Umil vs. Ramos

IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS OF ROBERTO UMIL, ROLANDO DURAL and RENATO VILLANUEVA. MANOLITA O. UMIL, and NICANOR P. DURAL, FELICITAS V. SESE vs. FIDEL V. RAMOS, MAJ. GEN. RENATO DE VILLA, BRIG. GEN. RAMON MONTANO, BRIG. GEN. ALEXANDER AGUIRRE

G.R. No. 81567 July 9, 1990

PER CURIAM

 "In all petitions for habeas corpus the court must inquire into every phase and aspect of petitioner's detention-from the moment petition was taken into custody up to the moment the court passes upon the merits of the petition;" and "only after such a scrutiny can the court satisfy itself that the due process clause of our Constitution has in fact been satisfied."

There are eight (8) petitioners for habeas corpus filed before the Court, which have been consolidated because of the similarity of issues raised, praying for the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus, ordering the respective respondents to produce the bodies of the persons named therein and to explain why they should not be set at liberty without further delay.

In their respective Returns, the respondents uniformly assert that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is not available to the petitioners as they have been legally arrested and are detained by virtue of valid information’s filed in court against them.

The petitioners counter that their detention is unlawful as their arrests were made without warrant and, that no preliminary investigation was first conducted, so that the information’s filed against them are null and void.

ISSUE: Whether or not petitioners’ rights were violated?

RULING:

The Court has carefully reviewed the contentions of the parties in their respective pleadings, and it finds that the persons detained have not been illegally arrested nor arbitrarily deprived of their constitutional right to liberty, and that the circumstances attending these cases do not warrant their release on habeas corpus.

The arrest of a person without a warrant of arrest or previous complaint is recognized in law. The occasions or instances when such an arrest may be effected are clearly spelled out in Section 5, Rule 113 of the Rules of Court, as amended, which provides:

Sec. 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful. — A peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant, arrest a person:

(a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense;

(b) When an offense has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that the person to be arrested has committed it; and

(c) When the person to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped from a penal establishment or place where he is serving final judgment or temporarily confined while his case is pending, or has escaped while being transferred from one confinement to another.

In cases falling under paragraphs (a) and (b) hereof, the person arrested without a warrant shall be forthwith delivered to the nearest police station or jail, and he shall be proceeded against in accordance with Rule 112, Section 7.

An arrest without a warrant of arrest, under Section 5 paragraphs (a) and (b) of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court, as amended, is justified when the person arrested is caught in flagranti delicto, viz., in the act of committing an offense; or when an offense has just been committed and the person making the arrest has personal knowledge of the facts indicating that the person arrested has committed it. The rationale behind lawful arrests, without warrant, was stated by this Court in the case of People vs. Kagui Malasugui  thus:

To hold that no criminal can, in any case, be arrested and searched for the evidence and tokens of his crime without a warrant, would be to leave society, to a large extent, at the mercy of the shrewdest, the most expert, and the most depraved of criminals, facilitating their escape in many instances.

The record of the instant cases would show that the persons in whose behalf these petitions for habeas corpus have been filed, had freshly committed or were actually committing an offense, when apprehended, so that their arrests without a warrant were clearly justified, and that they are, further, detained by virtue of valid information’s filed against them in court.