G.R. No. L-16874. February 27, 1961
DIOSDADO S. MENDIOLA, DOMINGO B. JOLA, TEODORO C. DE LA CRUZ AND HERMOGENES CONCEPCION, JR., PETITIONERS, VS. HON. HIGINO MACADAEG, JUDGE OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF MANIL…
BARRERA, J.:
by the City Fiscal of Manila, together with Diosdado Mendiola, Domingo
Jola, and Teodoro C. de la Cruz, minority stockholders of the Republic
Sayings Bank, seeking to nullify the preliminary writ of injunction
issued in Civil Case No. 41454 of the Court of First Instance of
Manila, restraining the petitioner City Fiscal from proceeding with his
investigation of a complaint for falsification of public and/or
commercial documents filed against respondents Pablo Roman, Ramon
Racelis, Armando Abad, Jr., Juan J. Buenafe, Luciano Buenafe, Helmuth
Holensteiner, Consuelo S. Perez, Melchor Tuazon, Jr., Maria Teresa
Conui, and Vicente R. de Leon.
The antecedents are as follows:
In a letter-complaint dated March 2, 1959, later amended on May 9,
1959, and filed with the City Fiscal of Manila, Diosdado S. Mendiola,
Domingo B. Jola, and Teodoro S. de la Cruz, minority stockholders of
the Republic Savings Bank, accused Pablo Roman, Ramon Racelis, Luciano
F. Buenafe, Juan J. Buenafe, Maria Teresa Conui, and Vicente R. de Leon
(officials and employees of the Republic Savings Bank), together with
Helmuth Holensteiner, Armando Abad, Jr., Consuelo Salazar Perez,
Melchor Tuazon, Jr., John Doe, Peter Doe, James Doe, Richard Doe, and
Mary Doe, of the crime of falsification of public and/or commercial
documents under Article 171, paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, and Article 172,
paragraph 1 of the Revised Penal Code, in relation to Sections 75, 76,
77, 78, 83, and 87 of the Banking Act (Republic Act 337), allegedly
committed by the respondents Bank officials and employees, in
connivance with the other respondents, in preparing or causing the
preparation of the following documents:
(1) Four deeds of absolute sale, all dated December 10, 1957, by virtue
of which Pablo M. Sarangaya purportedly sold and conveyed ownership of
the properties separately described therein unto Felizardo Africa,
Honorato Galang, Raul Suarez, and Conrado Enrile, respectively. These
deeds were all signed by Melchor Tuazon, Jr. and Peter Doe, as
witnesses, and notarized and acknowledged by Armando Abad, Jr.(2) Four deeds of mortgage, all dated December 11, 1957, allegedly
executed by vendee Africa, Galang, Suarez, and Enrile in favor of the
Republic Savings Bank, to secure their respective loans of P85,000.00,
P210,000.00, P250,000.00, and P200,000.00, incurred to pay the balance
of the purchase price of the aforementioned properties. Said deeds of
mortgage were witnessed by Maria Teresa Conui and John Doe, and
notarized and acknowledged by Luciano F. Buenafe.(3) Four
deeds of sale with assumption of mortgage, all dated September 3, 1958,
allegedly executed by Felizardo Africa, Honorato Galang, Raul Suarez
and Conrado Enrile, the first two in favor of the Beneficial Financing
Corporation of which Consuelo S. Perez is the President and majority
stockholder, and the other two in favor of Consuelo Salazar-Perez
personally.
Specifically, the charge was
that respondent made untruthful statements in the respective narration
of facts, by causing it to appear in said deeds that the alleged
vendees Africa, Galang, Suarez, and Enrile took part in the acts and
proceedings indicated therein when in fact they did not; that by the
unlawful and deliberate preparation, execution, and accomplishment of
the aforementioned documents, the Register of Deeds of Rizal was
induced to issue the corresponding transfer certificate of title for
each of said properties, and the registration thereof in the names of
Africa, Galang, Suarez, and Enrile, and to register the deeds of
mortgage allegedly executed by the purchasers in favor of the Republic
Savings Bank, as well as the supposed subsequent sale of the same
properties, subject to said mortgages, in favor of Consuelo
Salazar-Perez and the Beneficial Financing Corporation (of which Mrs.
