LIBERATO M. CARABEO, G.R. Nos. 190580-81
Petitioner,
Present:
CARPIO, J., Chairperson,
- versus - NACHURA,
PERALTA,
ABAD,
and
MENDOZA, JJ.
THE HONORABLE SANDIGANBAYAN
(FOURTH DIVISION) and PEOPLE Promulgated:
OF THE
Respondents. February 21, 2011
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ABAD, J.:
These cases pertain to a) the
authority of Heads of Offices to investigate erring public officers and
employees and file charges against them before the Office of the Ombudsman and
b) the scope of the responsibility of such Heads of Offices to examine the
Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) of their subordinates
and require them to correct formal errors in them.
The Facts and the Case
Pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.)
259, investigators of the Department of Finance (DOF) Revenue Integrity
Protection Service (RIPS) made lifestyles check of DOF officials and
employees. As a result of these
investigations, the DOF charged petitioner Liberato Carabeo, Parañaque City
Treasurer, before the Office of the Ombudsman for violations of Section
Two informations, docketed as
Criminal Cases SB-09-CRM-0034 and 0039, were raffled to the Sandiganbayan’s
Fourth Division. They charged Carabeo
with failing to disclose personal properties consisting of three motor
vehicles, misdeclaring the acquisition cost of a real property in Laguna, and
falsely declaring his net worth in his SALN for 2003.
At the pre-trial of these cases,
Carabeo submitted his Pre-Trial Brief, proposing the following issues for
trial:
1. Whether
or not the accused was allowed to previously exercise his right to be informed
beforehand and to take the necessary corrective action on questions concerning
his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Networth (SALN, for brevity), as
provided under Section 10 of Republic Act No. 6713 before the instant charges
were filed against him;
2. Whether
or not the accused committed the crime of falsification of Public Documents
under Paragraph 4, Article 171, Revised Penal Code, as amended;
3. Whether
or not the accused committed a violation of Section 7, Republic Act No. 3019,
as amended, in relation to Section 8, Republic Act. No. 6713; and
4. Whether
or not the filing of the instant case is premature in the light of the pending
Petition for Certiorari before the Supreme Court entitled: “Liberato M.
Carabeo, vs. Court of Appeals, Simeon V. Marcelo, et al., (docketed as “G.R.
No. 178000”), questioning: (1) the legality, validity and constitutionality of
Executive Order 259, upon which the present charges arose; and (2) whether the
accused’s right to be informed “beforehand” and to take the “necessary
corrective action” on questions regarding his SALN, as clearly mandated under
Section 10 of RA 6713, was blatantly disregarded and set aside during the
course of the investigation by the Office of the Ombudsman.[1]
But the Pre-Trial Order of the
Sandiganbayan dated August 14, 2009[2]
did not include the issues as crafted by Carabeo. This prompted him to seek on September 1, 2009
the correction of the pre-trial order to include such issues.
On September 15, 2009 the Fourth
Division issued a Resolution, stating that the issues in the pre-trial order
already covered Carabeo’s second and third proposed issues. As to the first and fourth issues, the
Sandiganbayan said that Carabeo’s head office’s review was irrelevant and
cannot bar the Office of the Ombudsman from conducting an independent
investigation of his alleged offenses.
Carabeo filed a motion for reconsideration with respect to his first and
fourth issues but the Sandiganbayan denied this on October 29, 2009, hence,
this special civil action of certiorari.
The Issues Presented
The
petition presents the following issues:
1. Whether
or not the Sandiganbayan may hear the criminal action against Carabeo pending
this Court’s resolution of his petition to annul E.O. 259 under which the
DOF-RIPS’ filed the pertinent complaint against him before the Office of the
Ombudsman; and
2. Whether
or not the Sandiganbayan gravely abused its discretion in excluding from the
trial his proposed issues 1 and 4.
The Court’s Rulings
One. Carabeo
claims that the Office of the Ombudsman prematurely filed the criminal cases
against him considering that a question was pending before this Court in G.R.
178000 concerning the validity of E.O. 259, which authorized the conduct of
lifestyles check on official and employees of the executive department.
But such issue has since been
rendered moot and academic when the Court held on December 4, 2009 that the
validity of E.O. 259 is immaterial to the question of the propriety of the
charges filed against Carabeo. Indeed,
the Court pointed out that any concerned citizen may file charges of corruption
or illegal conduct against any government official or employee if the evidence
warrants. Thus, the DOF-RIPS
investigators were within their right to charge Carabeo before the Office of
the Ombudsman regarding his case with or without E.O. 259.[3]
Two. Carabeo asserts that he was entitled to be informed
of any error in his SALN and given the opportunity to correct the same pursuant
to Section 10 of R.A. 6713, which provides:
Section
10. Review and Compliance Procedure. – (a) The designated Committees of
both Houses of the Congress shall establish procedures for the review of
statements to determine whether said statements have been submitted on time,
are complete, and are in proper form. In
the event a determination is made that a statement is not so filed, the
appropriate Committee shall so inform the reporting individual and direct him
to take the necessary corrective action.
