GR 78555; (January, 1990) (Digest)
G.R. No. 78555 ; January 30, 1990
ROMULO S. BULAONG and GIL P. DE GUZMAN, petitioners, vs. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES and THE HONORABLE PRESIDING JUDGE, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, NATIONAL CAPITAL JUDICIAL REGION, BRANCH CXIV, PASAY CITY, respondents.
FACTS
Petitioner Romulo Bulaong filed a criminal complaint for estafa against Vicente Vistan and Leonardo Buenaventura with the Pasay City Fiscal’s Office. During the preliminary investigation, Bulaong and his counsel, petitioner Gil de Guzman, submitted a reply-affidavit containing statements describing the respondents as “high calibered and precisioned swindlers.” Consequently, Vistan and Buenaventura filed a libel complaint against the petitioners. An information for libel was filed, alleging the statements were malicious imputations not material to the estafa case.
The petitioners moved to quash the information, arguing the statements constituted absolutely privileged communication as they were made in a judicial or official proceeding—specifically, a required reply in a preliminary investigation. The Regional Trial Court denied the motion to quash and the subsequent motion for reconsideration. The petitioners then filed a special civil action for certiorari, prohibition, and mandamus with the Court of Appeals, which dismissed the petition for lack of merit.
ISSUE
Whether the Court of Appeals erred in dismissing the petition for certiorari, thereby upholding the trial court’s denial of the motion to quash the libel information.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the Court of Appeals’ decision. The Court held that certiorari and prohibition are not the correct remedies against an order denying a motion to quash an information. The proper procedure, as established in jurisprudence such as Acharon v. Purisima and Gamboa v. Cruz, is for the accused to proceed to trial without prejudice to presenting the special defenses invoked in the motion to quash. If an adverse judgment is rendered after trial, the accused can then appeal and raise the same defenses for appellate review.
The denial of a motion to quash is an interlocutory order, not a final order, and is therefore not appealable. It cannot be the subject of a petition for certiorari. The question of whether the allegedly libelous statements in the reply-affidavit are covered by absolute privilege is a matter of defense that petitioners must raise during the trial on the merits. The prosecution is entitled to prove at trial that the statements were made with malice in fact. Consequently, the trial court correctly denied the motion to quash, and the Court of Appeals correctly dismissed the special civil action.