THIRD DIVISION
[G.R. Nos. 233263-76. March 7, 2018.]
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, petitioner,vs. HON. SANDIGANBAYAN [FOURTH DIVISION] AND ADULFO AGCOPRA LLAGAS, respondents.
NOTICE
Sirs/Mesdames :
Please take notice that the Court, Third Division, issued a Resolution datedMarch 7, 2018, which reads as follows: SDHTEC
"G.R. Nos. 233263-76 (People of the Philippines vs. Hon. Sandiganbayan [Fourth Division] and Adulfo Agcopra Llagas). — For the Court's consideration is a Petition for Certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court filed by the People of the Philippines, represented by the Office of the Special Prosecutor under the Office of the Ombudsman (Ombudsman). The instant relief assails the February 1, 2017 1 and June 14, 2017 2 Resolutions of the Sandiganbayan, Fourth Division (Sandiganbayan) in SB-16-CRM-0058 to 71 that dismissed the criminal informations for violation of Section 52 (d), in relation to Section 6, of Republic Act No. (RA) 8291 against respondent Adulfo Agcopra Llagas (Llagas). The dismissal was grounded on the purported inordinate delay in the conduct of the preliminary investigation proceeding, resulting in the violation of Llagas' right to a speedy disposition of his cases.
The Facts
The criminal case stemmed from an anonymous letter 3 dated November 12, 2008 sent to the Office of the Ombudsman-Mindanao (Ombudsman) by concerned employees of the Butuan Medical Center. The said employees requested that appropriate charges be filed against the City Treasurer of Butuan City, herein private respondent Llagas, for the latter's alleged failure to remit their premium contributions to the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), beginning November 2007. The letter-complaint was received by the Ombudsman on November 24, 2008.
Upon verifying the allegations in the letter-complaint, Concepcion S. Bartolata, the Complaints Officer-Designate of the Ombudsman, executed an Affidavit 4 on February 11, 2009 to stand as nominal complainant against Llagas for probable violation of Republic Act No. (RA) 8291, otherwise known as the Revised Government Service Insurance Act of 1977. The investigation was then docketed into a regular criminal and administrative case for preliminary investigation and administrative adjudication.
On February 24, 2009, the Ombudsman issued a Joint Order 5 directing Llagas to file his counter-affidavit against the charges against him. He complied with the directive on April 8, 2009. 6
Thereafter, the Ombudsman, through its September 18, 2013 Order, 7 directed the parties to file their respective Verified Position Papers within ten (10) days from notice. Llagas' counsel, however, manifested on October 14, 2013 that respondent had already retired from government service, rendering the case moot and academic, and had already lost contact with counsel.
In its November 17, 2014 Resolution, 8 the Ombudsman found probable cause to indict Llagas for violation of Section 52 (d), in relation to Section 6, of RA 8291. 9
The adverse ruling prompted Llagas to interpose an Omnibus Motion for Reconsideration dated May 8, 2015, wherein he assailed the Ombudsman's findings on the following grounds: (1) that he is not the officer who is charged with the withholding of the remittances and preparation of the necessary voucher for its payment, (2) that he merely certifies that there is available funds for the vouchers prepared and processed by the City Accountant, and (3) that the resolution of the case after the lapse of six (6) years is violative of his right to speedy trial. Llagas was then represented by his new counsel, Atty. Maria Theresa Llagas-Oh, who manifested that the previous counsel had been remiss in his duty to inform Llagas of the development of the cases, and has not communicated to the latter the resolution and decision of the Ombudsman.
Llagas' Omnibus Motion was denied on August 10, 2015. 10 Thus, thirteen (13) Informations were filed against him before the Sandiganbayan on February 16, 2016. The first Information of the series, SB-16-CRM-0058 pertinently reads:
That in November 2007, or sometime prior or subsequent thereto, in the City of Butuan, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, [Llagas], a high-ranking public official, being the City Treasurer of Butuan City, and as such has the duty to deduct and remit the [GSIS] premium contributions of the Butuan Medical Center employees, committing the offense in relation to his office, did then and there, willfully, unlawfully and criminally fail to deduct the GSIS contributions to the GSIS by more than thirty (30) days from the time such amount became due and demandable.
