TRINIDAD RAMOS, PETITIONER, VS. THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS AND PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENTS.

In the appeal at bar, Trinidad Ramos seeks reversal of the judgment
of the Court of Appeals,^[1]
affirming with modification, her conviction of four felonies of estafa handed down by the Court of First Instance of
Manila.^[2]
Her conviction is made to rest upon the following findings of the Trial Court,
subsequently adopted in their entirety by the Court of Appeals, viz:

“(T)he accused filed with the * * (Philippine National Cooperative
Bank) four applications for letters of credit, the first on September 14, 1964
and the last three all on August 24, 1965, and in the respective amounts of
P10,000.00, P22,300.00, P24,000.00 and P24,600.00 * * (Exhibits C, A, F and
G).  After the applications were
processed and approved, domestic letters of credit were opened on the same
dates of the applications and in the amounts applied for (Exhibits C-2, A-2,
F-2 and G-2, respectively).  Among the
papers filed for the issuance of the domestic letters of credit were commercial
invoices of the different suppliers of the merchandise sought to be purchased (Exhs. C-1, a-1, f-1 and G-1), also bearing the same dates
of the applications for letters of credit with which they were respectively
attached.  The different suppliers then
drew sight drafts against the applicant payable to the order of the PNCB, also
bearing the same dates as the respective applications and for the same amounts
(Exhibits D, A-3, F-4 and G-5Z).  The
PNCB then drew its own drafts against the accused as the buyer of the
merchandise and which drafts were accepted by the accused also on the same
dates of the respective applications (Exhibits E, E-1, A-3, A-6, F-4, F-5, F-7
and G-8).  After such acceptance, the
corresponding trust receipts were signed by the accused also on the same dates
of the respective applications (Exhibits E-2, A-8, F-8 and G-9).

“The four trust receipts signed by the accused uniformly
contain the following stipulation:

‘The undersigned hereby acknowledges to
have received in trust from the * * (PNCB) the merchandise covered by the
above-mentioned documents and agrees to hold said merchandise in storage as the
property of said bank, with the liberty to sell the same for cash and for its
account provided the proceeds thereof are turned over in their entirety to the
said bank to be applied against
any acceptance(s) and any other indebtedness of the undersigned to the said
bank.’

“The records of the PNCB which had been presented in evidence
show that the drafts drawn by the bank against the accused and accepted by the
latter were supposed to be due in 90 days from the dates thereof.  No payments were made excepting a partial
payment of P3,900.00, inclusive of interests, made on May 20, 1965, as evidenced by the receipt Exhibit
I, for the account under the letter of credit No. 006; and another partial
payment of P2,000.00 made on May 28,
1965 on the same letter of credit, evidenced by the receipt Exhibit
J.  These partial payments were evidently
in pursuance of written demands for payment addressed by the PNCB to the
accused on October 5, 1965
(Exhibits K-2 and K-3).  A last formal
demand was addressed to the accused in a letter of counsel for the PNCB dated January 26, 1967 (Exhibits H, H-i and H-2).”^[3]

The sentence eventually passed on her by the Appellate Court is
as follows:

“WHEREFORE, in Criminal Case No. 88095, with the only
modification that subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency should be eliminated in view of the provisions of
Republic Act 5465, which law may be applied retroactively as it favors the
person guilty of the offense (Article 22, Revised
Penal Code), the decision appealed from is hereby affirmed in all
respects.

“In Criminal Case No. 88096
while the minimum penalty of imprisonment is within the range allowed by
law, the maximum is below the
aforesaid range.  The amount of the fraud
exceeds P22,000.00, hence, the principal penalty should be imposed in its
maximum period (par. 1, Penalty
Provision of Article 315,
Revised Penal Code) and the appellant Trinidad Ramos is hereby sentenced to suffer an
indeterminate penalty ranging from one (1) year, eight (8) months and
twenty-one (21) days of prision correccional
as minimum, to six (6) years, eight (8) months and twenty-one (21) days
of prision mayor, as maximum, with the
accessory penalties provided by
law, to indemnify the Philippine National Cooperative Bank in the sum of
P22,328.00 without subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to pay the costs.

“In Criminal Case No. 88097, with the only modification that
the penalty to suffer subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency should be
eliminated, the decision appealed from is hereby affirmed in toto.

“In Criminal Case No. 88098, with the elimination of the penalty
to suffer subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, the decision appealed from is affirmed in all
respects.”^[4]

Trinidad Ramos pleads for acquittal on the proposition that the
factual predicate on which her conviction is laid is chiefly comprised of speculations, conjectures and presumptions
without substantial and actual support in the evidence.^[5] She asserts that it behooved the
prosecution, which had charged her with estafa under
Article 315, par. 1(b) of the Revised Penal Code,
to prove the essential elements thereof, numbering four, to wit:  (1) that the accused received the thing
subject of the offense; (2) that the thing received is personal property
susceptible of appropriation; (3) that the thing was
received for safe-keeping, or on commission, or for administration, or under
any other obligation involving the duty to make delivery of or return the same;
and (4) that there was misappropriation or conversion by the accused of the thing received to the prejudice of another.^[6]
But, she contends, in her case
(1) that there is no adequate proof of her receipt of the goods subject of the
trust receipts in question or of her having paid anything on account thereof or
in connection therewith; (2) that complainant Bank had suffered no damage
whatever, since it had made no payment at all on account of the commercial
invoices for which the trust receipts
were issued; and (3) that under the laws at the time, transactions involving trust receipts could only
give rise to purely civil
liability.^[7]

Examined against the evidence
of record, the assailed factual
findings as to the receipt of the merchandise and the damage sustained by the
Bank cannot stand.  The proofs are
indeed inadequate on these propositions
of fact.  It is difficult to
accept the prosecution’s theory that it
has furnished sufficiency proof of delivery by the introduction in evidence of
the commercial invoices attached to the applications for the letters of credit
and of the trust receipts.  The
invoices are actually nothing more than lists of the items sought to be
purchased and their prices; and it can scarcely be believed that goods worth no
mean sum actually transferred hands without the unpaid vendor requiring the vendee
to acknowledge this fact in some way, even by a simple signature on these
documents alone if not in act by the
execution of some appropriate document, such as a delivery receipt.

