CASE DIGEST: ESTRADA VS. ARROYO; ESTRADA VS.

DESIERTO

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G.R. No 146710-15 Estrada vs. Desierto

March 2, 2001

FACTS:

Estrada was inaugurated as president of the Republic of the Philippines on June 30, 1998 with Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo as his Vice President.

In October 2000, Ilocos Sur governor Luis “Chavit” Singson, a close friend of the President, alleged that he had
personally given Estrada money as payoff from jueteng hidden in a bank account known as “Jose Velarde” – a
grassroots-based numbers game. Singson’s allegation also caused controversy across the nation, which
culminated in the House of Representatives’ filing of an impeachment case against Estrada on November 13,
2000. House Speaker Manny Villar fast-tracked the impeachment complaint. The impeachment suit was
brought to the Senate and an impeachment court was formed, with Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr. as presiding
officer. Estrada, pleaded “not guilty”.

The exposé immediately ignited reactions of rage. On January 18, a crowd continued to grow at EDSA, bolstered
by students from private schools and left-wing organizations. Activists from the group Bayan and Akbayan as
well as lawyers of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines and other bar associations joined in the thousands of
protesters.

On January 19, The Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines also withdrew their
support for Estrada and joined the crowd at EDSA Shrine.

At 2:00pm, Estrada appeared on television for the first time since the beginning of the protests and maintains
that he will not resign. He said that he wanted the impeachment trial to continue, stressing that only a guilty
verdict will remove him from office.

At 6:15pm, Estrada again appeared on television, calling for a snap presidential election to be held concurrently
with congressional and local elections on May 14, 2001. He added that he will not run in this election.

OnJanuary 20, the Supreme Court declared that the seat of presidency was vacant, saying that Estrada
“constructively resigned his post”. Noon of the same day, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took her oath of office in the
presence of the crowd at EDSA, becoming the 14th president of the Philippines.

At 2:00 pm, Estrada released a letter saying he had “strong and serious doubts about the legality and
constitutionality of her proclamation as president”, but saying he would give up his office to avoid being an
obstacle to healing the nation. Estrada and his family later left Malacañang Palace.

A heap of cases then succeeded Estrada’s leaving the palace, which he countered by filing a peition for
prohibition with a prayer for a writ of preliminary injunction. It sought to enjoin the respondent Ombudsman
from “conducting any further proceedings in cases filed against him not until his term as president ends. He also
prayed for judgment “confirming petitioner to be the lawful and incumbent President of the Republic of the
Philippines temporarily unable to discharge the duties of his office, and declaring respondent to have taken her
oath as and to be holding the Office of the President, only in an acting capacity pursuant to the provisions of the
Constitution.”

ISSUE:

1.) Whether or not the case at bar a political or justiciable issue. If justiciable, whether or not petitioner
Estrada was a president-on-leave or did he truly resign.

2.) Whether or not petitioner may invoke immunity from suits.

HELD:

The Court defines a political issue as “those questions which, under the Constitution, are to be decided by the
people in their sovereign capacity, or in regard to which full discretionary authority has been delegated to the
legislative or executive branch of the government. It is concerned with issues dependent upon the wisdom,
not legality of a particular measure.”

The Court made a distinction between the Aquino presidency and the Arroyo presidency. The Court said that
while the Aquino government was a government spawned by the direct demand of the people in defiance to the
1973 Constitution, overthrowing the old government entirely, the Arroyo government on the other hand was a
government exercising under the 1987 constitution, wherein only the office of the president was affected. In the
former, it The question of whether the previous president (president Estrada) truly resigned subjects it to judicial
review. The Court held that the issue is legal and not political.