CONTRARY TO LAW. 11
The number of charges corresponds to the number of months from November 2007 until December 2008, the entire period when private respondent allegedly failed to remit the GSIS premium contributions of the Butuan Medical Center employees. Thus, the contents of the Informations in SB-16-CRM-0059 to 71 are identical with the above-quoted, save for the date of the commission of the offense.
Llagas then filed an Omnibus Motion for Judicial Determination of Probable Cause, Dismissal of the Cases, and for Judicial Notice, dated February 22, 2016. Invoking once again his right to a speedy disposition of cases, Llagas prayed for the dismissal of the criminal charges against him, among others.
Ruling of the Sandiganbayan
On February 1, 2017, the Sandiganbayan promulgated the first assailed Resolution granting Llagas' motion to dismiss thusly:
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the Court finds probable cause for the issuance of the warrants of arrest against accused Llagas in Criminal Case Nos. SB-16-CRM-0058 to SB-16-CRM-0071, but hereby DISMISSES all the said cases for being violative of his right to the speedy disposition of cases lodged against him. AScHCD
SO ORDERED.12
Petitioner moved for partial reconsideration, but the anti-graft court was unswayed. There being no plain, speedy, adequate remedy available from the dismissal of the cases, petitioner interposed the instant certiorari petition under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court.
The Issue
The sole argument raised in the petition is framed in the following wise:
PUBLIC RESPONDENT SANDIGANBAYAN ACTED WITH GRAVE ABUSE OF DISCRETION AMOUNTING TO LACK OR EXCESS OF JURISDICTION WHEN IT ISSUED THE ASSAILED RESOLUTIONS DISMISSING SB-13CRM-0058 TO 0071 FOR ALLEGED VIOLATION OF LLAGAS'S RIGHT TO SPEEDY DISPOSITION OF HIS CASES WHEN IT ARBITRARILY REFUSED TO APPLY THE DOCTRINAL RULING OF A "BALANCING TEST" IN THE DETERMINATION OF THE ACTUAL VIOLATION OF SAID RIGHT, AND INSTEAD ENGAGED IN A MERE MATHEMATICAL COMPUTATION OF THE PERIOD INVOLVED. 13
For his part, Llagas countered that the Sandiganbayan did not abuse its discretion in granting his motion to dismiss. He asserted that contrary to petitioner's claim, the Sandiganbayan was not fixated on the period of the delay alone, but considered the totality of the circumstances that obtained in the investigation of his case.
The Court's Ruling
The petition is devoid of merit.
Prevailing jurisprudence imposes on this Court the application of a delicate balancing test to determine whether or not a party litigant's right to a speedy disposition of a case had been violated. For purposes of this test, the following factors may be considered and balanced: (1) the length of delay; (2) the reasons for the delay; (3) the assertion or failure to assert such right by the accused; and (4) the prejudice caused by the delay. 14
In the instant recourse, petitioner alleged, in the main, that the Sandiganbayan gravely abused its discretion when it dismissed the criminal informations against Llagas based on a mere mathematical reckoning of the period involved. It appears, however, that petitioner's claim that the Sandiganbayan refused to apply the doctrinal balancing test is more imagined than real. A reproduction of the assailed ruling is herein apropos:
We now proceed to apply the test in this case to determine if there was inordinate delay before the Office of the Ombudsman, as alleged by the accused.
