Guico, Ramon Carlo C.

1D Constitutional Law II

SATURNINA GALMAN, et. al., plaintiff v. SANDINBAYAN, respondent

GR NO. 72670 , SEPTEMBER 12, 1986, TEEHANKEE, C.J.

Criminal Due process and the Rights of the Accused.

Facts:
On October 22, 1983, then President Marcos created a Fact- Finding Board to
investigate the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. The minority and majority reports of the Board
both agreed that Rolando Galman was not the assassin but was merely a fall guy of the military,
which plotted the assassination itself. The minority report tags 26 persons, headed by General
Ver, as respondents to the case. Marcos rejected the reports of the Board and stuck to his claim
that it was Galman who killed Aquino. Thereafter, Sandiganbayan and Tanodbayan acquitted
the respondents of the crime charged, declaring them innocent and totally absolving them of
any civil liability. In this petition, Petitioners Saturnina Galman, wife of the late Rolando
Galman, and 29 others filed the present action alleging that respondent courts committed
serious irregularities constituting mistrial and resulting in miscarriage of justice and gross
violation of the constitutional rights of the sovereign people of the Philippines to due process of
law. Allegedly, then President Marcos had ordered the respondent courts to whitewash the
criminal cases against the 26 respondents accused and produce a verdict of acquittal. In his
comment, the Deputy Tanodbayan Manuel Herrera, affirmed the allegations and revealed that
Malacanang had planned the scenario of the trial. Respondents-accused prayed for its denial.

Issue:
Whether or not the trial was a mock trial and that the judgement rendered by such was
unlawful and be void ab initio?

Held:
Yes. The Supreme Court cannot permit such a sham trial and verdict and travesty of
justice to stand unrectified. The courts of the land under its aegis are courts of law and justice
and equity. They would have no reason to exist if they were allowed to be used as mere tools of
injustice, deception and duplicity to subvert and suppress the truth, instead of repositories of
judicial power whose judges are sworn and committed to render impartial justice to all alike
who seek the enforcement or protection of a right or the prevention or redress of a wrong,
without fear or favor and removed from the pressures of politics and prejudice. More so, in the
case at bar where the people and the world are entitled to know the truth, and the integrity of
our judicial system is at stake. In life, as an accused before the military tribunal, Ninoy had
pleaded in vain that as a civilian he was entitled to due process of law and trial in the regular
civil courts before an impartial court with an unbiased prosecutor. In death, Ninoy, as the victim
of the "treacherous and vicious assassination" and the relatives and sovereign people as the
aggrieved parties plead once more for due process of law and a retrial before an impartial court
with an unbiased prosecutor.