Case Digest: ALEGRIA P. BELTRAN v. JUDGE OSCAR E. DINOPOL

Case Digest: ALEGRIA P. BELTRAN v. JUDGE OSCAR E. DINOPOL

    Criminal complaints for Falsification of Public Documents and Attempted Murder were filed by the local police before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) South Cotabato against Manuel Beltran. Judge Oscar E. Dinopol thereafter issued two (2) similarly worded Orders finding probable cause to hale the accused into court and consequently ordered the issuance of warrants for his arrest. Subsequently, however, upon motion of the accused, Judge Laureano T. Alzate of RTC Koronadal City, quashed the criminal complaints on the ground of, inter alia, absence of preliminary investigation. Thereafter, Alegria P. Beltran, wife of the accused, filed a Letter Complaint charging Judge Dinopol with Gross Ignorance of the Law and Abuse of Authority.

   Judge Dinopol argues that such procedural lapse was due to the serious medical conditions of his two successive prosecutors which rendered them unable to constantly attend hearings. He likewise submits that given the length of time that there was no prosecutor in the RTC of Koronadal City, he and Judge Alzate, of another branch of the court, agreed, to accept cases directly filed by the police on condition that after the arrest of the accused but before arraignment, the cases would be remanded to the Prosecutor‘s Office for “further” preliminary investigation.

ISSUE:

Whether or not Judge Dinopol is guilty of Gross Ignorance of the Law in forgoing with the procedural requirement of Preliminary Investigation

HELD:

Preliminary investigation of criminal cases is intended to protect the accused from the inconvenience, expense, and burden of defending himself in a formal trial until the reasonable probability of his guilt has first been ascertained in a fairly summary proceeding by a competent officer. It also protects the State from having to conduct useless and expensive trials.

If, as Judge Dinopol tries to justify his questioned act, the city prosecutor had been sickly, he could have endorsed the criminal complaint to the Presiding Judge of the MTCC, Koronadal City. The alleged instruction of the MTCC judge not to accept cases for preliminary investigation did not justify Judge Donopol‘s violation of the Rules. Neither did the alleged failure of the designated Acting City Prosecutor to attend to all criminal cases in the city. Under those circumstances, Judge Dinopol was not without any remedy.

Parenthetically, why would, by Judge Dinopol‘s own claim, allow the filing in the RTC of criminal cases which have not been subjected to preliminary investigations and, after issuing the warrants of arrest, “remand [the cases] to the Prosecutor‘s Office for further preliminary investigation”? A case of putting the cart before the horse!