Perez is the President and majority stockholder); that by virtue of
such fraudulent transactions, respondents were able to cause the
unlawful disbursement of the funds of the Republic Savings Bank in the
total sum of P745,000.00 in violation of their trust and which could
not have been accomplished without the misrepresentations and
falsifications complained of. This complaint was docketed as I.S. No.
6876 of the City Fiscal’s Office.
With full knowledge of the
filing of this complaint in the respondent City Fiscal’s Office, and
notwithstanding the summons issued by this official, the Beneficial
Financing Corporation and Consuelo Salazar-Perez, on April 3, 1959,
entered into a contract with Top Service, Inc. whereby they promised to
sell to the latter the four (4) parcels of land for the sum of
P794,764.30 for the first two parcels, and P597,031.30 for the last two
parcels. Subsequently, Beneficial Financing Corporation conveyed the
two parcels of land it obtained from Africa and Galang to Mrs. Perez
who thereby became the owner of the four parcels. Thereafter,
respondents filed a motion to quash the criminal complaint and an
alternative motion to postpone the investigation on the ground that the
nullity of the mortgage contracts is a prejudicial question to the
charge for falsification. Evidently to bolster up this theory, Top
Service Inc. subsequently instituted in the Court of First Instance of
Pasig (Civil Case No. 5584) an action against Consuelo Salazar-Perez
purportedly “to quiet title” of Mrs. Perez, alleging among others, the
agreement to sell secured in its favor in virtue of which plaintiff
averred to have already paid the total amount of P50,000.00 as advance
payment, and was to undertake, as it did undertake, to subdivide the
parcels of land into small lots, lay out streets and plazas; that it
had already spent more than P300,000 and was expected to spend around
P1,000,000.00 more to complete the subdivision work; that it learned of
the filing by the three minority stockholders of the Republic Savings
Bank of the complaint for falsification involving the parcels subject
of their contract; that such proceeding was prejudicial to its rights,
title, and interest under the aforementioned promise to sell. Thus, it
was prayed that the court render judgment “to remove such cloud or to
quiet the title of the aforesaid real property”.
The
defendant, Consuelo Salazar-Perez answered the complaint denying the
alleged falsification and asserting the validity of her title over the
said properties.
After the issues in said civil ease have
thus been apparently joined, the respondents in I.S. No. 6976 of the
City Fiscal’s Office reiterated their motion to quash or suspend the
investigation of the criminal complaint, inviting attention to the
civil action filed in Pasig and insisting that the same is an existing
prejudicial civil question that warrants the suspension of the
preliminary investigation. Upon its denial by the investigating fiscal,
respondents appealed to the City Fiscal. Ruling that a decision in
Civil Case No. 5584, filed in Pasig, purportedly to quiet title over
the properties involved therein is not essential to the determination
of the criminal liability of the respondents for falsification as
charged in the complaint, the City Fiscal ordered the continuation of
the preliminary investigation, setting the same for September 16, 1959,
at 1:30 P.M. On the appointed date, but before the actual investigation
could take place, however, the City Fiscal received a writ of
preliminary injunction issued ex-parte by the Court of First Instance of Manila in Civil Case No. 41454,[1]
enjoining him to refrain from conducting the preliminary investigation
of I.S. 6976. Their separate motions to dismiss the case and to
dissolve the injunction having been denied, the City Fiscal, together
with the complainants in the criminal investigation, filed the instant
petition for the purpose heretofore stated, viz. to set aside the preliminary writ of injunction restraining the City Fiscal from proceeding with his investigation.
The only question to be resolved in this instance is, whether the
proceedings in I.S. No. 6976 of the City Fiscal’s Office may be stopped
or suspended pending the final determination of the question involved
in Civil Case No. 5584 of the Court of First Instance of Rizal (Pasig),
or, differently stated, whether Civil Case No. 5584 is a prejudicial
civil action to the falsification case subject of I.S. No. 6976.
