Solgen asks SC to revisit Quintos double murder case

MANILA, Philippines - The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to revisit the 1997 Quintos double murder case where the Court of Appeals (CA) overturned the conviction of former Occidental Mindoro governor Jose Villarosa and three others due to lack of jurisdiction by the appellate court.

In its comment submitted to the SC last Oct. 18, the OSG said the CA “had no jurisdiction over the case” and “present circumstances call for a second look” by the high tribunal into the case.

The SC earlier asked the OSG to submit its comment after the family of the victims – brothers Michael and Paul Quintos – argued before the high court that there was some serious constitutional flaw in the outcome of the case, including the failure of the OSG to submit its memorandum on the case being the “counsel of the people.”

The Quintos brothers were gunned down in a friend’s residence in Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro on Dec. 13, 1997.

The National Bureau of Investigation arrested a suspect a few days later who pointed to five others, including Villarosa, as involved in the plotting of and participation in the murders.

Villarosa is the husband of Occidental Mindoro Rep. Amelita Villarosa.

In February 2006, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 81 sentenced Villarosa and his cohorts to death and ordered them to pay the heirs for moral and actual damages.

The following month, the CA overturned the conviction of the Quezon City RTC. The following August, the appellate court denied the appeals filed by the heirs of the Quintos brothers, who argued that the acquittal was attended with grave abuse of discretion, amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.

The OSG said according to the 1987, 1973 and 1935 Constitutions, the SC is granted the exclusive jurisdiction to review, revise, reverse, modify or affirm on appeal as the law or rules of court may provide, final judgments of lower courts, including all criminal cases involving offenses for which the penalty imposed is death or life imprisonment.

The OSG said the SC may have erred in issuing revised rules delegating such functions to the CA, which in effect already amended the Constitution.

“It is respectfully submitted that this Honorable Court may have overlooked... constitutional and legal precepts when it removed direct appeal to it from the RTC in criminal cases where the penalty imposed is reclusion perpetua or higher,” the OSG said.

The OSG cited the 2004 SC decision on People of the Philippines vs. Efren Mateo that removed the direct appeal before the high court on criminal cases with penalties of reclusion perpetua or higher.

It said a 2010 survey of criminal cases that were decided by the SC, RTCs have imposed a penalty of life imprisonment or higher in approximately 226 cases. When the 226 cases found their way to the SC, only 78 or 34.5 percent were affirmed.

“In other words, for more than half or 65.5 percent of the cases, the judgment was modified either by the application of the proper penalty or the acquittal of the accused,” the OSG said.

“The price for an erroneous judgment as borne by the victims, families of the victims and the accused is much heavier,” the OSG said.