1. Ponce Enrile v Salazar GR No.

92163 June 5, 1990

Facts:

In the afternoon of February 27, 1990, Senate Minority Floor Leader Juan Ponce Enrile
was arrested by law enforcement officers led by Director Alfredo Lim of the NBI on the strength
of a warrant issued by Hon. Jaime Salazar of the RTC of Quezon City Branch 103.

The warrant had issued on an information signed and earlier that day filed by a panel of
prosecutors composed of Senior State Prosecutor Aurelio C. Trampe, and companions, charging
Senator Enrile, the spouses Rebecco and Erlinda Panlilio, and Gregorio Honasan with the crime
of rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder allegedly committed during the period of
the failed coup attempt from November 29 to December 10, 1990.

Enrile filed a petition for habeas corpus, alleging among others that he is being held to
answer for criminal offense which does not exist in the statute books. The writ was issued.

The SolGen urged that Enrile’s case does not fall within the Hernandez ruling because the
information in Hernandez charged murders and other common crimes committed as a necessary
means for the commission of rebellion, whereas the information against Sen. Enrile et al. charged
murder and frustrated murder committed on the occasion, but not in furtherance, of rebellion.
Issue:
W/N the Hernandez doctrine should be maintained.
Held:

Yes. In the view of the majority, the ruling remains good law, its substantive and logical
bases have withstood all subsequent challenges and no new ones are presented here persuasive
enough to warrant a complete reversal.

This view is reinforced by the fact that around this time, President Aquino, in exercising
her powers under the 1986 Freedom Constitution, saw fit to repeal, Presidential Decree No. 942
of the former regime which precisely sought to nullify or neutralize Hernandez by enacting a new
provision (Art. 142-A) into the Revised Penal Code. The President in effect by legislative fiat
reinstated Hernandez as binding doctrine with the effect of law. Hernandez remains binding
doctrine operating to prohibit the complexing of rebellion with any other offense committed on
the occasion thereof, either as a means necessary to its commission or as an unintended effect of
an activity that constitutes rebellion.

Read in the context of Hernandez, the information does indeed charge the petitioner with a crime
defined and punished by the Revised Penal Code: simple rebellion. The information filed against
the petitioner does in fact charge an offense. Disregarding the objectionable phrasing that would
complex rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder, that indictment is to be read as
charging simple rebellion.