In the leading case of De Leon vs. Mabanag (70 Phil., 202), cited by
both parties, this Court, providing the criteria of when a prejudicial
civil question exists, stated:
“* * * por
regla general, el tribunal que entiende de un asunto criminal tiene
competencia para decidar questiones prejudiciales, para solo el efecto
de la represion, cuando tales cuestiones aparezcan tan intimamente
ligadas al hecho punible que sea racionalmente imposible su separacion.
Pero el articulo 4.° consagra una excepcion, y es cuando la cuestion
prejudicial sea determinante de la culpabilidad o inocencia del acusado,
en cuyo caso el tribunal que conoce de la causa criminal debe suspender
esta y hacer que se falle la cuestion prejudicial en juicio civil o
administrativo. Esto es exactamente lo que ocurre ahora. La falsificacion
del documento V-1, a mejor dicho, los hechos en que consisten la misma
y su sustitucion durante el curso del juicio afectan directamente a la
moralidad del recurrente como miembro del foro y es deber de este
Tribunal determinar si el mismo es culpable de malas practicas,
determinacion que constituyo en este caso la cuestion prejudicial de
caracter administrativo que debe resolverse separadamente en el
expediente administrativo en vista de que determinura a su vez la
culpabilidad o inocencia del recurrente en relacion con el proceso
criminal por el delito de falsificacion. * * * La necesidad de
suspender la investigacion preliminar que ha iniciado el recurrido asi
como la inoacion del proceso criminal por el delito de falsificacion
del documento V-1 resulta mas patente si se considera que la falsedad
del documento y su sustitucion se hallan aun sub-judice y si
este Tribunal decidiese que el mismo es genuino y no ha sido sustituido
y por consiguente el recurrente no es culpable de malas practicas, tal
fallo estaria en pugna con el criterio sustentado por el recurrido.”
(Italics supplied)
Under the foregoing
doctrine, for a civil case to be considered prejudicial to a criminal
action as to cause the suspension of the latter pending its (civil
case) final determination, it must appear not only that the said civil
case involves the same facts upon which the criminal prosecution would
be based, but also that in the resolution of the issue or issues raised
in the aforesaid civil action, the guilt or innocence of the accused
would necessarily be determined.
In the case at bar, the
burden of the criminal complaint (I.S. No. 6976) is that the
falsification therein charged had caused the fraudulent and illegal
disbursements of the funds of the: Republic Savings Bank in violation
of the Banking Law and of the Revised Penal Code. The validity of the
transfers of ownership over the land is but an incident. Consequently,
even if the ownership of Consuelo Salazar-Perez is upheld in the case
to quiet title, such a decision will not finally conclude that the
herein respondents, who are not parties to the said civil action, are
innocent of the falsification that enabled them to obtain, through
fraudulent misrepresentations and false narration of facts in the
public documents, the illegal disbursements of the bank’s funds in the
way of loans.
Moreover, the civil case is an action between
Top Service, Inc. and Consuelo Salazar-Perez alone. Both parties are
interested in the same proposition, the clearing of doubt in the title
of Mrs. Perez. In such a situation, who would raise the question of
falsification of the documents relied on by both parties? How could a
judgment rendered under such circumstances be determinative of the
guilt or innocence of the respondents who could not be bound by the
decision without their intervention or the intervention of whose who
charge the falsification? Clearly, the issue in Civil Case No. 5584
does not constitute a prejudicial question that would warrant the
suspension of the investigation, sought to be conducted by the
petitioner City Fiscal, of the criminal complaint for falsification
filed in his office ahead of the civil case.
Wherefore, the
petition is hereby granted, and the preliminary injunction issued by
the respondent court (in Civil Case No. 41454) restraining the City
Fiscal of Manila from proceeding with the preliminary investigation of
I.S. No. 6976 dissolved. Costs are taxed against the respondents
petitioners, in said Civil Case No. 41454. So ordered.
Bengzon, Acting C.J., Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J. B. L., Paredes, and Dizon, JJ., concur.
[1]
A complaint against the City Fiscal and complainants Mendiola, Jola,
and Dela Cruz, praying for the issuance of a writ of preliminary
injunction to restrain the City Fiscal from proceeding with the
preliminary investigation of I. S. No. 6976, and for the declaration,
after trial, that a prejudicial question exists in Civil Case No. 5584
of the Court of First Instance of Rizal.