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RUBRICO v. MACAPAGAL-ARROYO G.R. No. 183871 18 February 2010
PONENTE: Velasco, Jr., J. PARTIES:
1. PETITIONERS: LOURDES RUBRICO, JEAN RUBRICO APRUEBO, and MARY
JO Y RUBRICO CARBONEL 2. RESPONDENTS: PRESIDENT GLORIA
MACAPAGAL-ARROYO, GEN. HERMOGENES ESPERON, P/DIR.
GE. AVELINO RAZON, M AJ. DARWIN SY, JIMMY SANTANA, RUBEN ALFARO,
CAPT. ANGELO CUARESMA, P/SUPT. EDGAR ROQUERO, ARSENIO GOMEZ,
JONATHAN, and OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN
NATURE: Petition for Review on Certiorari of CA decision
PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND:
1. Supreme Court: Original Action for a Petition for the Writ of
Amparo 2. Court of Appeals: Upon order of the Supreme Court, the
Court of Appeals summarily heard the
Original Action for Petition of Amparo. Thereafter, the Court of
Appeals issued a partial judgment which is the subject of the
present Petition for Review on Certiorari .
FACTS: On 03 April 2007, Lourdes Rubrico, chair of Ugnayan ng
Maralita para sa Gawa Adhikan , was abducted by armed men belonging
to the 301st Air Intelligence and Security Squadron (AISS) based in
Lipa City while attending a Lenten pabasa in Dasmarinas, Cavite.
She was brought to and detained at the air base without charges.
She was released a week af ter relentless interrogation, but only
after she signed a statement that she would be a military asset.
Despite her release, she was tailed on at least 2 occasions. Hence,
Lourdes filed a complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman a
criminal complaint for kidnapping and arbitrary detention and grave
misconduct against Cuaresma, Alfaro, Santana, and Jonathan, but
nothing has happened. She likewise reported the threats and
harassment incidents to the Dasmarinas municipal and Cavite
provincial police stations , but nothing eventful resulted from
their investigation. Meanwhile, the human rights group Karapatan
conducted an investigation which indicated that men belonging to
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) led the abduction of
Lourdes. Based on such information, Rubrico filed a petition for
the writ of amparo with the Supreme Court on 25 October 2007,
praying that respondents be ordered to desist from performing any
threatening act against the security of peti tioners and for the
Ombudsman to immediately file an information for kidnapping
qualified with the aggravating circumstance of gender of the
offended party. Rubrico also prayed for damages and for respondents
to produce documents submitted to any of them on the case of
Lourdes. The Supreme Court issued the desired writ and then
referred the petition to the Court of Appeals (CA) for summary
hearing and appropriate action. At the hearing conducted on 20
November 2007, the CA granted peti tioners motion that the petition
and writ be served on Darwin Sy/Reyes, Santana, Alfaro, Cuaresma,
and Jonathan. By a separate resolution, the CA dropped the
President as respondent in the case. On 31 July 2008, after due
proceedings, the CA rendered its partial judgment, dismissing the
peti tion with respect to Esperon, Razon, Roquero, Gomez, and
Ombudsman. Hence, the petitioners filed a Peti tion for Review on
Certiorari with the Supreme Court. PERTINENT ISSUE: Whether or not
the doctrine of command responsibility is applicable in an amparo
peti tion.
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Rubrico v. Macapagal Arroyo Case Summary Page 2 of 3 G.R. No.
183871 18 February 2010
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ANSWER: No. SUPREME COURT RULINGS:
DOCTRINE OF COMMAND RESPONSIBILITY and THE WRIT OF AMPARO
Doctrine of Command Responsibility has little, if at all,
bearing in amparo proceedings [C]ommand responsibility, as a
concept defined, developed, and applied under international law,
has little, if at all, bearing in amparo proceedings. The evolution
of the command responsibility doctrine finds its context in the
development of laws of war and armed combats. According to Fr.
Bernas, command responsibility, in its si mplest terms, means the
responsibility of commanders for crimes committed by subordinate
members of the armed forces or other persons subject to their
control in international wars or domestic conflict. In this sense,
command responsibility is properly a form of criminal complicity.
The Hague Conventions of 1907 adopted the doctrine of command
responsibility, foreshadowing the present-day precept of holding a
superior accountable for the atrocities committed by his
subordinates should he be remiss in his duty of control over them.
