ℹ️ Assigned Topic/Subtopic
Rule 113, Arrest — 3. Execution of Warrant
Full text: https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2001/jan2001/gr_132159_2001.html
⚡ Internal date discrepancy in the source text
The Decision states, in the paragraph reciting the trial proceedings, that "[a]ccused-appellant pleaded not guilty during his arraignment on April 10, 1996." Later, twice — once in the body of the "Fourth" ratio point and once in the paragraph summarizing accused-appellant's own testimony — the Decision states that he "was arrested on May 4, 1996 at the East Avenue Medical Center," i.e., after the recited arraignment date. On the face of the opinion this is internally inconsistent (arraignment ordinarily follows, and presupposes, custody of the accused). The Decision does not explain the gap, and this digest does not attempt to silently correct it; both dates are reported exactly as they appear in the text, per the No Invention Rule.
Facts
- At about 4:00 p.m. on 2 May 1993, at Purok IV, Area 5, Laura St., Old Balara, Diliman, Quezon City, Cesar Givera y Garote threw stones at the house of Eusebio Gardon, having earlier warned Gardon's daughter Milagros that he would kill Gardon if he went outside.
- Epifanio "Onying" Gayon entered and led the disoriented, intoxicated Gardon outside. Givera pelted him with stones while Onying struck him with fist blows; the two then ran off, luring Gardon to give chase toward a nearby bridge where Arturo Gayon and Maximo Givera lay in wait.
- At the bridge Arturo shouted "Sige, todasin na yan!" and Maximo stabbed Gardon, who was also boxed and kicked. He died of a single stab wound piercing the pericardium and left ventricle. Milagros Gardon and his niece Melinda Delfin witnessed it.
- The three companions were separately tried in RTC Branch 104 (Crim. Case No. Q-93-44315) and convicted of murder on 6 June 1994; the Supreme Court affirmed with modification in People v. Gayon, 269 SCRA 589 (1997), on abuse of superior strength.
- Givera was separately charged by an Information dated 10 April 1995 in RTC Branch 102, alleging conspiracy through treachery, evident premeditation and abuse of superior strength.
- A warrant of arrest issued 27 April 1995. It was returned unserved on 7 June 1995, Givera not having been found. He "was finally found only on 4 May 1996" — arrested at the East Avenue Medical Center — with no alias warrant ever issued.
- He pleaded not guilty and went to trial, never moving to quash. The prosecution presented the two eyewitnesses, the medico-legal testimony from the companion case, and the death certificate; Givera alone testified, claiming he had merely tried to pacify the victim and fled on seeing the victim's son approach with a bolo.
- On 29 August 1997 the RTC convicted him of murder — reclusion perpetua and ₱50,000.00 indemnity.
- On appeal his sole assigned error was reasonable doubt; within the brief he separately argued the arrest was warrantless.
- On 18 January 2001 the Second Division, through Justice Mendoza, denied the appeal, adding ₱50,000.00 moral damages.
Issue
Was Givera's arrest — effected under a warrant issued about thirteen months earlier and returned unserved about eleven months earlier, no alias warrant having issued — an arrest made without a warrant, and therefore unlawful?
Secondary issue. Whether the eyewitness testimony proved conspiracy beyond reasonable doubt, and whether treachery, evident premeditation or abuse of superior strength were established.
Ancillary issues. Whether pleading and going to trial without moving to quash waived any defect in the arrest; and whether the medico-legal testimony from the companion case was admissible against him.
Ruling
NOT WARRANTLESS, AND NOT UNLAWFUL. "He was arrested by virtue of a warrant issued by the court on April 27, 1995. However, as the records show, the warrant of arrest was returned unserved by the arresting officer on June 7, 1995 as accused-appellant could not be found. He was finally found only on May 4, 1996. Now, no alias warrant of arrest is needed to make the arrest. Unless specifically provided in the warrant, the same remains enforceable until it is executed, recalled or quashed. The ten-day period provided in Rule 113, §4 is only a directive to the officer executing the warrant to make a return to the court."
Ancillary issue. WAIVED — an independent alternative ground. "At any rate, accused-appellant must be deemed to have waived his right to object thereto because he failed to move for the quashal of the information before the trial court, entered a plea of not guilty and participated in the trial. As this Court has held, any objection involving a warrant of arrest or procedure in the acquisition by the court of jurisdiction over the person of an accused must be made before he enters his plea, otherwise the objection is deemed waived."
