Biaco, Angelica G.

Serapio v. Sandiganbayan – G.R. No. 148468

Facts:
Before the Court are two petitions for certiorari filed by petitioner Edward Serapio, assailing
the resolutions of the Third Division of the Sandiganbayan denying his petition for bail, motion
for a reinvestigation and motion to quash, and a petition for habeas corpus, all in relation to
Criminal Case No. 26558 for plunder wherein petitioner is one of the accused together with
former President Joseph E. Estrada, Jose Jinggoy P. Estrada and several others.
The records show that petitioner was a member of the Board of Trustees and the Legal
Counsel of the Erap Muslim Youth Foundation, a non-stock, non-profit foundation established in
February 2000 ostensibly for the purpose of providing educational opportunities for the poor and
underprivileged but deserving Muslim youth and students, and support to research and advance
studies of young Muslim educators and scientists.
Sometime in April 2000, petitioner, as trustee of the Foundation, received on its behalf a
donation in the amount of Two Hundred Million Pesos (P200 Million) from Ilocos Sur Governor
Luis Chavit Singson through the latters assistant Mrs. Yolanda Ricaforte. Petitioner received the
donation and turned over the said amount to the Foundations treasurer who later deposited it in
the Foundations account with the Equitable PCI Bank.
In the latter part of the year 2000, Gov. Singson publicly accused then President Joseph E.
Estrada and his cohorts of engaging in several illegal activities, including its operation on the
illegal numbers game known as jueteng. This triggered the filing with the Office of the
Ombudsman of several criminal complaints against Joseph Estrada, Jinggoy Estrada and
petitioner, together with other persons.
Subsequently, petitioner filed his Counter-Affidavit dated February 21, 2001. The other
respondents likewise filed their respective counter-affidavits.The Office of the Ombudsman
conducted a preliminary investigation of the complaints and on April 4, 2001, issued a joint
resolution recommending, inter alia, that Joseph Estrada, petitioner and several others be
charged with the criminal offense of plunder.
On April 4, 2001, the Ombudsman filed with the Sandiganbayan several Informations
against former President Estrada, who earlier had resigned from his post as President of the
Republic of the Philippines. One of these Informations, docketed as Criminal Case No. 26558,
charged Joseph Estrada with plunder. On April 18, 2001, the Ombudsman filed an amended
Information in said case charging Estrada and several co-accused, including petitioner, with said
crime. No bail was recommended for the provisional release of all the accused, including
petitioner. The case was raffled to a special division which was subsequently created by the
Supreme Court.
The Sandiganbayan set the arraignment of the accused, including petitioner, in Criminal
Case No. 26558 on June 27, 2001. In the meantime, on April 27, 2001, petitioner filed with the
Sandiganbayan an Urgent Petition for Bail which was set for hearing on May 4, 2001. For his
part, petitioners co-accused Jose Jinggoy Estrada filed on April 20, 2001 a Very Urgent Omnibus
Motion alleging that he was entitled to bail as a matter of right.
During the hearing on May 4, 2001 on petitioners Urgent Petition for Bail, the prosecution
moved for the resetting of the arraignment of the accused earlier than the June 27, 2001
schedule. However, the Sandiganbayan denied the motion of the prosecution and issued an order
declaring that the petition for bail can and should be heard before petitioners arraignment on
June 27, 2001 and even before the other accused in Criminal Case No. 26558 filed their
respective petitions for bail. Accordingly, the Sandiganbayan set the hearing for the reception of
evidence on petitioners petition for bail on May 21 to 25, 2001.

Issue:
Whether or not bail is not a matter of right in capital offenses.

Decision:
No.
There must be a showing that the evidence of guilt against a person charged with a capital
offense is not strong for the court to grant him bail. Thus, upon an application for bail by the
person charged with a capital offense, a hearing thereon must be conducted, where the
prosecution must be accorded an opportunity to discharge its burden of proving that the evidence
of guilt against an accused is strong. The prosecution shall be accorded the opportunity to present
all the evidence it may deems necessary for this purpose. When it is satisfactorily demonstrated
that the evidence of guilt is strong, it is the courts duty to deny the application for bail. However,
when the evidence of guilt is not strong, bail becomes a matter of right.
In this case, petitioner is not entitled to bail as a matter of right at this stage of the
proceedings. Petitioners claim that the prosecution had refused to present evidence to prove his
guilt for purposes of his bail application and that the Sandiganbayan has refused to grant a
hearing thereon is not borne by the records. The prosecution did not waive, expressly or even
impliedly, its right to adduce evidence in opposition to the petition for bail of petitioner. It must
be noted that the Sandiganbayan had already scheduled the hearing dates for petitioners
application for bail but the same were reset due to pending incidents raised in several motions
filed by the parties, which incidents had to be resolved by the court prior to the bail hearings. The
bail hearing was eventually scheduled by the Sandiganbayan on July 10, 2001 but the hearing did
not push through due to the filing of this petition on June 29, 2001.
The delay in the conduct of hearings on petitioners application for bail is therefore not
imputable solely to the Sandiganbayan or to the prosecution. Petitioner is also partly to blame
therefor, as is evident from the following list of motions filed by him and by the prosecution:
Furthermore, the Court has previously ruled that even in cases where the prosecution refuses
to adduce evidence in opposition to an application for bail by an accused charged with a capital
offense, the trial court is still under duty to conduct a hearing on said application. The rationale
for such requirement was explained in Narciso vs. Sta. Romana-Cruz (supra), citing Basco vs.
Rapatalo:
When the grant of bail is discretionary, the prosecution has the burden of showing that
the evidence of guilt against the accused is strong. However, the determination of
whether or not the evidence of guilt is strong, being a matter of judicial discretion,
remains with the judge. This discretion by the very nature of things, may rightly be
exercised only after the evidence is submitted to the court at the hearing. Since the
discretion is directed to the weight of the evidence and since evidence cannot properly be
weighed if not duly exhibited or produced before the court, it is obvious that a proper
exercise of judicial discretion requires that the evidence of guilt be submitted to the court,
the petitioner having the right of cross-examination and to introduce his own evidence in
rebuttal.