CA frees 81-year-old man jailed due to mistaken identity

Prudencio Calubid Jr. is free after six months of detention. The police illegally detained him, mistaking him for an NDFP consultant, in December 2024.

MANILA, Philippines – The Court of Appeals (CA) has granted the writ of habeas corpus petition filed by the family of an 81-year-old man who was jailed due to a case of mistaken identity. 

The granting of the writ of habeas corpus — an extraordinary writ used against illegal detention or to challenge an arrest — paved the way for the release of Prudencio Cebu Calubid Jr. after six months of detention. 

This writ has the power to compel an agency or body to produce a person held under custody, or in this case, for jail authorities to release the elderly man from detention. 

“ACCORDINGLY, the Petition for the Writ of Habeas Corpus dated April 14, 2025 of petitioner Analyn C. Calubid, acting for and on behalf of Prudencio Cebu Calubid, Jr., is GRANTED. Respondent Supt. Lino M. Soriano, Manila City Jail Warden is COMMANDED to IMMEDIATELY RELEASE PRUDENCIO CEBU CALUBID, JR. from detention,” the 68-page decision promulgated on Friday, June 27, said. 

CA Associate Justice Jennifer Joy Ong penned the decision, with concurrences from Associate Justices Ronaldo Roberto Martin and Ferdinand Baylon. 

As of Friday, Calubid had already been released from custody, according to the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers. NUPL president Ephraim Cortez also told Rappler that they would file appropriate motions with the lower court to dismiss the case against the elderly man. 

Back in April, Calubid’s family filed the petition with the appellate court, arguing that their father had been wrongfully arrested and was not the same person ordered arrested by a Manila court for robbery with double homicide, damage to properties, and multiple counts of murder. 

In the family’s petition filed through the NUPL, they said the Philippine National Police (PNP) falsely identified the elderly man as a National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultant abducted in 2006, whose whereabouts are still unknown to this day. 

The PNP arrested Calubid in Olongapo City in December 2024 despite his and his family’s pleading that he was not the NDFP consultant the PNP was looking for. They even presented government-issued identification cards, documents, and records that vouch for his identity and residence, but the arresting officers did not listen. 

In their CA petition, the family and NUPL also argued that the PNP still pushed through in detaining Calubid despite knowing that he was not the same person on the wanted list. 

Not the same Prudencio

The court noted that when he was arrested, Calubid had presented documents to prove his identity and, when interviewed by the police, had further asserted he was not the Prudencio Calubid they were looking for since he had the suffix “Jr.”

According to the CA, this suggested that the grandfather had already questioned his apprehension, based on mistaken identity, from the start of his predicament. Despite willingly going with the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, since he was confident that his identity would be verified and cause his release from custody, Calubid was detained at Camp Crame and arraigned for the criminal cases as “Prudencio Calubid.”

In the ruling, the CA believed Calubid’s defense and held that the elderly was indeed mistakenly identified as Prudencio Calubid. The CA said Analyn, Calubid’s daughter, and their witnesses convincingly proved that Calubid was different from the suspect ordered arrested by court. 

“Analyn presented overwhelming documentary evidence to establish the identity of the detained person and subject of the instant Petition as ‘Prudencio Cebu Calubid, Jr.,’ along with pertinent details regarding his personal circumstances,” the appellate court said. 

This included Calubid’s identification documents, such as SSS, student records, and even his national ID. The CA also noted that the alias “Prudencio Cebu Calubid Jr.” was not mentioned in the charges filed in court and only surfaced in succeeding documents after his arrest in December 2024. 

Apart from these, the appellate court said the respondents — officers of the PNP and Manila City Jail — failed to exert “due diligence” in determining whether Calubid was really the subject of the warrant. 

According to the court, the arrest and detention due to mistaken identity could have been prevented if the respondents were careful, but instead, “they utterly failed to substantiate their suspicion” that the two men were the same. 

“What also confounds the Court is that the investigation carried out by the police officers, which primarily involved browsing internet sources and social media, was publicly presented as though a comprehensive and meticulous intelligence operation was conducted, which apparently was not,” the CA said, adding that the authorities should have based their probe and findings on official records. 

“When the scales of justice are weighed between a citizen who has been deprived of his liberty, despite asserting and substantiating with evidence that he is not the wanted person, and the State that has all the manpower, resources, and institutional machinery to verify information and arrest and detain the right person, the Court would not hesitate to resolutely side with the citizen,” the appellate court added. – Rappler.com