Length of the Delay. Below is the summary of the important case events while the subject matter of this case was still pending before the office of the Ombudsman, from initiation until the filing of the criminal cases before this Court:
|
Date |
Case Event |
|
November 12, 2008 |
Receipt of the letter of concerned employees of Butuan Medical Center to the Office of the Ombudsman |
|
February 11, 2009 |
Complaint-Affidavit of Bartolata was filed |
|
February 24, 2009 |
Order of Ombudsman for Llagas to submit his counter-affidavit |
|
April 8, 2009 |
Submission by Llagas of Counter-Affidavit submitted (sic), after a request of time to file the same was made |
|
September 18, 2013 |
Directive of OMB-Mindanao for parties to submit their respective position papers |
|
September 16, 2014 |
Approval of the Ombudsman of the Resolution finding probable cause |
|
August 10, 2015 |
Denial of Llagas' Motion for Reconsideration of the resolution finding probable cause |
|
February 16, 2016 |
Filing of the Information against the accused before the Sandiganbayan |
There is a span of roughly eight (8) years from 2008, the time when the letter complaint was filed before the Office of the Ombudsman, until February 16, 2016, when these cases were filed before this Court.
The period of nearly eight years for the [Ombudsman] to conduct a preliminary investigation is definitely lengthy. It should be emphasized that the [Ombudsman] did not act upon the case after the herein accused filed his counter-affidavit for a period of more than four (4) years. Instead of resolving the preliminary investigation, it directed the parties to file their respective position papers and resolved the case only after another year lapsed.
Reason for the delay. Unfortunately, prosecution has not offered any rhyme or reason for the length in the conduct of their proceedings. Neither did it try to explain the several lulls in the processing of this case.
It could not be over-emphasized that the [Ombudsman], as the "protector of the people," was conceived by the framers of the Constitution to ensure the accountability of all public officials. The only tool that any public official has against the said powerful office is his or her right to invoke his constitutional rights, including the right to the speedy disposition of cases against him. Thus, once a complaint is lodged with the [Ombudsman], the clock starts ticking and the Ombudsman is burdened to dispose of the case with dispatch.
Lastly, the accused is correct when he said that the case lodged against him is a simple case with no complex issues to be resolved in finding probable cause.
Assertion of such right by the accused. Accused could not be considered to have waived his right to the speedy disposition of his cases. As a matter of fact, he made this assertion at the first opportunity to do so — i.e., he filed the motion to dismiss on the ground of inordinate delay immediately after the Informations against him were filed. 15
Verily, there is no truth to petitioner's assertion. A plain perusal of the challenged rulings would readily reveal that the anti-graft court was not fixated with the duration of preliminary investigation of SB-13CRM-0058 to 0071. Rather, the Sandiganbayan likewise considered the explanation, or lack thereof, given by the prosecution for the delay. But as aptly ruled by the Sandiganbayan, the four-year hiatus between Llagas' submission of his counter-affidavit, on the one hand, and the Ombudsman's Order to file a position paper, on the other, is too long that it can no longer reasonably be attributed to the ordinary processes of justice.
There is no valid justification for the delay. The Court notes that there was no explanation offered in the petition as regards the years of inactivity between April 8, 2009 and September 18, 2013. There was no allegation that the number of respondents is so numerous and that the records of the case, too voluminous that the preliminary investigation entailed a more extensive scrutiny. Indeed, the criminal charges leveled against the lone respondent Llagas for non-remittance of GSIS contributions are not complicated enough so as to warrant the protracted delay. Simply verifying the status of the Butuan Medical Center employees' accounts with the GSIS would have sufficed. Surely, this did not require four years to accomplish.
It cannot be said that Llagas was remiss in asserting his right. Contrary to the Sandiganbayan's finding, Llagas' February 22, 2016 Omnibus Motion, after the Informations against him were filed, was not the first instance for him to invoke the constitutional guarantee. For when he discovered upon receipt of the Resolution that his cases before the Ombudsman were still pending and that the latter found probable cause to charge him, he immediately engaged the services of a new counsel and invoked the right to a speedy disposition of his cases through his May 8, 2015 motion. AcICHD
Likewise, We cannot rule that Llagas waived the constitutional protection. This is to be distinguished from Dela Peña v. Sandiganbayan, 16 where petitioners therein were held to have slept on their rights, amounting to laches, for not filing nor sending any letter-queries to the Ombudsman during the four-year preliminary investigation conducted. Rather, the instant case is more akin to Coscolluela v. Sandiganbayan17 and Duterte v. Sandiganbayan18 where the Court held that there is no waiver of the right to the speedy disposition of a case if the person of interest cannot be charged with the knowledge of the pendency of the investigation.
