICIANO, J.,concurring and dissenting:

1.Salaysay vs. Castro, 98 Phil. 364 (1956).

2.Realty Investments Inc. vs. Pastrana, 84 Phil. 842 (1949); Sayo vs. Chief of Police of Manila, 80 Phil. 859
(1948).

3.64 Phil. 33 (1937).

4.64 Phil. at 44.

5.144 SCRA 1 (1986).

6.144 SCRA at 14.

7.See e.g.,U.S. vs. Samonte, 16 Phil. 516 (1910).

8.In People vs. Aminnudin, 163 SCRA 402 (1988), the Court, in nullifying a warrantless arrest, said, through
Mr. Justice Cruz:

"In the many cases where this Court has sustained the warrantless arrest of violators on the Dangerous
Drugs Act, it has always been shown that they were caught red-handed, as a result of what are popularly
called "buy-bust" operations of the narcotics agents. Rule 113 was clearly applicable because at the precise
time of arrest the accused was in the act of selling the prohibited drug.

In the case at bar, the accused-appellant was not, at the moment of his arrest, committing a crime nor was it
shown that he was about to do so or that he had just done so. What he was doing was descending the
gangplank of the M/V Wilson 9 and there was no outward indication that called for his arrest. To all
appearances, he was like any of the other passengers innocently disembarking from the vessel. It was only
when the informer pointed to him as the carrier of the marijuana that he suddenly became suspect and so
subject to apprehension. It was the furtive finger that triggered his arrest. The identification by the informer was
the probable cause as determined by the officers (and not a judge) that authorized them to pounce upon
Aminnudin and immediately arrest him." (163 SCRA at 409-410) (Emphasis supplied).

9.People vs. Burgos, 144 SCRA 1 (1986).

10.121 SCRA 472 (1983).

11.Parulan vs. Director of Prisons, 22 SCRA 638 (1968);U.S. vs. Cunanan, 26 Phil. 376 (1913);U.S. vs.
Santiago, 27 Phil. 408 (1914);U.S. vs. Laureaga, 2 Phil. 71 (1903).

12.E.g. People vs. ZAPANTA and Bondoc, 88 Phil. 688 (1951) where the Court held that each instance of
sexual intercourse constitutes a separate crime of adultery, though the same persons and the same offended
spouse are involved, and that a second information may be filed against the same accused for later acts of
sexual intercourse.

13.Section 6, P.D. 1835, 16 January 1981.

SARMIENTO, J.,dissenting:

1.Resolution, 1.

2.Supra; emphasis in the original.

3.The majority cites Presidential Decrees Nos. 885 and 1835 and "related decrees;" both Presidential Decrees
Nos. 885 and 1835 have been repealed by Executive Order No. 167, as amended by Executive Order No. 267.

4.Please note that under Section 6 of Presidential Decree No. 1835, "[t]he following acts shall constitute prima
facie evidence of membership in any subversive organization: (a) A lowing himself to be listed as a member in
any book or any of the lists, records, correspondence, or any other document of the organization; (b)
Subjecting himself to the discipline of such association or organization in any form whatsoever; (c) Giving
financial contribution to such association or organization in dues, assessments, loans or in any other forms; (d)
Executing orders, plans, or directives of any kind of such association or organization; (e) Acting as an agent,
courier, messenger, correspondent, organizer, or in any other capacity, on behalf of such association or
organization; (f) Conferring with officers or other members of such association or organization in furtherance of
any plan or enterprise thereof; (g) Transmitting orders, directives, or plans of such association or organization
orally or in writing or any other means of communication such as by signal, semaphore, sign or code; (h)
Preparing documents, pamphlets, leaflets, books, or any other type of publication to promote the objectives
and purposes of such association or organization; (i) Mailing, shipping, circulating, distributing, or delivering to
other persons any material or propaganda of any kind on behalf of such association or organization; (j)
Advising, counselling, or in other way giving instruction, information, suggestions, or recommendations to
officers, or members or to any other person to further the objectives of such association or organization; and
(k) Participating in any way in the activities, planning action, objectives, or purposes of such association or
organization." Please note that none of these are alleged by the military in this case, assuming that the Decree
still exists.

5.Nos. L-32613-14, December 27, 1972, 48 SCRA 382; emphasis supplied. In Taruc vs. Ericta (No. L-34856,
Nov. 29, 1989, 168 SCRA 63, 66-67),I held that People vs. Ferrer is no longer a good basis for sustaining the
Anti-Subversion Act. I am not here invoking Ferrer to sustain it, but to discuss its elaboration of the provisions
of Republic Act Mo. 1700.

6.Resolution, supra.

7.G.R. No. 68955, September 4, 1986, 144 SCRA 1.

8.Supra, 14.

9.36 Phil. 853 (1917).

10.Resolution, supra, 10.

11.People vs. Burgos, supra, 15.

12.Supra.

13.Resolution, supra, 15.

14.Supra, 16.

15.Supra.

16.See United States vs. Apurado, 7 Phil. 422 (1907).

17.Resolution, supra;emphasis supplied.

18.Supra.

19.At 15.

20.G.R. No. 74869, July 6, 1988, 163 SCRA 402.

21.Resolution, supra.

22.Supra,17.

23.Supra.

24.See RULES OF COURT, supra, Rule 112, sec. 5, on the number of days a judge may act.

25.Resolution, supra.

26.G.R. No. 61388, April 20, 1983, 121 SCRA 472.

27.G.R. No. 70748, October 21, 1985, 139 SCRA 349.

28.Resolution, supra, 18-19.

29.Resolution, supra,19.

30.Except for Rolando Dural, the rest of the petitioners have been acquitted by the lower courts trying their
cases.

31.CONST., art. III, sec. 2.

32.Supra,art. II, sec. 11.

33.Resolution, supra, 19.

34.Manila Chronicle, October, 1990.

||| (In re Umil v. Ramos, G.R. No. 81567, 84581-82, 84583-84, 83162, 85727, 86332, [October 3, 1991], 279
PHIL 266-344)