Cited Laws
TL;DR — Ruling
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the Informations for Homicide and Frustrated Homicide are considered withdrawn and the Court hereby orders the reinstatement of the Informations for murder and frustrated murder x x x. [8] On 26 April 2005, Jaime and Jovito filed a motion for reconsideration. They argued that the RTC had no authority to make its own independent findings of facts to determine probable cause against them, apart from the findings made by the Secretary of Justice.
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the Informations for Homicide and Frustrated Homicide are considered withdrawn and the Court hereby orders the reinstatement of the Informations for murder and frustrated murder x x x. [8] On 26 April 2005, Jaime and Jovito filed a motion for reconsideration. They argued that the RTC had no authority to make its own independent findings of facts to determine probable cause against them, apart from the findings made by the Secretary of Justice. Judge Hidalgo denied the said motion, opining that the RTC had the power and duty to make an evaluation to determine the existence of probable cause for the charges, independent of the opinion of the Secretary of Justice. The dispositive part of the Order provides: Accordingly, the Motion for Reconsideration filed by the accused is hereby DENIED for lack of basis x x x. Asst. City Prosecutor Ronaldo Hubilla is hereby directed within 10 days from receipt hereof to file amended Informations for Murder and Frustrated Murder against Jovito Armas, Jr. and Jaime Chua, respectively. [9] Jaime then filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition with the Court of Appeals. Again, Jaime contended that Judge Hidalgo had no authority to order the amendment of the informations and to include him as co-accused, since such powers and prerogatives revolved exclusively on the Department of Justice and the City Prosecutor. In a Decision dated 24 January 2007, the Court of Appeals granted Jaimes' petition and nullified the 7 December 2004 Order of Judge Hidalgo, ruling that the same were issued in grave abuse of discretion amounting to excess of jurisdiction. In nullifying Judge Hidalgo's Order, the Court of Appeals held that Crespo was not applicable to the instant case, since Judge Hidalgo, unlike in the Crespo case, was not confronted with a motion to dismiss or tasked to convict or to acquit an accused. It maintained that the trial court could only exercise its sound discretion on what to do with cases filed before it in line with Crespo, when there was a pleading calling for the dismissal, conviction or acquittal of the accused. Since Lourdes and Edison's Motion for the Amendment of the Informations for Homicide and Frustrated Homicide filed on 30 April 1998 was not a motion to dismiss nor one aimed at convicting or acquitting the accused, then Crespo found no relevance. The Court of Appeals likewise stressed that the 7 December 2004 Order of Judge Hidalgo was a patent nullity since it revived the earlier 18 November 1997 Order of Judge Cruz withdrawing the charges against Jaime, which had already attained finality on 6 October 1998. Aggrieved, Lourdes and Edison filed the instant petition. We grant the petition. The basic issue at hand is whether Judge Hidalgo may review the finding of the Secretary of Justice on the existence or non-existence of probable cause sufficient to hold Jaime for trial and substitute his judgment for that of the Secretary of Justice. The rule is that once a