Secondary issue. SUFFICIENT — but qualified by abuse of superior strength alone. The eyewitness testimony was credible despite minor inconsistencies and implied conspiracy was established; evident premeditation failed for want of proof when and how the plan was hatched, and treachery failed because the victim, forewarned and himself giving chase, was not shown to be defenceless or unaware at the inception. Abuse of superior strength was correctly appreciated — an unarmed victim set upon by four, one armed with a knife.
Ancillary issue. THE MEDICO-LEGAL TESTIMONY WAS INADMISSIBLE for want of opportunity to cross-examine, but immaterial: the fact and cause of death were established by the eyewitnesses and the death certificate.
WHEREFORE, the decision of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 102, Quezon City finding accused-appellant Cesar Givera y Garote, guilty of murder of Eusebio Gardon y Arrivas and sentencing him to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua with the accessory penalties prescribed by law is AFFIRMED with the MODIFICATION that, in addition to the amount of P50,000.00 to be paid as indemnity, accused-appellant is hereby ordered to pay to the heirs of Eusebio Gardon amount of P50,000.00 as moral damages, plus the costs of the suit.SO ORDERED.
Ratio
- The predicate fact settled the framing. A warrant had genuinely issued, so the apprehension was not a warrantless taking into custody at all — Section 5's warrantless-arrest framework was never implicated.
- The ten-day period runs against the officer, not the warrant. It fixes the executing officer's duty to report back to the court, not the warrant's own validity.
- Absent a stated limitation or a judicial act, the warrant simply continues in force — so it remained valid authority more than a year after issuance, and no alias warrant was needed.
- A second, independent ground stood ready. An accused contesting his arrest must object before plea, ordinarily by motion to quash; pleading and participating forfeits it — and Givera did exactly that.
- So the belated challenge failed twice over, on the Rule and on the waiver.
Doctrine
An unexecuted warrant does not expire. "[N]o alias warrant of arrest is needed to make the arrest. Unless specifically provided in the warrant, the same remains enforceable until it is executed, recalled or quashed. The ten-day period provided in Rule 113, §4 is only a directive to the officer executing the warrant to make a return to the court." And objections to an arrest or to the court's acquisition of jurisdiction over the person must be made before plea: "[A]ny objection involving a warrant of arrest or procedure in the acquisition by the court of jurisdiction over the person of an accused must be made before he enters his plea, otherwise the objection is deemed waived."
Limits. The holding is expressly conditioned — "[u]nless specifically provided in the warrant" — and on no judicial act having recalled or quashed it. A warrant with an express expiry, or one recalled or quashed, does not enjoy the same continuing enforceability. Nor is the ten-day period read out of the Rule: it still binds the executing officer, whose failure to report may carry administrative consequences — it simply does not operate in the accused's favour to invalidate a later arrest under the same still-outstanding warrant. And the waiver ground reinforces rather than supplants — the Court neither needed nor suggested that the Section 4 holding alone would have sufficed had Givera timely objected before plea. Contrast the warrantless-arrest exceptions, never reached here, and note that the constitutional guarantee was satisfied at the front end — a judge had already found probable cause in April 1995; the only question was how long that finding lasts. Read the continuing-validity rule with the method-of-arrest provision and with Mallari v. CA, where officers arrested under a warrant they did not have with them — together they mark out how much slack the execution stage tolerates. Note the date discrepancy flagged on this page: the Decision recites an arraignment on 10 April 1996 yet an arrest on 4 May 1996.