For the president to be deemed as having resigned, there must be an intent to resign and the intent must be
coupled by acts of relinquishment. It is important to follow the succession of events that struck petitioner prior
his leaving the palace. Furthermore, the quoted statements extracted from the Angara diaries, detailed
Estrada’s implied resignation On top of all these, the press release he issued regarding is acknowledgement of
the oath-taking of Arroyo as president despite his questioning of its legality and his emphasis on leaving the
presidential seat for the sake of peace. The Court held that petitioner Estrada had resigned by the use of the
totality test: prior, contemporaneous and posterior facts and circumstantial evidence bearing a material
relevance on the issue.

As to the issue of the peitioner’s contention that he is immuned from suits, the Court held that petitioner is no
longer entitled to absolute immunity from suit. The Court added that, given the intent of the 1987 Constitution
to breathe life to the policy that a public office is a public trust, the petitioner, as a non-sitting President, cannot
claim executive immunity for his alleged criminal acts committed while a sitting President. From the
deliberations, the intent of the framers is clear that the immunity of the president from suit is concurrent only
with his tenure(the term during which the incumbent actually holds office) and not his term (time during which
the officer may claim to hold the office as of right, and fixes the interval after which the several incumbents shall
succeed one another).

ESTRADA vs DESIERTO

CASE DIGEST: ESTRADA V DESIERTO

MARCH 3, 2014

After Estrada’s impeachment proceedings were aborted and his resignation from the Presidential post, a
cluster of legal problems started appearing. Several cases previously filed against him in the Office of the
Ombudsman were set in motion including among others, bribery and graft and corruption, plunder, perjury,
serious misconduct, malversation of public funds, illegal use of public funds. A special panel of investigators was
forthwith created by the respondent Ombudsman to investigate the charges against the petitioner. Petitioner
filed with this Court a petition for prohibition with a prayer for a writ of preliminary injunction. It sought
to enjoin the respondent Ombudsman from “conducting any further proceedings in any other criminal
complaint that may be filed in his office, until after the term of petitioner as President is over and only if
legally warranted. Petitioner also contends that the respondent Ombudsman should be stopped from
conducting the investigation of the cases filed against him due to the barrage of prejudicial publicity on his
guilt. He submits that the respondent Ombudsman has developed bias and is all set to file the criminal cases
in violation of his right to due process.

Issue: Whether or not the prosecution of petitioner Estrada should be enjoined due to prejudicial publicity

Held
No. Then and now, we now rule that the right of an accused to a fair trial is not incompatible to a free press. To
be sure, responsible reporting enhances an accused’s right to a fair trial for, as well pointed out, a responsible
press has always been regarded as the handmaiden of effective judicial administration, especially in the criminal
field x x x. The press does not simply publish information about trials but guards against the miscarriage of
justice by subjecting the police, prosecutors, and judicial processes to extensive public scrutiny and criticism.

Pervasive publicity is not per se prejudicial to the right of an accused to fair trial. The mere fact that the trial of
appellant was given a day-to-day, gavel-to-gavel coverage does not by itself prove that the publicity so
permeated the mind of the trial judge and impaired his impartiality. Our judges are learned in the law and
trained to disregard off-court evidence and on-camera performances of parties to a litigation. Their mere
exposure to publications and publicity stunts does not per se fatally infect their impartiality.

At best, appellant can only conjure possibility of prejudice on the part of the trial judge due to the barrage of
publicity that characterized the investigation and trial of the case. To warrant a finding of prejudicial publicity,
there must be allegation and proof that the judges have been unduly influenced, not simply that they might be,
by the barrage of publicity. In the case at bar, the records do not show that the trial judge developed actual
bias against appellant as a consequence of the extensive media coverage of the pre-trial and trial of his case.
The totality of circumstances of the case does not prove that the trial judge acquired a fixed opinion as a result
of prejudicial publicity which is incapable of change even by evidence presented during the trial. Appellant has
the burden to prove this actual bias and he has not discharged the burden. The court recognizes that pervasive
and prejudicial publicity under certain circumstances can deprive an accused of his due process right to fair trial.
However, petitioner needs to show weightier social science evidence to successfully prove the impaired capacity
of a judge to render a bias-free decision. Thus the petition was dismissed.