THE SUPREME COURT JUST LOCKED IN THE DOJ'S HIGHER EVIDENCE STANDARD FOR CRIMINAL CASES

93.9 percent. That is the conviction rate the Department of Justice is now posting after raising the bar for what it takes to file a criminal case in the Philippines. Before the change, the figure hovered between 38 and 39 percent — meaning more than six out of ten criminal cases that reached court ended without a conviction.

The Supreme Court, in a unanimous En Banc ruling promulgated November 11, 2025 and released to the public on March 11, 2026, dismissed a petition challenging that higher standard and upheld the DOJ's authority to set it. The decision in G.R. No. 280455 — Atty. Hazel L. Meking v. Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla — is six pages long and written by Associate Justice Japar B. Dimaampao. It is not a close call.

What DOJ Circular 15 Actually Changed

Before July 2024, prosecutors deciding whether to file criminal charges operated under probable cause — essentially, a reasonable belief that a crime occurred and that the person charged was likely responsible. The bar was deliberately low. Courts, not prosecutors, were supposed to sort out admissibility and credibility of testimony. Getting a case to court was the point. Winning it later was a separate question.

Department Circular No. 015, Series of 2024 — signed by then-DOJ Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla on July 16, 2024, with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. present at the signing — replaced that standard with "prima facie evidence with reasonable certainty of conviction." Under the new rules, a prosecutor must be convinced that all available evidence is admissible, credible, and capable of being preserved and introduced in court. If it falls short, the complaint can be dismissed before it is even formally docketed. A case build-up stage now precedes docketing, where the head of the prosecution office assesses whether the evidence is complete enough to proceed.

The result, according to then-Justice Undersecretary Jesse Hermogenes Andres in a November 2025 Senate hearing, is that the DOJ is filing 50 percent fewer cases. But the cases that do get filed are winning at a 93.9 percent rate.

The Petition and the Court's Answer

Atty. Hazel L. Meking filed the petition on June 4, 2025, on behalf of crime victims whose complaints had already been dismissed under the new standard. Her core legal argument: by raising the evidentiary bar in preliminary investigations, the DOJ encroached on the Supreme Court's exclusive constitutional authority under Article VIII, Section 5(5) of the Constitution to promulgate rules on pleading, practice, and procedure in courts.

Her practical argument was blunter. She argued it is impossible to assess certainty of conviction before any witness is examined, before evidence is formally tested, before a trial is conducted. She also documented inconsistent implementation: some prosecution offices dismiss cases on first look without any hearing; others close cases through internal committees with no hearing at all. A crime victim in one province may get a different outcome than an identical victim in a neighboring city.

The Supreme Court was not persuaded. The decision draws a clear line between executive and judicial functions. Preliminary investigation — the stage before charges are formally filed in court — is an executive process. The SC retains supreme authority over what happens in courts and the power to intervene if prosecutorial rules impair constitutional rights. But the DOJ, operating within its own domain, can set its own rules for the pre-court stage.

The ruling also pointed to precedent that made the constitutional question almost moot: in 2024, before Meking's petition was even filed, the SC had already issued an administrative resolution (A.M. No. 24-02-09-SC) recognizing the DOJ's authority and ordering that portions of Rule 112 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure inconsistent with the new DOJ rules be deemed repealed. The court had already weighed in — in the DOJ's favor — before the case was brought.

What This Means in Practice

The Supreme Court decision does not resolve the tension Meking identified. It resolves the constitutional question. Whether the standard is being applied consistently and fairly across every prosecution office in the country is a separate problem, and the ruling does not touch it.

The circular covers any crime with a prescribed penalty of at least six years and one day. That includes plunder, graft and corruption, murder, kidnapping, rape, major drug offenses, and violations of the Anti-Money Laundering Act. For anyone filing a complaint in these categories, the evidence burden now begins at the prosecutor's desk, not in the courtroom. A complaint that would have cleared the old probable cause threshold may now be sent back before it is even docketed.

The DOJ argues this is the point. Marcos said at the signing ceremony that "only strong cases are brought to trial," reducing frivolous suits and malicious prosecutions. Remulla — now Ombudsman of the Philippines — called the circular a "game-changer in the prosecution of crimes." The DOJ's institutional target is a 90 percent conviction rate, and the numbers suggest it is close.

For crime victims who can gather strong, admissible, documented evidence, the system now leads more reliably to a conviction. For victims who cannot — those who depend on testimony alone, or who lack the resources to build a complete evidentiary record before filing — the pre-docketing stage is now a gate that did not exist before.

The Supreme Court has confirmed that gate is lawful. Whether it is applied uniformly is another question entirely.