PIO DURAN v.

SALVADOR ABAD SANTOS

G.R. No. L-99, November 16, 1945
FACTS:
This certiorari proceeding was instituted by petitioner Pio Duran against respondent
Honorable Salvador Abad Santos, Judge of the People's Court, praying that the order of said
respondent judge, denying him bail be set aside, and that he be allowed to put up a bail not to
exceed P20,000 for his provisional release. Evidences, which Duran did not deny, pointed on his
act of treason. The respondent judge was alleged to have committed a great abuse of discretion
for which petitioner has no other plain speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of
law. The respondent judge denied abuse of discretion and made reference to the reason in his
issued resolution, emphasizing that the case of treason against the herein petitioner, with
evidences he neither admit nor deny but of public knowledge, was quite serious and may
necessitate the imposition of the capital punishment.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the judge of People’s Court committed grave abuse in denying the
political prison of bail.
RULING:
No. The respondent judge did not commit grave abuse because the People's Court has the
absolute discretion to grant bail or not, the case being an exception to the law due to the strong
evidence of the commission of a capital offense. It cannot be stated that the petitioner has been
deprived of his liberty without due process of law, because his petition had been set for hearing
and he was given an opportunity to be heard in the People’s Court, where it was made to appear
satisfactorily that he was being detained due to highly treasonable activities against the
Commonwealth of the Philippines and the United States, which activities would be charged in
the information for a capital offense and punishable by death, and that the evidence in the case
strong.
In a dissenting opinion, Judger Gregorio Perfecto quoted a philosophical book “The
Struggle for Law”, where the struggle against the law constitutes the feeling of legal right left in
loiter by the power which should protect. At the present case, Pio Duran contended that he was
deprived of liberty without due process of law. However, in certain circumstances, as applied in
this case, law may be harsh but that is the law (Dura lex sed lex).