Full Digest — Recitation Format
Gist
Classification: DIRECT. This is an appeal from a judgment of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 102, Quezon City, convicting Cesar Givera y Garote of murder for his participation in the May 2, 1993 stoning, mauling, and fatal stabbing of his neighbor Eusebio Gardon. Givera's formal, and sole, assignment of error on appeal went to the sufficiency of the evidence of his guilt (a reasonable-doubt argument grounded in alleged inconsistencies in the eyewitness testimony). The Supreme Court denied the appeal and affirmed the conviction, modifying only the civil awards to add moral damages. Squarely tied to the assigned Topic/Subtopic, the Decision's "Fourth" point directly applies Section 4, Rule 113 — Execution of Warrant — in rejecting Givera's separate contention that his eventual arrest, roughly thirteen months after the warrant for his arrest was issued and about eleven months after it was returned unserved, was effected without a warrant and was therefore unlawful. The Court held that the original warrant "remains enforceable until it is executed, recalled or quashed," so that no alias warrant was needed, and — independently — that Givera had in any event waived any objection to the arrest by pleading to the information and going to trial without first moving to quash. The case's dominant doctrinal weight, both in length of discussion and in eventual significance to the murder conviction, lies in the sufficiency-of-evidence and conspiracy analysis; the execution-of-warrant holding is comparatively brief but is the Decision's only holding that engages Rule 113 at all, and it does so directly and dispositively as to the point raised.
Facts
- At about 4:00 p.m. on 2 May 1993, at Purok IV, Area 5, Laura St., Old Balara, Diliman, Quezon City, Eusebio Gardon — resting at home after a drinking session — was the target of stone-throwing directed at his house by Cesar Givera, after Givera had earlier warned Gardon's daughter, Milagros, that he would kill Gardon if he went outside.
- Epifanio "Onying" Gayon entered the Gardon house and led the disoriented, intoxicated Gardon outside. Once outside, Givera pelted Gardon with stones while Onying struck him with fist blows; the two then ran off, luring Gardon to give chase toward a nearby bridge, where two other companions, Arturo Gayon and Maximo Givera, lay in wait. When Gardon reached the bridge, Arturo shouted "Sige, todasin na yan!" ("Go ahead, finish him off!"), and Maximo Givera stabbed Gardon, who was also boxed and kicked by the group. Gardon died of a single fatal stab wound that pierced the pericardium and left ventricle of the heart. The events were witnessed by Gardon's daughter Milagros Gardon and his niece Melinda Delfin.
- Givera's three companions — Epifanio Gayon, Arturo Gayon, and Maximo Givera — were separately charged and tried for the same killing before RTC Branch 104, Quezon City (Crim. Case No. Q-93-44315); on 6 June 1994, that court convicted them of murder, sentencing each to reclusion perpetua and ordering payment of P100,000.00 indemnity. On appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed with modification (People v. Gayon, 269 SCRA 589 [1997]), sustaining the conviction on the qualifying circumstance of abuse of superior strength.
- Cesar Givera was separately charged by an Information dated 10 April 1995, filed with RTC Branch 102, Quezon City, alleging conspiracy with the Gayons and Maximo Givera in killing Gardon through treachery, evident premeditation, and abuse of superior strength. (The docket number of Givera's own criminal case is NOT IN RECORD in the excerpted text.)
- A warrant of arrest against Givera was issued by the trial court on 27 April 1995.
- The warrant was returned unserved by the arresting officer on 7 June 1995, Givera not having been found.
- Per the Decision's own recitation, Givera "was finally found only on 4 May 1996" — arrested at the East Avenue Medical Center — with no new or alias warrant having been issued in the interim. (As flagged above, the Decision elsewhere recites an arraignment date of 10 April 1996, preceding this arrest date; this digest reports both as stated.)
- Givera was arraigned and pleaded not guilty, after which trial proceeded. The prosecution presented Milagros Gardon and Melinda Delfin as eyewitnesses, along with the medico-legal testimony (from the companion case) and the victim's death certificate. Givera alone testified for the defense, denying participation and claiming he had merely tried to pacify the victim and fled upon seeing the victim's son approach with a bolo.
- On 29 August 1997, the RTC (Branch 102, Quezon City, per Judge Perlita J. Tria Tirona) rendered judgment finding Givera guilty of murder, sentencing him to reclusion perpetua with accessory penalties, and ordering him to indemnify the victim's heirs P50,000.00, without subsidiary imprisonment, plus costs.
- Givera appealed directly to the Supreme Court, assigning as his sole error that the trial court erred in convicting him despite the presence of reasonable doubt. Within his brief, he separately argued that his 4 May 1996 arrest at the East Avenue Medical Center had been made without a warrant.
- The Supreme Court (Mendoza, J., Second Division) rendered the Decision under digest on 18 January 2001, denying the appeal, affirming the conviction, and modifying the judgment only to add an award of P50,000.00 moral damages.
