IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS.

JUAN PONCE ENRILE,

petitioner vs. JUDGE JAIME SALAZAR (Presiding Judge of the Regional Trial Court
of Quezon City [Br. 103], SENIOR STATE PROSECUTOR AURELIO TRAMPE,
PROSECUTOR FERDINAND R. ABESAMIS, AND CITY ASSISTANT CITY
PROSECUTOR EULOGIO MANANQUIL, NATIONAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
DIRECTOR ALFREDO LIM, BRIG. GEN. EDGAR DULA TORRES (Superintendent of
the Northern Police District) AND/ OR ANY AND ALL PERSONS WHO MAY HAVE
ACTUAL CUSTODY OVER THE PERSON OF JUAN PONCE ENRILE, respondents

G.R. No. 92163. June 5, 1990.

Principles/Doctrines: Hernandez Doctrine on Rebellion absorbing other crimes still remains.

FACTS:

February 27, 1990 – Senate Minority Floor Leader Juan Ponce Enrile was arrested by law
enforcement officers led by Director Alfredo Lim of the National Bureau of Investigation on the
strength of a warrant issued by Judge Salazar of the RTC-Quezon City.

Senator Enrile, the spouses Rebecco and Erlinda Panlilio, and Gregorio Honasan were
charged with the crime of rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murders allegedly
committed during the period of the failed coup attempt from November 29 to December 10,
1990.
Senator Enrile was taken to and held overnight at the NBI headquarters on Taft Avenue, Manila,
without bail, none having been recommended in the information and none fixed in the arrest
warrant.

The following morning, February 28, 1990, he was brought to Camp Tomas Karingal in
Quezon City where he was given over to the custody of the Superintendent of the Northern
Police District, Brig. Gen. Edgardo Dula Torres.

On the same date of February 28, 1990, Senator Enrile, through counsel, filed the petition for
habeas corpus.

ISSUE: Whether or not the petitioner has committed a complex crime arising from an offense
being a necessary means to commit another, referred in the Article 48 of the Revised Penal
Code, and that the Hernandez doctrine on rebellion should be abandoned in this case.

HELD:
NO. Enrile and the Panlilio spouses should only be charged with simple rebellion following the
Hernandez doctrine:

Murder and arson are crimes inherent when rebellion is taking place. In the
RPC, rebellion is just a single crime (Article 134) and there is no reason to
complex it with other crimes inherent in its commission. Thus, Article 48
applies only when there are two crimes committed and not when there is only
one such as in this case.

The OSG contends that this case does not fall within the Hernandez ruling because the
information in Hernandez charged murders and other common crimes committed as a
necessary means for the commission of rebellion, whereas the information against Sen. Enrile
et al. charged murder and frustrated murder committed on the occasion, but not in
furtherance, of rebellion.

Stated otherwise, the Solicitor General would distinguish between the complex crime
arising from an offense being a necessary means for committing another, which is referred to in
the second clause of Article 48 and is the subject of the Hernandez ruling, and the compound
crime arising from a single act constituting two or more grave or less grave offenses referred to
in the first clause of the same paragraph, with which Hernandez was not concerned and to
which, therefore, it should not apply.

The court does not agree. If rebellion will be punished separately, Enrile could be
charged with (1) crime of rebellion, fine not exceeding PhP 20,000 and Prision Mayor, and
depending on the circumstances, up to but not exceeding 12 years of Prision Mayor; (2) crime
of murder, punishable Reclusion Temporal in its maximum period to death, depending on the
circumstances.

In the absence of aggravating circumstances, the maximum penalty cannot be imposed

on Enrile. However, Article 48 states that an accused can be punished the MAXIMUM PENALTY
even without a single AGGRAVATING CIRCUMSTANCES. This is contrary to the principle that
penal statutes should be decided liberally in favor of the accused and strictly against the state.
Article 48 was enacted to favor the accused, not of sentencing him/her to a penalty more
severe than what is proper when the acts were punished separately.

The spirit of Article 48 is that if there are two or more acts which constitute a single act,
the single act should be the one punished for if the punishments were combined for the
constitutive acts, it impose a graver penalty than what is proper which is unfavorable to the
accused.

WHEREFORE, the Court reiterates that based on the doctrine enunciated in People vs.
Hernandez, the questioned information filed against petitioners Juan Ponce Enrile and the
spouses Rebecco and Erlinda Panlilio must be read as charging simple rebellion only, hence said
petitioners are entitled to bail, before final conviction, as a matter of right. The Court’s earlier
grant of bail to petitioners being merely provisional in character, the proceedings in both cases
are ordered REMANDED to the respondent Judge to fix the amount of bail to be posted by the
petitioners. Once bail is fixed by said respondent for any of the petitioners, the corresponding
bail bond flied with this Court shall become functus oficio. No pronouncement as to costs.

NOTE: 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.