8/2/2019 People vs Jalosjos : 132875-76 : February 3, 2000 : J.

Ynares-Santiago : En Banc

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EN BANC

[G.R. Nos. 132875-76. February 3, 2000

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Plaintiff-

Appellee, v. ROMEO G. JALOSJOS, Accused-
Appellant.

RESOLUTION
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YNARES-SANTIAGO, J.:

The accused-appellant, Romeo G. Jalosjos is a

full-fledged member of Congress who is now
confined at the national penitentiary while his
conviction for statutory rape on two counts and
acts of lasciviousness on six counts1 is pending
appeal. The accused-appellant filed this motion
asking that he be allowed to fully discharge the
duties of a Congressman, including attendance
at legislative sessions and committee meetings
despite his having been convicted in the first
instance of a non-bailable offense.

The issue raised is one of first impression.

Does membership in Congress exempt an

accused from statutes and rules which apply to
validly incarcerated persons in general? In
answering the query, we are called upon to
balance relevant and conflicting factors in the
judicial interpretation of legislative privilege in
the context of penal law.

The accused-appellants "Motion To Be Allowed To

Discharge Mandate As Member of House of
Representatives" was filed on the grounds that

1. Accused-appellants reelection being an

expression of popular will cannot be rendered
inutile by any ruling, giving priority to any right
or interest not even the police power of the
State.

2. To deprive the electorate of their elected

representative amounts to taxation without
representation.

3. To bar accused-appellant from performing his

duties amounts to his suspension/removal and
mocks the renewed mandate entrusted to him by
the people.

4. The electorate of the First District of

Zamboanga del Norte wants their voice to be
heard.

5. A precedent-setting U.S. ruling allowed a

detained lawmaker to attend sessions of the U.S.
Congress.

6. The House treats accused-appellant as a bona

fide member thereof and urges a co-equal
branch of government to respect its mandate.

7. The concept of temporary detention does not

necessarily curtail the duty of accused-appellant
to discharge his mandate.

8. Accused-appellant has always complied with

the conditions/restrictions when allowed to leave
jail.

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The primary argument of the movant is the

"mandate of sovereign will." He states that the
sovereign electorate of the First District of
Zamboanga del Norte chose him as their
representative in Congress. Having been re-
elected by his constituents, he has the duty to
perform the functions of a Congressman. He
calls this a covenant with his constituents made
possible by the intervention of the State. He
adds that it cannot be defeated by insuperable
procedural restraints arising from pending
criminal cases.

True, election is the expression of the sovereign

power of the people. In the exercise of suffrage,
a free people expects to achieve the continuity of
government and the perpetuation of its benefits.
However, inspite of its importance, the privileges
and rights arising from having been elected may
be enlarged or restricted by law. Our first task is
to ascertain the applicable law.

We start with the incontestable proposition that

all top officials of Government-executive,
legislative, and judicial are subject to the
majesty of law. There is an unfortunate
misimpression in the public mind that election or
appointment to high government office, by itself,
frees the official from the common restraints of
general law. Privilege has to be granted by law,
not inferred from the duties of a position. In fact,
the higher the rank, the greater is the
requirement of obedience rather than exemption.

The immunity from arrest or detention of

Senators and members of the House of
Representatives, the latter customarily
addressed as Congressmen, arises from a
provision of the Constitution. The history of the
provision shows that the privilege has always
been granted in a restrictive sense. The provision
granting an exemption as a special privilege
cannot be extended beyond the ordinary
meaning of its terms. It may not be extended by
intendment, implication or equitable
considerations.

The 1935 Constitution provided in its Article VI

on the Legislative Department:

Sec. 15. The Senators and Members of the

House of Representatives shall in all cases
except treason, felony, and breach of the peace
be privileged from arrest during their attendance
at the sessions of Congress, and in going to and
returning from the same; xxx.

Because of the broad coverage of felony and

breach of the peace, the exemption applied only
to civil arrests. A congressman like the accused-
appellant, convicted under Title Eleven of the
Revised Penal Code could not claim
parliamentary immunity from arrest. He was

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subject to the same general laws governing all

persons still to be tried or whose convictions
were pending appeal.

The 1973 Constitution broadened the privilege of

immunity as follows:

Article VIII, Sec. 9. A Member of the Batasang

Pambansa shall, in all offenses punishable by not
more than six years imprisonment, be privileged
from arrest during his attendance at its sessions
and in going to and returning from the same.