Arguments of the Parties
A. Accused-Appellant (Cesar Givera).
Givera's formal assignment of error was that the prosecution's evidence left reasonable doubt as to his guilt, pointing to alleged inconsistencies and lapses in the testimonies of Milagros Gardon and Melinda Delfin and asserting that Melinda's credibility was undermined by her failure to execute a sworn statement to police at the time of the incident. On the point tied to the assigned Topic/Subtopic, Givera separately contended that his arrest at the East Avenue Medical Center on 4 May 1996 was made without a warrant and was therefore unlawful.
B. Plaintiff-Appellee (People of the Philippines).
The People, through the evidence adduced at trial and sustained by the trial court's assessment, maintained that the eyewitness accounts were spontaneous, detailed, and consistent in material respects, and that any inconsistencies were minor and, if anything, indicative of unrehearsed testimony. On the arrest point, the People's position — adopted by the Court — was that a valid warrant of arrest had in fact been issued against Givera on 27 April 1995 and remained enforceable notwithstanding its unserved return on 7 June 1995, such that his subsequent arrest under that same warrant required no alias warrant; and that, independently, Givera's participation in arraignment and trial without a motion to quash constituted a waiver of any objection to the manner of his arrest.
C. Common Ground.
The parties did not dispute that a warrant of arrest against Givera was issued on 27 April 1995 or that it was returned unserved on 7 June 1995; the dispute was confined to the legal consequence of the lapse of time before Givera was actually taken into custody under that warrant.
Issue
A. Main Issue (Topic/Subtopic-Centered).
Was Givera's arrest at the East Avenue Medical Center — effected under a warrant issued approximately thirteen months earlier and returned unserved approximately eleven months earlier, without any alias warrant having been subsequently issued — an arrest made without a warrant, such that it was unlawful?
B. Secondary Issues.
Whether the evidence on record — principally the testimonies of Milagros Gardon and Melinda Delfin — proved beyond reasonable doubt that Givera conspired with his co-accused in killing Eusebio Gardon, and whether the qualifying circumstances of treachery, evident premeditation, or abuse of superior strength were established.
C. Ancillary/Incidental Issues.
Whether Givera, by pleading not guilty and proceeding to trial without first moving to quash the information or otherwise objecting to the trial court's acquisition of jurisdiction over his person, waived any defect in the manner of his arrest; and whether the medico-legal testimony given in the separate, companion case against Givera's co-accused was admissible against Givera, who had no opportunity to cross-examine that witness.
Ruling
MAIN ISSUE — NO, the arrest was not made without a warrant, and it was not unlawful. The Court held: "He was arrested by virtue of a warrant issued by the court on April 27, 1995. However, as the records show, the warrant of arrest was returned unserved by the arresting officer on June 7, 1995 as accused-appellant could not be found. He was finally found only on May 4, 1996. Now, no alias warrant of arrest is needed to make the arrest. Unless specifically provided in the warrant, the same remains enforceable until it is executed, recalled or quashed. The ten-day period provided in Rule 113, §4 is only a directive to the officer executing the warrant to make a return to the court."
ANCILLARY ISSUE (waiver) — Sustained as an independent, alternative ground. "At any rate, accused-appellant must be deemed to have waived his right to object thereto because he failed to move for the quashal of the information before the trial court, entered a plea of not guilty and participated in the trial. As this Court has held, any objection involving a warrant of arrest or procedure in the acquisition by the court of jurisdiction over the person of an accused must be made before he enters his plea, otherwise the objection is deemed waived."
SECONDARY ISSUE — Evidence sufficient; guilt proven beyond reasonable doubt as to murder qualified by abuse of superior strength (not treachery or evident premeditation). The Court found the eyewitness testimony credible despite minor inconsistencies, sustained the finding of implied conspiracy, but held that evident premeditation could not be appreciated absent proof of when and how the plan was hatched, and that treachery was not established because the victim, having been forewarned and having himself given chase, was not shown to have been completely defenseless or unaware at the inception of the attack. Abuse of superior strength, however, was correctly appreciated, the unarmed victim having been set upon by four assailants, one of them armed with a knife.
ANCILLARY ISSUE (medico-legal testimony) — Inadmissible, but immaterial to the result. The medico-legal officer's testimony from the companion case was held inadmissible against Givera for lack of opportunity to cross-examine, but the fact and cause of death were nonetheless sufficiently established by the two eyewitnesses' accounts and the death certificate.
