Lazatin vs. Desierto

Lazatin vs. Desierto FACTS: The Fact-Finding and Intelligence Bureau of the Office of the Ombudsman filed a ComplaintAffidavit charging petitioners (Lazatin) with Illegal Use of Public Funds. A preliminary investigation was conducted and it was recommened that 14 counts each of Malversation of Public Funds and violation of Section 3 (e) of R.A. No. 3019 should be filed against the petitioners. Resolution was approved by the Ombudsman; hence, 28 Informations were filed before the Sandiganbayan. Petitioner Lazatin and his co-petitioners then filed their respective Motions for Reconsideration/Reinvestigation, which motions were granted by the Sandiganbayan. The Sandiganbayan also ordered the prosecution to re-evaluate the cases against petitioners. The Office of the Special Prosecutor(OSP) submitted to the Ombudsman its Resolution which recommended the dismissal of the cases against petitioners for lack or insufficiency of evidence. The Ombudsman ordered the Office of the Legal Affairs (OLA) to review the OSP Resolution. In a Memorandum, the OLA recommended that the OSP Resolution be disapproved and the OSP be directed to proceed with the trial of the cases against petitioners. The Ombudsman adopted the OLA Memorandum, thereby disapproving the OSP Resolution and ordering the prosecution of the subject cases. The cases were then returned to the Sandiganbayan for continuation of criminal proceedings. Petitioners filed the instant petition. Petitioners argue that the Ombudsman had no authority to overturn the OSP's Resolution dismissing the cases against petitioners because, under Section 13, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution, the Ombudsman is clothed only with the power to watch, investigate and recommend the filing of proper cases against erring officials, but it was not granted the power to prosecute. They point out that under the Constitution, the power to prosecute belongs to the OSP, which was intended by the framers to be a separate and distinct entity from the Office of the Ombudsman. Petitioners conclude that, as provided by the Constitution, the OSP being a separate and distinct entity, the Ombudsman should have no power and authority over the OSP. Thus, petitioners maintain that R.A. No. 6770 (The Ombudsman Act of 1989), which made the OSP an organic component of the Office of the Ombudsman, should be struck down for being unconstitutional. The Court finds the petition unmeritorious. Petitioners' attack against the constitutionality of R.A. No. 6770 is stale. It has long been settled that the provisions of R.A. No. 6770 granting the Office of the Ombudsman prosecutorial powers and placing the OSP under said office have no constitutional infirmity. The issue of whether said provisions of R.A. No. 6770 violated the Constitution had been fully dissected as far back as 1995 in Acop v. Office of the Ombudsman : The Court held that giving prosecutorial powers to the Ombudsman is in accordance with the Constitution as paragraph 8, Section 13, Article XI provides that the Ombudsman shall “exercise such other functions or duties as may be provided by law.”

The constitutionality of Section 3 of R.A. No. 6770, which subsumed the OSP under the Office of the Ombudsman, was likewise upheld by the Court in Acop. It was explained, thus: x x x Section 7 of Article XI expressly provides that the then existing Tanodbayan, to be henceforth known as the Office of the Special Prosecutor, “shall continue to function and exercise its powers as now or hereafter may be provided by law, except those conferred on the Office of the Ombudsman created under this Constitution.” The underscored phrase evidently refers to the Tanodbayan's powers under P.D. No. 1630 or subsequent amendatory legislation. It follows then that Congress may remove any of the Tanodbayan's/Special Prosecutor's powers under P.D. No. 1630 or grant it other powers, except those powers conferred by the Constitution on the Office of the Ombudsman. Pursuing the present line of reasoning, when one considers that by express mandate of paragraph 8, Section 13, Article XI of the Constitution, the Ombudsman may “exercise such other powers or perform functions or duties as may be provided by law,” it is indubitable then that Congress has the power to place the Office of the Special Prosecutor under the Office of the Ombudsman. In the same vein, Congress may remove some of the powers granted to the Tanodbayan by P.D. No. 1630 and transfer them to the Ombudsman; or grant the Office of the Special Prosecutor such other powers and functions and duties as Congress may deem fit and wise. This Congress did through the passage of R.A. No. 6770. The foregoing ruling of the Court has been reiterated in Camanag v. Guerrero. More recently, in Office of the Ombudsman v. Valera, the Court, basing its ratio decidendi on its ruling in Acop and Camanag, declared that the OSP is “merely a component of the Office of the Ombudsman and may only act under the supervision and control, and upon authority of the Ombudsman” and ruled that under R.A. No. 6770, the power to preventively suspend is lodged only with the Ombudsman and Deputy Ombudsman. The Court's ruling in Acop that the authority of the Ombudsman to prosecute based on R.A. No. 6770 was authorized by the Constitution was also made the foundation for the decision in Perez v. Sandiganbayan, where it was held that the power to prosecute carries with it the power to authorize the filing of informations, which power had not been delegated to the OSP. It is, therefore, beyond cavil that under the Constitution, Congress was not proscribed from legislating the grant of additional powers to the Ombudsman or placing the OSP under the Office of the Ombudsman. ISSUE: W/n the Court's ruling on the constitutionality of the provisions of R.A. No. 6770 should be revisited and the principle of stare decisis be set aside. RULING: The doctrine of stare decisis et non quieta movere (to adhere to precedents and not to unsettle things which are established) is embodied in Article 8 of the Civil Code of the Philippines which provides, thus: ART. 8. Judicial decisions applying or interpreting the laws or the Constitution shall form a part of the legal system of the Philippines.

It was further explained in Fermin v. People as follows: The doctrine of stare decisis enjoins adherence to judicial precedents. It requires courts in a country to follow the rule established in a decision of the Supreme Court thereof. That decision becomes a judicial precedent to be followed in subsequent cases by all courts in the land. The doctrine of stare decisis is based on the principle that once a question of law has been examined and decided, it should be deemed settled and closed to further argument. In Chinese Young Men's Christian Association of the Philippine Islands v. Remington Steel Corporation, the Court expounded on the importance of the foregoing doctrine, stating that: The doctrine of stare decisis is one of policy grounded on the necessity for securing certainty and stability of judicial decisions, thus: Time and again, the court has held that it is a very desirable and necessary judicial practice that when a court has laid down a principle of law as applicable to a certain state of facts, it will adhere to that principle and apply it to all future cases in which the facts are substantially the same. Stare decisis et non quieta movere. Stand by the decisions and disturb not what is settled. Stare decisis simply means that for the sake of certainty, a conclusion reached in one case should be applied to those that follow if the facts are substantially the same, even though the parties may be different. It proceeds from the first principle of justice that, absent any powerful countervailing considerations, like cases ought to be decided alike. Thus, where the same questions relating to the same event have been put forward by the parties similarly situated as in a previous case litigated and decided by a competent court, the rule of stare decisis is a bar to any attempt to relitigate the same issue. The doctrine has assumed such value in our judicial system that the Court has ruled that “[a]bandonment thereof must be based only on strong and compelling reasons, otherwise, the becoming virtue of predictability which is expected from this Court would be immeasurably affected and the public's confidence in the stability of the solemn pronouncements diminished.” Verily, only upon showing that circumstances attendant in a particular case override the great benefits derived by our judicial system from the doctrine of stare decisis, can the courts be justified in setting aside the same. In this case, petitioners have not shown any strong, compelling reason to convince the Court that the doctrine of stare decisis should not be applied to this case. They have not successfully demonstrated how or why it would be grave abuse of discretion for the Ombudsman, who has been validly conferred by law with the power of control and supervision over the OSP, to disapprove or overturn any resolution issued by the latter. The petition is DISMISSED for lack of merit.