The trust receipts do not
fare any better as proofs of the delivery to Ramos of the goods.  Except for the invoices, all documents
relating to each trust receipt agreement, including the trust receipts
themselves, appear to be standard Bank
forms accomplished by the Bank personnel, and were all signed by Ramos in one
sitting, no doubt with a view to facilitating the pending transactions between
the parties.  If, as she claims, Ramos
was made to believe that bank usage or regulations require the signing of the
papers in this way, i.e., on a single occasion, there was neither reason nor
opportunity for her to question the statement therein of receipt of the goods
since it was evidently assumed that
deliver to her of the goods would shortly come to pass.

At any rate, Ramos has categorically
and consistently denied ever having received
the goods either from the Bank or the suppliers.  And this was because, according to her, the suppliers simply refused to part with the goods as no payment
had been made therefor by the Bank.^[8] Now, the issue could quite easily have been
resolved by the production of the delivery receipts or the testimony of the
employees who made the supposed deliveries. 
And the prosecution could not have been unaware of such evidence, its
ready accessibility, and its importance, specially after the appellant had
disclaimed receipt of the goods in
question.  Yet the existence of that evidence is placed in serious
doubt by the fact that the prosecution
made no effort to bring it
before the Court, although it could have done so routinely and without any
difficulty whatever.  Certainly, this
omission cannot be taken against the accused, who is presumed innocent until
the contrary is proved beyond reasonable doubt.^[9] It is after all the duty of the prosecution
to establish the existence of
all the elements of the crime charged.^[10]

The State however insists
that Ramos’ receipt of the goods is proven by the fact that she made marginal
fee deposits on all the letters of credit, and also tendered partial payments
for the merchandise subject of the first trust receipt.  But evidence of these supposed deposits and
payments is no less flimsy too.  The only document presented in proof of the
deposit of marginal fees was Ramos’ Statement of Account^[11] as of May 19, 1967, prepared by the complainant
Bank.  But no receipt for the
claimed deposits was ever produced.  On
the other hand, the prosecution offered two official receipts in evidence^[12] ostensibly showing that Ramos remitted
partial payments to the Bank for the goods allegedly received under the
first trust receipt transaction.  Yet these
payments — supposedly made on May 20 and May 28, 1965 — are not oven reflected in the 1967
Statement of Account which credited Ramos only with the payment of marginal fee
deposits.  Furthermore, although both
PNCB receipts indicate that checks were given in payment the encashed checks were never exhibited, nor any reason
advanced for their non-production.

The omission to present obvious and available primary items of
proof is also perceived in the attempted substantiation of the claim that the
Bank paid the suppliers for the goods, and thereby suffered damage.  Under its standard procedures, the Bank
effects payment on a negotiated letter of credit by the issuance of a check,
the cancelled check being the invariable proof that negotiation has been consummated.^[13]
Again, not one such check issued by the Bank to the suppliers was ever
submitted, or any receipt signed by any supplier, or any of the Bank’s books,
ledgers, or journals reflecting any of the disbursements, in settlement of
Ramos’ accounts with her suppliers.

This rather sorry state of the evidence against the accused, who
is to be presumed innocent until the
contrary is proved beyond reasonable doubt, compels a reversal of her
convictions in all four cases.

Having found the record to contain insufficient evidence of the
essential elements of the crime charged, this Court finds it unnecessary to
resolve the other issue raised by the accused.

WHEREFORE, the judgments of the Trial Court and
of the Court of Appeals convicting the accused, Trinidad Ramos, of the crime
with which she is charged are hereby REVERSED,
and she is acquitted on reasonable doubt, with costs de oficio.

SO ORDERED.

Teehankee, C.J., Cruz, Paras, and Gancayco, JJ., concur.

^[1]
In CA-G.R. No. 101664-67-CR, dated November
8, 1974. J.C.G. Bautista, ponente; J.A.G.
Lucero and J.A.M. Herrera concur.

^[2]
In Crim. Case No. 88095-98, dated July 9, 1969.

^[3]
Rollo, pp. 49-50.

^[4]
Rollo, pp. 59-60.

^[5]
Sacay v. Sandiganbayan,
142 SCRA 593, citing Tolentino v. De Jesus,
56 SCRA 167; Cesar v. Sandiganbayan, 134 SCRA 105.

^[6]
People v. Tordesillas, 56 O.G. 3412, citing
U.S. v. Sevilla, 43 Phil. 186, People v. Concepcion, 74 Phil.
63, People v. Nepomuceno, 46 O.G. 6128, and
People v. Papagayo, 51 O.G. 199.

^[7]
Sia v. People, 121 SCRA 665.

^[8]
TSN, April 30, 1969, pp.
4-5.

^[9]
People v. Fernando, 145 SCRA 151; People v. Joven,
64 SCRA 126; People v. Ogapay, 66 SCRA 209.

^[10]
Sec. 2, Rule 131, Rules of Court; Moran, Comments on the Rules, 1980 ed., Vol. 6,
p. 7.

^[11]
Exhibit B.

^[12]
Exhibit I and J.

^[13]
TSN, December 11, 1968;
Cross Examination of Mr. Horacio Sese,
Head of the Domestic and Foreign Division of the PNCB.