People of the Philippines v. Melchor Estomaca, G.R. Nos. 117485-86, April 22, 1996

FACTS:

Five Criminal Cases were filed, charging herein appellant, an illiterate laborer, with rape committed on five separate occasions against his own daughter, Estelita Estomaca.

Melita is the eldest daughter of the accused. Melita claims that she was first raped in July 1993, at their residence at Barangay Tiolas, San Joaquin, Iloilo. The offense was repeated by her father before Christmas of December, 1993; January 1994; February 1994; and on March 6, 1994.

The lower court imposed upon appellant reclusion perpetua for the sexual assault supposedly perpetrated in December, 1993, and the supreme penalty of death with respect to the rape allegedly committed on March 6, 1994.

 

ISSUE:

Whether the accused was validly arraigned

 

RULING:

NO. We have pointed out that courts must proceed with more care where the possible punishment is death for the reason that the execution of such a sentence is irrevocable and experience has shown that innocent persons have at times pleaded guilty. 

With exacting certitude, Section 1(a) of Rule 116 requires that the arraignment should be made in open court by the judge himself or by the clerk of court furnishing the accused a copy of the complaint or information with the list of witnesses stated therein, then reading the same in the language or dialect that is known to him, and asking him what his plea is to the charge. The requirement that the reading be made in a language or dialect that the accused understands and knows is a mandatory requirement, just as the whole of said Section 1 should be strictly followed by trial courts. This the law affords the accused by way of implementation of the all-important constitutional mandate regarding the right of an accused to be informed of the precise nature of the accusation leveled at him and is, therefore, really an avenue for him to be able to hoist the necessary defense in rebuttal thereof. It is an integral aspect of the due process clause under the Constitution.

At threshold, what strikes this Court as peculiar is that the arraignment appears to have consisted merely of the bare reading of the five complaints.

What punctures this possible bubble of regularity of the trial court’s proceedings is that appellant subsequently declared, and the clerk consequently contradicted her previous recital, that he was not pleading guilty to three of the complaints. This is hardly a respectable and credible performance in the solemnity of a court trial of five capital offenses.

We cannot, therefore, be persuaded that on this very basic procedure alone, involving just the mechanical process of arraignment outlined in Section 1, there was the necessary degree of compliance by the court below. Other considerations reveal how flawed the supposed arraignment actually was. For instance, there is no showing whether or not appellant or his counsel de oficio was furnished a copy of each complaint with the list of witnesses against him, in order that the latter may duly prepare and comply with his responsibilities. Of more troublous concern is the fact that appellant was not specifically warned that on his plea of guilty, he would definitely and in any event be given the death penalty under the R.A. No. No. 7659. He was also not categorically advised that his plea of guilty would not under any circumstance affect or reduce the death sentence as he may have believed or may have been erroneously advised.

Such an erroneous notion on the part of appellant which may have impelled him to plead guilty is not improbable or conjectural, especially when we consider his mental state and the environmental situation.

Section 1(a) of Rule 116, cognizant of the aforestated linguistic variations, deliberately required that the complaint or information be read to the accused in the language or the dialect known to him, to ensure his comprehension of the charges. The Court takes judicial notice, because it is either of public knowledge or readily capable of unquestionable demonstration, that in the central and northwestern part of Iloilo province and all the way up to and throughout Antique, including necessarily San Joaquin where the offenses were committed and of which appellant and his family are natives, the local dialect is known as "kinaray-a."

The foregoing discussion brings us to the strict injunction that the trial court must fully discharge its duty to conduct the requisite searching inquiry in such a way as would indubitably show that appellant had made not only a clear, definite and unconditional plea, but that he did so with a well-informed understanding and full realization of the consequences thereof. To ask an accused about his educational attainment and then warn him that he might have admitted the crime because of his poor intelligence is certainly not the logical approach in assaying the sufficiency of his plea of guilty.

In the same manner, a mere warning to him that he could possibly face extreme retribution in the form of death or face a life sentence in jail is not even enough. The trial judge should ascertain and be totally convinced that, for all intents and purposes, the plea recorded has all the earmarks of a valid and acceptable confession upon which an eventual judgment of conviction can stand. Although there is no definite and concrete rule as to how a trial judge may go about the matter of a proper "searching inquiry," it would be well for the court, for instance, to require the accused to fully narrate the incident that spawned the charges against him, or by making him reenact the manner in which he perpetrated the crime, or by causing him to furnish and explain to the court missing details of significance.

The trial court should also be convinced that the accused has not been coerced or placed under a state of duress either by actual threats of physical harm coming from malevolent or avenging quarters and this it can do, such as by ascertaining from the accused himself the manner in which he was subsequently brought into the custody of the law; or whether he had the assistance of competent counsel during the custodial and preliminary investigations; and, ascertaining from him the conditions under which he was detained and interrogated during the aforestated investigations. Likewise, a series of questions directed at defense counsel as to whether or not said counsel had conferred with, and completely explained to the accused the meaning of a plea and its consequences, would be a well-taken step along those lines.

Questions of these nature are undoubtedly crucial and no truer is this than in the case of appellant for, again, the original records and rollo of this case now under review are completely bereft of any document or record concerning his apprehension, detention and prior investigation, whether custodial or preliminary. The foregoing circumstances must be taken in addition to the appropriate forewarnings of the consequences of a plea of guilty, as well as the questions by the court regarding the age, educational attainment and socio-economic status of the accused which may reveal contributory insights for a proper verdict in the case.