Dispositive portion (verbatim):
WHEREFORE, the decision of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 102, Quezon City finding accused-appellant Cesar Givera y Garote, guilty of murder of Eusebio Gardon y Arrivas and sentencing him to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua with the accessory penalties prescribed by law is AFFIRMED with the MODIFICATION that, in addition to the amount of P50,000.00 to be paid as indemnity, accused-appellant is hereby ordered to pay to the heirs of Eusebio Gardon amount of P50,000.00 as moral damages, plus the costs of the suit.SO ORDERED.
Ratio
- The Court first established, as a predicate fact, that a warrant of arrest had genuinely been issued against Givera — on 27 April 1995 — so that his later apprehension was not, as he claimed, a purely warrantless taking into custody. This distinguished his situation from a true warrantless-arrest scenario governed by Section 5, Rule 113, which was never implicated.
- The Court then addressed the significance of the intervening lapse of time and the unserved return: applying Section 4, Rule 113 directly, it held that the ten-day period the Rule fixes runs against the executing officer's duty to report back to the court, not against the warrant's own validity. Absent a contrary limitation stated in the warrant itself, or a subsequent judicial act recalling or quashing it, the warrant simply continues in force.
- Because the original warrant was never recalled or quashed, and nothing in it limited its duration, it remained a valid legal basis for Givera's arrest more than a year after issuance; consequently, the police needed no alias warrant to take him into custody once located.
- As an independent and sufficient alternative basis for rejecting the same argument, the Court invoked the settled waiver doctrine: an accused who wishes to contest the legality of his arrest or the court's manner of acquiring jurisdiction over his person must raise that objection before entering his plea (ordinarily by a motion to quash); proceeding to arraignment, pleading not guilty, and participating in trial without having done so forfeits the objection. Givera had done exactly that, so his belated challenge could not succeed even independently of the Section 4 holding.
Doctrine
B. Doctrines/Rules/Principles.
- Continuing validity of an unexecuted warrant of arrest (Section 4, Rule 113): "[N]o alias warrant of arrest is needed to make the arrest. Unless specifically provided in the warrant, the same remains enforceable until it is executed, recalled or quashed. The ten-day period provided in Rule 113, §4 is only a directive to the officer executing the warrant to make a return to the court."
- Waiver of objections to the legality of arrest or to jurisdiction over the person: "[A]ny objection involving a warrant of arrest or procedure in the acquisition by the court of jurisdiction over the person of an accused must be made before he enters his plea, otherwise the objection is deemed waived."
C. Distinctions/Limitations/Qualifications.
- The Decision's holding is expressly conditioned on the warrant not having specified its own duration ("[u]nless specifically provided in the warrant") and on the absence of any judicial act recalling or quashing it; a warrant drafted with an express expiry, or one that has been recalled or quashed by the issuing court, would not enjoy the same continuing enforceability.
- The ten-day period of Section 4 is not read out of the Rule altogether — it continues to bind the executing officer, whose failure to report may expose him to administrative consequences — but it does not operate in the accused's favor to invalidate a later arrest under the same, still-outstanding warrant.
- The Court's holding on this point is also expressly reinforced, not undercut, by the independent waiver ground; the Decision does not need to and does not suggest that the Section 4 holding alone would have sufficed had Givera timely objected before plea.
D. Topic/Subtopic Integration (Mandatory).
Classification: DIRECT.
- People v. Givera squarely applies Section 4, Rule 113 to the facts and finds the warrant's continuing enforceability satisfied: a warrant issued in April 1995, unserved and returned in June 1995, remained valid authority for an arrest effected roughly a year later, with no alias warrant required.
- This is the only holding in the Decision that engages Rule 113 at all, and the Court resolves it on the specific terms of Section 4 rather than by reference to any warrantless-arrest theory — making the case a clean, direct illustration of the "Execution of Warrant" subtopic notwithstanding that the bulk of the Decision, and the case's evident-premeditation/treachery/conspiracy discussion, belongs to substantive criminal law rather than to Rule 113.
Separate Opinions
None. The Decision was concurred in without qualification by Bellosillo, Quisumbing, Buena, and De Leon, Jr., JJ.