Limitation on the Power to COnstrue

Ponce Enrile vs. Salazar, 186 SCRA 217 (1990) Digest

Complex Crime

22. Ponce Enrile vs. Salazar, 186 SCRA 217 (1990)

Student: G-one T. Paisones

Professor: Atty. Cisco Franz S. Maclang

Facts:

                In the afternoon of February 27, 1990, Senate Minority Floor Leader Juan Ponce Enrile was arrested by
law enforcement officers led by Director Alfredo Lim of the NBI on the strength of a warrant issued by Hon. Jaime
Salazar of the RTC of Quezon City Branch 103, in Criminal Case No. 90-10941.  The warrant had issued on an
information signed and earlier that day filed by a panel of prosecutors composed of Senior State Prosecutor Aurelio
C. Trampe, and companions, charging Senator Enrile, the spouses Rebecco and Erlinda PanIilio, and
Gregorio Honasan with the crime of rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder allegedly committed
during the period of the failed coup attempt from November 29 to December 10, 990.  

Issue:

                WON the court must abandon Hernandez doctrine (Rebellion can absorb other crimes).

Held:

                NO

Ratio:

                11 Members of the Court voted against abandoning Hernandez. The ruling remains good law, its
substantive and logical bases have withstood all subsequent challenges and no new ones are presented here
persuasive enough to warrant a complete reversal.  The President in effect by legislative fiat
reinstated Hernandez as binding doctrine with the effect of law.  The Court can do no less than accord it the same
recognition, absent any sufficiently powerful reason against so doing.