THE CASE OF FERIA V. COURT OF APPEALS - 60 PJP 21

Date Published:
  1. RECOMMENDED CITATION: DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), “The Case of Feria v. Court of Appeals,” 60 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>).
  2. PJP BLOG: Although this content has received a favorable recommendation for citation from the admin team of PJP, it is not yet considered a peer-reviewed journal entry.
  3. CONTACT US: For immediate action on requests, comments, concerns, suggestions, and other forms of feedback, please message us on Facebook at www.m.me/projectjurisprudence.
This is the case of Feria v. Court of Appeals (2000).[1]

In the case of Feria v. Court of Appeals, petitioner argued that his detention was illegal because there existed no copy of a valid judgment as required by Sections 1 and 2 of Rule 120 of the Rules of Court. The contents of such judgment could not be ascertained as entire records appeared to have been lost or destroyed in the fire which occurred at the second and third floor of the Manila City Hall on November 03, 1986.

The Office of the Solicitor General (“OSG”) contended that the sole inquiry in this habeas corpus proceeding is whether or not there was legal basis to detain petitioner. The OSG maintained that public respondents had more than sufficiently shown the existence of a legal ground for petitioner’s continued incarceration, i.e., his conviction by final judgment and, under Section 4 of Rule 102 of the Rules of Court, the discharge of a person suffering imprisonment under lawful judgment is not authorized. Petitioner’s remedy, therefore, should not be a petition for habeas corpus but a proceeding for the reconstitution of judicial records.

The records of this case contained a certified true copy of the monthly report dated January 1985 submitted by Judge Rosalio A. De Leon, attesting to the fact that petitioner was convicted of the crime of robbery with homicide on January 11, 1985. Such monthly report constitutes an entry in official records under Section 44 of Rule 130 of the Revised Rules on Evidence, which is prima facie evidence of facts therein stated.

Public respondents likewise presented a certified true copy of People’s Journal dated January 18, 1985, Page 2, issued by the National Library, containing a short news article that petitioner was convicted of the crime of robbery with homicide and was sentenced to life imprisonment. However, newspaper articles amount to “hearsay evidence, twice removed” and are therefore not only inadmissible but without any probative value at all, whether objected to or not, unless offered for a purpose other than proving the truth of the matter asserted. Here, the news article was deemed by the Supreme Court admissible only as evidence that such publication does exist with the tenor of the news therein stated.

As a rule, the burden of proving illegal restraint by the respondent rests on the petitioner who attacks such restraint. In other words, where the return is not subject to exception, that is, where it sets forth process which on its face shows good ground for the detention of the prisoner, it is incumbent on petitioner to allege and prove new matters that tend to invalidate the apparent effect of such process. If the detention of a prisoner is by reason of lawful public authority, the return is considered prima facie evidence of the validity of the restraint and the petitioner has the burden of proof to show that the restraint is illegal.

In this case, there was also no showing that petitioner duly appealed his conviction of the crime of robbery with homicide; hence, for all intents and purposes, such judgment had already become final and executory. When a court has jurisdiction over the offense charged and over the party who is so charged, its judgment, order, or decree is not subject to collateral attack by habeas corpus. Put another way, in order that a judgment may be subject to collateral attack by habeas corpus, it must be void for lack of jurisdiction.

Thus, petitioner’s invocation of the ruling in Reyes v. Director of Prisons is misplaced. In the Reyes case, the Court granted the writ and ordered the release of the prisoner on the ground that it did not appear that the prisoner had been sentenced by any tribunal duly established by a competent authority during the enemy occupation and not because there were no copies of the decision and information. Here, a copy of the mittimus was available despite the loss or destruction of the entire records. And, indeed, petitioner did not raise any jurisdictional issue.

[1] NORBERTO FERIA V. THE COURT OF APPEALS, 382 Phil. 412 [G.R. No. 122954. February 15, 2000]