THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. AGRIPINA MAGAT DE SORIANO AND RODRIGO MIRANDA, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

Tried for theft and acquitted for insufficiency of evidence, the
defendants were subsequently booked for estafa under an information
alleging that they,

“* * * unlawfully
and feloniously and with intent to defraud, thru false pretense,
represented and made it appear that Agripina Magat de Soriano is the
person of Paulina Belches Vda. de Orbina, the payee of U. S. Treasury
Check No. 43,388,834, in the amount of $1,327.50, to the Municipal
Treasurer of Makati, Rizal, and the latter because of such false
pretense and representations and believing that it was true, cashed
said check and paid the amount of P2,655 to the above-named accused, to
the damage and prejudice of the real payee, Paulina Belches Vda. de
Orbina in the said amount of P2,655.”

Before the
arraignment defendants moved to quash the prosecution, pointing to
their former acquittal and arguing they had already been in jeopardy of
punishment for the same offense, the previous information for theft
having asserted that they,

“*
* * willfully, unlawfully and feloniously, with intent of gain and
without the consent and knowledge of the owner thereof, take, steal and
carry away one (1) U. S. Treasury Check No. 43,388,834 payable to the
order of Paulina Belches Vda. de Orbina in the amount of $1,327.50, to
the damage and prejudice of said Paulina Belches, the owner thereof, in
the sum of $1,327.50 or P2,655, Philippine currency, the said accused
having succeeded to cash the said check and collected and received the
aforesaid amount.”

The court denied the motion;
but, upon petition to reconsider, it dismissed the proceedings, holding
that since “both informations have identical facts and they involved
the same persons and the same amount of money, there is (double)
jeopardy in this case”.

The fiscal appealed.

For the purpose of determining whether the second prosecution would
place the defendants in a second jeopardy, the point to consider is
whether under the information for theft they could have been convicted
of the estafa described in the second information. Well-known, of
course, is the rule that the offense charged is not the name given to
it by the fiscal, but that described by the facts alleged in the
information.

The crucial allegations of the estafa charge, besides the collection of the money, were these:

“* * * thru false pretense, represented and made it appear that
Agripina Magat de Soriano is * * * Paulina Belches Vda. de Orbina * * *
to the Municipal Treasurer * * * and the latter because of such false
pretense * * * cashed said check * * *”.

Such allegations of false pretense and representations were totally lacking
in the first information. It is true such first information said “the
accused having succeeded to cash the said check and collected the
amount”, and it might be contended that this impliedly alleged the same false representations included in the second information. However, such theory would tolerate implied allegations
in a criminal information, to the utter disadvantage of the accused
whose constitutional right to be informed of the nature of the
accusation might thereby be undermined. Besides, such allegation (of
false representations) is not necessarily deducible from the fact that,
being payable to another person, the check was paid to these accused,
the reason being that the treasurer might have acted with full knowledge of facts, without having been misled, even thru connivance with the said accused.

The appellee maintains that the offense described in the information for estafa is the same crime proved
at the trial for theft. But the test as to jeopardy is the crime
alleged in the information—not the crime proved thereafter. The accused
could not be convicted of such proved crime if it was not sufficiently described in the information. They were not therefore in danger of being punished for such proved crime.

From the foregoing it follows the trial judge erred in dismissing the second information.

Judgment reversed. The record will have to be returned for further proceedings. So ordered.

Paras, C. J., Pablo, Padilla, Tuason, Reyes, Jugo, Bautista Angelo and Labrador, JJ., concur.