For offenses punishable by more than six years

imprisonment, there was no immunity from
arrest. The restrictive interpretation of immunity
and the intent to confine it within carefully
defined parameters is illustrated by the
concluding portion of the provision, to wit:

xxx but the Batasang Pambansa shall surrender

the member involved to the custody of the law
within twenty four hours after its adjournment
for a recess or for its next session, otherwise
such privilege shall cease upon its failure to do
so.

The present Constitution adheres to the same

restrictive rule minus the obligation of Congress
to surrender the subject Congressman to the
custody of the law. The requirement that he
should be attending sessions or committee
meetings has also been removed. For relatively
minor offenses, it is enough that Congress is in
session.

The accused-appellant argues that a member of

Congress function to attend sessions is
underscored by Section 16 (2), Article VI of the
Constitution which states that

(2) A majority of each House shall constitute a

quorum to do business, but a smaller number
may adjourn from day to day and may compel
the attendance of absent Members in such
manner, and under such penalties, as such
House may provide.

However, the accused-appellant has not given

any reason why he should be exempted from the
operation of Section 11, Article VI of the
Constitution. The members of Congress cannot
compel absent members to attend sessions if the
reason for the absence is a legitimate one. The
confinement of a Congressman charged with a
crime punishable by imprisonment of more than
six months is not merely authorized by law, it
has constitutional foundations.

Accused-appellants reliance on the ruling in

Aguinaldo v. Santos2 , which states, inter alia,
that

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The Court should never remove a public officer

for acts done prior to his present term of office.
To do otherwise would be to deprive the people
of their right to elect their officers. When a
people have elected a man to office, it must be
assumed that they did this with the knowledge of
his life and character, and that they disregarded
or forgave his fault or misconduct, if he had been
guilty of any. It is not for the Court, by reason of
such fault or misconduct, to practically overrule
the will of the people.

will not extricate him from his predicament. It

can be readily seen in the above-quoted ruling
that the Aguinaldo case involves the
administrative removal of a public officer for acts
done prior to his present term of office. It does
not apply to imprisonment arising from the
enforcement of criminal law. Moreover, in the
same way that preventive suspension is not
removal, confinement pending appeal is not
removal. He remains a congressman unless
expelled by Congress or, otherwise, disqualified.

One rationale behind confinement, whether

pending appeal or after final conviction, is public
self-defense. Society must protect itself. It also
serves as an example and warning to others.

A person charged with crime is taken into

custody for purposes of the administration of
justice. As stated in United States v. Gustilo,3 it
is the injury to the public which State action in
criminal law seeks to redress. It is not the injury
to the complainant. After conviction in the
Regional Trial Court, the accused may be denied
bail and thus subjected to incarceration if there
is risk of his absconding.4 cräläwvirtualibräry

The accused-appellant states that the plea of the

electorate which voted him into office cannot be
supplanted by unfounded fears that he might
escape eventual punishment if permitted to
perform congressional duties outside his regular
place of confinement.

It will be recalled that when a warrant for

accused-appellants arrest was issued, he fled
and evaded capture despite a call from his
colleagues in the House of Representatives for
him to attend the sessions and to surrender
voluntarily to the authorities. Ironically, it is now
the same body whose call he initially spurned
which accused-appellant is invoking to justify his
present motion. This can not be countenanced
because, to reiterate, aside from its being
contrary to well-defined Constitutional restrains,
it would be a mockery of the aims of the States
penal system.

Accused-appellant argues that on several

occasions, the Regional Trial Court of Makati
granted several motions to temporarily leave his
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cell at the Makati City Jail, for official or

medieasons, to wit:

a) to attend hearings of the House Committee on

Ethics held at the Batasan Complex, Quezon
City, on the issue of whether to expel/suspend
him from the House of Representatives;

b) to undergo dental examination and treatment

at the clinic of his dentist in Makati City;

c) to undergo a thorough medical check-up at

the Makati Medical Center, Makati City;

d) to register as a voter at his hometown in

Dapitan City. In this case, accused-appellant
commuted by chartered plane and private
vehicle.

He also calls attention to various instances, after

his transfer at the New Bilibid Prison in
Muntinlupa City, when he was likewise
allowed/permitted to leave the prison premises,
to wit:

a) to join "living-out" prisoners on "work-

volunteer program" for the purpose of 1)
establishing a mahogany seedling bank and 2)
planting mahogany trees, at the NBP
reservation. For this purpose, he was assigned
one guard and allowed to use his own vehicle
and driver in going to and from the project area
and his place of confinement.

b) to continue with his dental treatment at the

clinic of his dentist in Makati City.

c) to be confined at the Makati Medical Center in

Makati City for his heart condition.