As then formulated, command responsibility is an omission mode of
individual criminal liability, whereby the superior is made
responsible for crimes committed by his subordinates for failing to
prevent or punish the perpetrators. There is no Philippine law that
provides for criminal liability under the Doctrine of Command
Responsibility While there are several pending bills on command
responsibility, there is still no Philippine law that provides for
criminal liability under that doctrine. It may plausibly be
contended that command responsibility, as legal basis to hold
military/police commanders liable for extra -legal killings,
enforced disappearances, or threats, may be made applicable to this
jurisdiction on the theory that the command responsibility doctrine
now constitutes a principle of international law or customary
international law in accordance with the incorporation clause of
the Consti tution. Still, it would be inappropriate to apply to
these proceedings the doctrine of command responsibility, as the CA
seemed to have done, as a form of criminal complicity through
omission, for individual respondents criminal liability, if there
be any, is beyond the reach of amparo. In other words, the Court
does not rule in such procee dings on any issue of criminal
culpability, even if incidentally a crime or an infraction of an
administrative rule may have been committed. Reluctance of the
amparo petitioners or their witnesses to cooperate ought not to
pose a hindrance to the police in pursuing, on its own initiative,
the investigation in question to its natural end [T]he right to
security of persons is a guarantee of the protection of ones right
by the government. And this protection includes conducting
effective investigations of extra-legal killings, enforced
disappearances, or threats of the same kind. The nature and
importance of an investigation are captured in the Velasquez
Rodriguez case, in which the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
pronounced: [The duty to investigate] must be undertaken in a
serious manner and not as a mere formality preordained to be
ineffective. An investigation must have an objective and be assumed
by the State as its own legal duty, not a s tep taken by private
interests that depends upon the initiative of the victim or his
family or upon offer of proof, without an effective search for the
truth by the government. The remedy of amparo ought to be resorted
to and granted judiciously The privilege of the writ of amparo is
envisioned basically to protect and guarantee the rights to life,
liberty, and security of persons, free from fears and threats that
vitiate the quality of this life. It is an extraordinary writ
conceptualized and adopted in light of and in response to the
preval ence of extra -legal killings and enforced disappearances.
Accordingly, the remedy ought to be resorted to and granted
judiciously, lest the ideal sought by the Amparo Rule be diluted
and undermined by the indiscriminate filing of amparo petitions for
purposes less than the desire to secure amparo reliefs and
protection and/or on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations.
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Rubrico v. Macapagal Arroyo Case Summary Page 3 of 3 G.R. No.
183871 18 February 2010
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DISPOSITIVE: The Supreme Court partially granted the petition
for review. It issued a decision as follows: (1) Affirming the
dropping of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from the
petition;
(2) Affirming the dismissal of the amparo case as against Gen.
Hermogenes Esperon, and P/Dir. Gen. Avelino
Razon, insofar as it tended, under the command responsibility
principl e, to attach accountability and responsibility to them, as
then AFP Chief of Staff and then PNP Chief, for the alleged
enforced disappearance of Lourdes and the ensuing harassments
allegedly committed against petitioners. The dismissal of the peti
tion with respect to the Ombudsman is also affirmed for failure of
the peti tion to allege ultimate facts as to make out a case
against that body for the enforced disappearance of Lourdes and the
threats and harassment that followed; and
(3) Directing the incumbent Chief of Staff, AFP, or his
successor, and the incumbent Director -General of the PNP, or his
successor, to ensure that the investigations already commenced by
their respective units on the alleged abduction of Lourdes Rubrico
and the alleged harassments and threats she and her daughters were
made to endure are pursued with extraordinary dil igence as
required by Sec. 17 of the Amparo Rule. The Chief of Staff of the
AFP and Director-General of the PNP are directed to order their
subordinate officials, in particular, to do the following:
(a) Determine based on records, past and present, the identities
and locations of respondents Maj.
Darwin Sy, a.k.a. Darwin Reyes, Jimmy Santana, Ruben Alfaro,
Capt. Angelo Cuaresma, and one Jonathan; and submit certifications
of this determination to the OMBUDSMAN with copy furnished to peti
tioners, the CA, and this Court;
(b) Pursue with extraordinary diligence the evidentiary leads
relating to Maj. Darwin Sy and the Toyota
Revo vehicle with Plate No. XRR 428; and
(c) Prepare, with the assistance of petitioners and/or
witnesses, cartographic sketches of respondents Maj. Sy/Reyes,
Jimmy Santana, Ruben Alfaro, Capt. Angelo Cuaresma, and a certain
Jonathan to aid in positively identifying and locating them.
The investigations shall be completed not later than six (6)
months from receipt of the Decision; and within thirty (30) days
after completion of the investigations, the Chief of Staff of the
AFP and the Director-General of the PNP are likewise directed to
submit a full report of the results of the investigations to the
Court, the CA, the OMB, and peti tioners. The Supreme Court
accordingly referred the case back to the CA for the purpose of
monitoring the investigations and the actions of the AFP and the
PNP.