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FACTS:
Charged with the murder of Rafael de las Alas, petitioner Jose Antonio Leviste was convicted
by the Regional Trial Court of Makati City for the lesser crime of homicide and sentenced to
suffer an indeterminate penalty of six years and one day of prision mayor as minimum to 12
years and one day of reclusion temporal as maximum.
He appealed his conviction to the Court of Appeals. Pending appeal, he filed an
urgent application for admission to bail pending appeal, citing his advanced age and health
condition, and claiming the absence of any risk or possibility of flight on his part.
The Court of Appeals denied petitioners application for bail. It invoked the bedrock
principle in the matter of bail pending appeal, that the discretion to extend bail during the
course of appeal should be exercised with grave caution and only for strong reasons.
Petitioners motion for reconsideration was denied.
Petitioner quotes Section 5, Rule 114 of the Rules of Court was present. Petitioners
theory is that, where the penalty imposed by the trial court is more than six years but not
more than 20 years and the circumstances mentioned in the third paragraph of Section 5 are
absent, bail must be granted to an appellant pending appeal.
ISSUE:
Whether the discretionary nature of the grant of bail pending appeal mean that bail should
automatically be granted absent any of the circumstances mentioned in the third paragraph
of Section 5, Rule 114 of the Rules of Court?
HELD:
Petitioners stance is contrary to fundamental considerations of procedural and substantive
rules.
Petitioner actually failed to establish that the Court of Appeals indeed acted with grave
abuse of discretion. He simply relies on his claim that the Court of Appeals should have
granted bail in view of the absence of any of the circumstances enumerated in the third
paragraph of Section 5, Rule 114 of the Rules of Court.
We disagree. Pending appeal of a conviction by the Regional Trial Court of an offense not
punishable by death, reclusion perpetua, or life imprisonment, admission to bail is expressly
declared to be discretionary.
Retired Court of Appeals Justice Oscar M. Herrera, another authority in remedial law, is of the
same thinking:
Bail is either a matter of right or of discretion. It is a matter of right when the offense
charged is not punishable by death, reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment. On the other
hand, upon conviction by the Regional Trial Court of an offense not punishable
death, reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, bail becomes a matter of discretion.
Similarly, if the court imposed a penalty of imprisonment exceeding six (6) years
then bail is a matter of discretion, except when any of the enumerated circumstances under
paragraph 3 of Section 5, Rule 114 is present then bail shall be denied.
In the first situation, bail is a matter of sound judicial discretion. This means that, if
none of the circumstances mentioned in the third paragraph of Section 5, Rule 114 is
present, the appellate court has the discretion to grant or deny bail.
On the other hand, in the second situation, the appellate court exercises a more
stringent discretion, that is, to carefully ascertain whether any of the enumerated
circumstances in fact exists. If it so determines, it has no other option except to deny or
revoke bail pending appeal.
Given these two distinct scenarios, therefore, any application for bail pending appeal
should be viewed from the perspective of two stages: (1) the determination of discretion
stage, where the appellate court must determine whether any of the circumstances in the
third paragraph of Section 5, Rule 114 is present; this will establish whether or not the
appellate court will exercise sound discretion or stringent discretion in resolving the
application for bail pending appeal and (2) the exercise of discretion stage where, assuming
the appellants case falls within the first scenario allowing the exercise of sound discretion,
the appellate court may consider all relevant circumstances, other than those mentioned in
the third paragraph of Section 5, Rule 114, including the demands of equity and justice; on
the basis thereof, it may either allow or disallow bail.
A finding that none of the said circumstances is present will not automatically result
in the grant of bail. Such finding will simply authorize the court to use the less stringent
sound discretion approach.
However, judicial discretion has been defined as choice. Choice occurs
where, between two alternatives or among a possibly infinite number (of options), there is
more than one possible outcome, with the selection of the outcome left to the decision
maker. On the other hand, the establishment of a clearly defined rule of action is the end of
discretion. Thus, by severely clipping the appellate courts discretion and relegating that
tribunal to a mere fact-finding body in applications for bail pending appeal in all instances
where the penalty imposed by the trial court on the appellant is imprisonment exceeding six
years, petitioners theory effectively renders nugatory the provision that upon conviction by
the Regional Trial Court of an offense not punishable by death, reclusion perpetua, or life
imprisonment, admission to bail is discretionary.