There is no showing that the above privileges are

peculiar to him or to a member of Congress.
Emergency or compelling temporary leaves from
imprisonment are allowed to all prisoners, at the
discretion of the authorities or upon court
orders.

What the accused-appellant seeks is not of an

emergency nature. Allowing accused-appellant to
attend congressional sessions and committee
meetings for five (5) days or more in a week will
virtually make him a free man with all the
privileges appurtenant to his position. Such an
aberrant situation not only elevates accused-
appellants status to that of a special class, it also
would be a mockery of the purposes of the
correction system. Of particular relevance in this
regard are the following observations of the
Court in Martinez v. Morfe:5 cräläwvirtualibräry

The above conclusion reached by this Court is

bolstered and fortified by policy considerations.
There is, to be sure, a full recognition of the
necessity to have members of Congress, and
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likewise delegates to the Constitutional

Convention, entitled to the utmost freedom to
enable them to discharge their vital
responsibilities, bowing to no other force except
the dictates of their conscience. Necessarily the
utmost latitude in free speech should be
accorded them. When it comes to freedom from
arrest, however, it would amount to the creation
of a privileged class, without justification in
reason, if notwithstanding their liability for a
criminal offense, they would be considered
immune during their attendance in Congress and
in going to and returning from the same. There
is likely to be no dissent from the proposition
that a legislator or a delegate can perform his
functions efficiently and well, without the need
for any transgression of the criminal law. Should
such an unfortunate event come to pass, he is to
be treated like any other citizen considering that
there is a strong public interest in seeing to it
that crime should not go unpunished. To the fear
that may be expressed that the prosecuting arm
of the government might unjustly go after
legislators belonging to the minority, it suffices
to answer that precisely all the safeguards
thrown around an accused by the Constitution,
solicitous of the rights of an individual, would
constitute an obstacle to such an attempt at
abuse of power. The presumption of course is
that the judiciary would remain independent. It
is trite to say that in each and every
manifestation of judicial endeavor, such a virtue
is of the essence.

The accused-appellant avers that his

constituents in the First District of Zamboanga
del Norte want their voices to be heard and that
since he is treated as bona fide member of the
House of Representatives, the latter urges a co-
equal branch of government to respect his
mandate. He also claims that the concept of
temporary detention does not necessarily curtail
his duty to discharge his mandate and that he
has always complied with the
conditions/restrictions when he is allowed to
leave jail.

We remain unpersuaded.

No less than accused-appellant himself admits

that like any other member of the House of
Representatives "[h]e is provided with a
congressional office situated at Room N-214,
North Wing Building, House of Representatives
Complex, Batasan Hills, Quezon City, manned by
a full complement of staff paid for by Congress.
Through [an] inter-department coordination, he
is also provided with an office at the
Administration Building, New Bilibid Prison,
Muntinlupa City, where he attends to his
constituents." Accused-appellant further admits
that while under detention, he has filed several
bills and resolutions. It also appears that he has
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been receiving his salaries and other monetary

benefits. Succinctly stated, accused-appellant
has been discharging his mandate as a member
of the House of Representative consistent with
the restraints upon one who is presently under
detention. Being a detainee, accused-appellant
should not even have been allowed by the prison
authorities at the National Pentientiary to
perform these acts.

When the voters of his district elected the

accused-appellant to Congress, they did so with
full awareness of the limitations on his freedom
of action. They did so with the knowledge that
he could achieve only such legislative results
which he could accomplish within the confines of
prison. To give a more drastic illustration, if
voters elect a person with full knowledge that he
is suffering from a terminal illness, they do so
knowing that at any time, he may no longer
serve his full term in office.

In the ultimate analysis, the issue before us boils

down to a question of constitutional equal
protection.

The Constitution guarantees: "x x x nor shall any

person be denied the equal protection of laws."6
This simply means that all persons similarly
situated shall be treated alike both in rights
enjoyed and responsibilities imposed.7 The
organs of government may not show any undue
favoritism or hostility to any person. Neither
partiality nor prejudice shall be displayed.

Does being an elective official result in a

substantial distinction that allows different
treatment? Is being a Congressman a substantial
differentiation which removes the accused-
appellant as a prisoner from the same class as
all persons validly confined under law?

