Judge imposes ‘solidary bail’ for poor respondents
IN DEFIANCE OF COURT RULES
TAYUG–A judge of the Regional Trial Court in Pangasinan defied existing rules to benefit poor respondents.
Judge Ulysses Raciles Butuyan of Branch 52 departed from the traditional way of fixing bail bonds and instead began imposing what he calls solidary bail bonds to benefit the accused charged in his sala who are too poor to afford to post money for their temporary freedom.
He said he started advocating for this type of bonds a year ago in cases where there are two or more accused and when the offense committed is lesser than the crime of murder.
This was not the first time he departed from court rules granting litigants in special court proceedings who file a motion to be granted the right to choose the newspaper whom they want to publish their judicial notices for preferred rates. This effectively exempts their notices from going through with the usual mandated raffles, compelling them to pay exorbitant publication fees of a number of newspapers.
He did this to protect litigants from being “fleeced” by some local publishers whom he described as “rapacious and profiteering” taking advantage of the mandated court raffles.
“I’ve been doing this (solidary bail bond) for about a year already. It’s not according to rules. It is not according to the Constitution but there’s nothing wrong with it,” he said.
Acknowledging that he was the first judge in the Philippines and perhaps in the world to impose the posting of solidary bail bond if the accused charged in his sala are poor, Butuyan said this practice can be considered by other judges for humanitarian reasons.
In fact, it is something that not only the other judges but lawyers and even other people who have cases to consider if the latter applied for bail.
Butuyan said the solidary bail bond will benefit the poor people who are two or more persons charged with the same offense, like homicide, estafa, theft and others.
He said it works on the principle that all the accused must agree to perform or pay and indebtedness, not on a sharing basis as far as they, on the one hand, and the creditor, on the other hand, are concerned.
Under this principle, once the obligation is due or demandable or payable, the creditor or the obligee has the right to choose who between them (obligor) to collect from. Because of this undertaking, he said, no one can complain.
Butuyan said that under the solidary bail bond, the court may fix a bail bond not for each and every one but the bail bond for every body when the accused in a certain crime lesser than murder are two or more persons.
In ordinary course of fixing bail, the court fixes an amount that the accused, say four or more, would have to post in order to be granted provisional liberty.
Under this practice, only those who can post the bail bond required by the court can go free provision ally.
Butuyan said if the accused asked to post solidary bail bond, the judge can impose the pegged bond “not as bail bond for each and everyone but the bail bond for everybody”.
In any breach of that guarantee or if any of accused does not show when required by the court, the latter goes after the bail bond and forfeits it in favor of the government.
He cited the Civil Code of the Philippines which recognizes two obligations, one is solidary and the other is joint.
“This practice can be applied to husband and wife who are accused and even to the worst of enemies for as long as they agree that their bail bond is solidary,” he said.
He cited the cases of spouses Emmanuel Reyes and Editha Reyes who were charged with estafa in two criminal cases filed in Butuyan’s sala in which the judge set a solidary bail bond of P125,000 to guarantee the provisional liberty of both accused and in both cases, once posted in full.
In granting the solidary bail bond for the couple, Judge Butuyan made it clear that default of one accused shall result in the forfeiture of the entire bail and the re-incarceration of both the defaulting and the other accused.—LM
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