(b) In
order to carry out their responsibilities under this Act, the designated
Committees of both houses of the Congress shall have the power within their
respective jurisdictions, to render any opinion interpreting this Act, in
writing, to persons covered by this Act, subject in each instance to the
approval of the affirmative vote of the majority of the particular House
concerned.
The individual to whom the opinion is rendered,
and any other individual involved in a similar factual situation, and who,
after issuance of the opinion acts in good faith in accordance with it shall
not be subject to any sanction provided in this Act.
(c) The
heads of other offices shall perform the duties stated in subsections (a) and
(b) hereof insofar as their respective offices are concerned, subject to the
approval of the Secretary of Justice, in the case of the Executive Department
and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in the case of the Judicial
Department.
Carabeo claims that his head office,
the DOF, should have alerted him on the deficiency in his SALN and given him
the chance to correct the same before any charge is filed against him in
connection with the same. But, the Sandiganbayan,
citing Pleyto v. Philippine National
Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG),[4]
held that the review of the SALN by the head of office is irrelevant and cannot
bar the Office of the Ombudsman from conducting an independent investigation
for criminal violations committed by the public official or employee.
Carabeo contends, however, that the
head of office has a mandatory obligation to inform him of defects in his SALN
and give him the chance to correct the same.
Further, he cannot be subjected to any sanction until such obligation
has been complied with. Carabeo points
out that Pleyto could not apply to
him because the authority that reviewed the SALN in Pleyto was not the head of office.
Although the respondents involved in that case were employees of the
Department of Public Works and Highways, it was the Philippine National Police
that investigated and filed the complaints against them. Carabeo points out that, in his case, it was
the DOF-RIPS, headed by the Secretary of Finance, which filed the complaints
against him with the Office of the Ombudsman.
As city treasurer, Carabeo reports to the Bureau of Local Government
Finance under the Secretary of Finance.
But what Carabeo fails to grasp is
that it was eventually the Office of the Ombudsman, not the DOF-RIPS, that
filed the criminal cases against him before the Sandiganbayan. That office is vested with the sole power to
investigate and prosecute, motu proprio
or on complaint of any person, any act or omission of any public officer or
employee, office, or agency when such act or omission appears to be illegal,
unjust, improper, or inefficient.[5] The Office of the Ombudsman could file the
informations subject of these cases without any help from the DOF-RIPS.
True, Section 10 of R.A. 6713
provides that when the head of office finds the SALN of a subordinate
incomplete or not in the proper form such head of office must call the
subordinate’s attention to such omission and give him the chance to rectify the
same. But this procedure is an internal
office matter. Whether or not the head
of office has taken such step with respect to a particular subordinate cannot
bar the Office of the Ombudsman from investigating the latter.[6] Its power to investigate and prosecute erring
government officials cannot be made dependent on the prior action of another
office. To hold otherwise would be to
diminish its constitutionally guarded independence.
Further, Carabeo’s reliance on his
supposed right to notice regarding errors in his SALNs and to be told to
correct the same is misplaced. The
notice and correction referred to in Section 10 are intended merely to ensure
that SALNs are “submitted on time, are complete, and are in proper form.” Obviously, these refer to formal defects in
the SALNs. The charges against Carabeo,
however, are for falsification of the assets side of his SALNs and for
declaring a false net worth. These are
substantive, not formal defects. Indeed,
while the Court said in Pleyto that
heads of offices have the duty to review their subordinates’ SALNs, it would be
absurd to require such heads to run a check on the truth of what the SALNs
state and require their subordinates to correct whatever lies these
contain. The responsibility for truth in
those SALNs belongs to the subordinates who prepared them, not to the heads of
their offices.
Thus, the Sandiganbayan did not
gravely abuse its discretion in excluding from its pre-trial order the first
and fourth issues that Carabeo proposed.
WHEREFORE, the
Court DISMISSES the petition and AFFIRMS the Resolutions of the Fourth
Division of the Sandiganbayan in Criminal Cases SB-09-CRM-0034 and 0039 dated
September 15, 2009 and October 29, 2009.
SO ORDERED.
ROBERTO A. ABAD
Associate Justice
WE
CONCUR:
ANTONIO T. CARPIO
Associate Justice
ANTONIO EDUARDO B. NACHURA
DIOSDADO M. PERALTA
Associate Justice Associate Justice
JOSE CATRAL
Associate Justice
ATTESTATION
I attest that the conclusions in the above
Decision had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the
writer of the opinion of the Court’s Division.
ANTONIO T. CARPIO
Associate Justice
Chairperson, Second Division
CERTIFICATION
Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII
of the Constitution and the Division Chairperson’s Attestation, I certify that
the conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in consultation before
the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court’s Division.
RENATO
C. CORONA
Chief Justice
[1] Rollo, pp. 29-30.
[2]
[3] Carabeo v. Court of Appeals, G.R. Nos. 178000 and 178003, December 4, 2009, 607 SCRA 394, 405.
[4] G.R. No. 169982, November 23, 2007, 538 SCRA 534.
[5] Vergara v. Ombudsman, G.R. No. 174567, March 12, 2009, 580 SCRA 693, 708.
[6] Pleyto v. PNP-CIDG, supra note 4, at 592.