The performance of legitimate and even essential

duties by public officers has never been an
excuse to free a person validly in prison. The
duties imposed by the "mandate of the people"
are multifarious. The accused-appellant asserts
that the duty to legislate ranks highest in the
hierarchy of government. The accused-appellant
is only one of 250 members of the House of
Representatives, not to mention the 24 members
of the Senate, charged with the duties of
legislation. Congress continues to function well in
the physical absence of one or a few of its
members. Depending on the exigency of
Government that has to be addressed, the
President or the Supreme Court can also be
deemed the highest for that particular duty. The
importance of a function depends on the need
for its exercise. The duty of a mother to nurse
her infant is most compelling under the law of
nature. A doctor with unique skills has the duty
to save the lives of those with a particular
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affliction. An elective governor has to serve

provincial constituents. A police officer must
maintain peace and order. Never has the call of a
particular duty lifted a prisoner into a different
classification from those others who are validly
restrained by law.

A strict scrutiny of classifications is essential lest

wittingly or otherwise, insidious discriminations
are made in favor of or against groups or types
of individuals.8 cräläwvirtualibräry

The Court cannot validate badges of inequality.

The necessities imposed by public welfare may
justify exercise of government authority to
regulate even if thereby certain groups may
plausibly assert that their interests are
disregarded.9 cräläwvirtualibräry

We, therefore, find that election to the position

of Congressman is not a reasonable classification
in criminal law enforcement. The functions and
duties of the office are not substantial
distinctions which lift him from the class of
prisoners interrupted in their freedom and
restricted in liberty of movement. Lawful arrest
and confinement are germane to the purposes of
the law and apply to all those belonging to the
same class.10 cräläwvirtualibräry

Imprisonment is the restraint of a mans personal

liberty; coercion exercised upon a person to
prevent the free exercise of his power of
locomotion.11 cräläwvirtualibräry

More explicitly, "imprisonment" in its general

sense, is the restraint of ones liberty. As a
punishment, it is restraint by judgment of a
court or lawful tribunal, and is personal to the
accused.12 The term refers to the restraint on
the personal liberty of another; any prevention
of his movements from place to place, or of his
free action according to his own pleasure and
will.13 Imprisonment is the detention of another
against his will depriving him of his power of
locomotion14 and it "[is] something more than
mere loss of freedom. It includes the notion of
restraint within limits defined by wall or any
exterior barrier."15 cräläwvirtualibräry

It can be seen from the foregoing that

incarceration, by its nature, changes an
individuals status in society.16 Prison officials
have the difficult and often thankless job of
preserving the security in a potentially explosive
setting, as well as of attempting to provide
rehabilitation that prepares inmates for re-entry
into the social mainstream. Necessarily, both
these demands require the curtailment and
elimination of certain rights.17 cräläwvirtualibräry

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Premises considered, we are constrained to rule

against the accused-appellants claim that re-
election to public office gives priority to any
other right or interest, including the police power
of the State.

WHEREFORE , the instant motion is hereby

DENIED.

SO ORDERED.

Kapunan, Panganiban, Quisumbing, Purisima,

Pardo, Buena, and De Leon, Jr., JJ., concur.

Gonzaga-Reyes, J., see separate concurring

opinion.

Davide, Jr., C.J., Bellosillo, Melo, Puno, Vitug,

and Mendoza, JJ., concurs in the main and
separate opinion.

Endnotes:
1 RTC Decision, pp. 54-55.
2 212 SCRA 768, at 773 [1992].
3 19 Phil. 208, 212.
4 Cubillo v. City Warden, 97 SCRA 771 [1980].
5 44 SCRA 37 [1972].
6 Art. III, Sec. 1.
7 Ichong v. Hernandez, 101 Phil. 1155.
8 Skinuer v. Oklahoma, 315 US 535.
9See Fernando, Constitution of the Philippines, 2nd Edition, p.
548.
10 See Felwa v. Salas, 18 SCRA 606 [1966]; Ichong v.
Hernandez, 101 Phil. 1155; Dumlao v. Commission on
Elections, 95 SCRA 392 [1980]; Ceniza v. Commission on
Elections, 96 SCRA 763 (1980); People v. Cayat, 68 Phil. 12.
11 Blacks Law Dictionary, Special Deluxe 5th Ed., p. 681.
12 20 Words And Phrases, Permanent Ed., p. 466, citing US v.
Safeway Stores [Tex.] C.C.C.A. Kan. 140 F 2d 834, 839 and
US v. Mitchell, 163 F. 1014, 1016 at p. 470.
13 Ibid., p. 470, citing Pine v. Okzewski, 170 A. 825, 827, 112
N.J.L. 429.
14 Id., p. 472, citing US v. Benner, 24 Fed. Cas. 1084, 1087.
15 Id., citing Bird v. Jones, 4 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 158, 159.

16 Sheldon, Krantz, 1988 Supplement. The Law of Correction

and Prisoners Rights, 3rd Ed., p. 121.
17 Ibid.

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