The factual milieu of this case is reminiscent of that in Angchangco, Jr. v. Ombudsman, 19 wherein the Court held:
Here, the Office of the Ombudsman, due to its failure to resolve the criminal charges against petitioner for more than six years, has transgressed on the constitutional right of petitioner to due process and to a speedy disposition of the cases against him, as well as the Ombudsman's own constitutional duty to act promptly on complaints filed before it. For all these past 6 years, petitioner has remained under a cloud, and since his retirement in September 1994, he has been deprived of the fruits of his retirement after serving the government for over 42 years all because of the inaction of respondent Ombudsman. If we wait any longer, it may be too late for petitioner to receive his retirement benefits, not to speak of clearing his name. This is a case of plain injustice which calls for the issuance of the writ prayed for.
In the case at bar, Llagas filed his counter-affidavit on April 8, 2009. By the time his former counsel received the September 18, 2013 Order to file a position paper, Llagas had already retired. Said former counsel thus intimated to the Ombudsman that he had already lost contact with his client, which might have very well prevented the latter from properly asserting his defense. Not only that, Llagas would have been deprived of his hard-earned retirement benefits because of the pendency of his cases before the Ombudsman.
Indubitably, the inexplicable lull space in the investigation caused undue prejudice to Llagas and trenched upon his constitutional right to the speedy disposition of his cases. No abuse of discretion, let alone one that is grave, can then be attributed to the Sandiganbayan when it dismissed the charges against Llagas.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the instant Petition for Certiorari is hereby DISMISSED for lack of merit.
SO ORDERED."
Very truly yours,
(SGD.) WILFREDO V. LAPITANDivision Clerk of Court
Footnotes
1. Penned by Associate Justice Geraldine Faith A. Econg and concurred in by Associate Justices Alex L. Quiroz and Reynaldo P. Cruz.
2.Rollo, p. 50.
3.Id. at 172.
4.Id. at 173-175.
5.Id. at 176-177.
6.Id. at 180-186.
7.Id. at 10.
8.Id. at 187-192.
9. SEC. 6. Collection and Remittance of Contributions. — (a) The employer shall report to the GSIS the names of all its employees, their corresponding employment status, positions, salaries and such other pertinent information, including subsequent changes therein, if any, as may be required by the GSIS; the employer shall deduct each month from the monthly salary or compensation of each employee the contribution payable by him in accordance with the schedule prescribed in the rules and regulations implementing this Act.
(b) Each employer shall remit directly to the GSIS the employee's and employer's contributions within the first ten (10) days of the calendar month following the month to which the contributions apply. The remittance by the employer of the contribution to the GSIS shall take priority over and above the payment of any and all obligations, except salaries and wages of its employees.
xxx xxx xxx
SEC. 52. Penalty. — x x x
xxx xxx xxx
(d) The treasurer, finance officer, cashier, disbursing officer, budget officer or other official or employee who fails to include in the annual budget the amount corresponding to the employer and employee contributions, or who fails or refuses or delays by more than thirty (30) days from the time such amount becomes due and demandable, or to deduct the monthly contributions of the employee shall, upon conviction by final judgment, suffer the penalties of imprisonment from six (6) months and one (1) day to six (6) years, and a fine of not less than Three thousand pesos (P3,000.00) but not more than Six thousand pesos (P6,000.00), and in addition, shall suffer absolute perpetual disqualification from holding public office and from practicing any profession or calling licensed by the government.
10.Rollo, pp. 206-210.
11. Id. at 11.
12. Id. at 48.
13. Id. at 13.
14. Coscolluela v. Sandiganbayan, G.R. No. 191411, July 15, 2013.
15. Rollo, pp. 46-48.
16. G.R. No. 144542, June 29, 2001.
17. G.R. No. 191411, July 15, 2013.
18. G.R. No. 130191, April 27, 1998.
19. G.R. No. 122728, February 13, 1997.