THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. FELIPE C. CRUZ, ACCUSED. GLOBE ASSURANCE CO., INC., BONDSMAN AND APPELLANT.

Felipe C. Cruz was charged with estafa in two separate cases before the
Justice of the Peace Court of Lucena, Quezon. To secure his provisional liberty,
he was allowed to put up a personal bail bond in the amount of P7,000.00 which
was subscribed in the two cases by the Globe Assurance Co., Inc. Thereafter, the
cases were forwarded to the Court of First Instance of Quezon where the accused
was formally indicted charging him with the same crime of estafa to which he
pleaded not guilty.

On June 25, 1955, a copy of the notice of hearing was sent to the bondsman
which was served thru the Sheriff of the City of Manila by leaving it with a
person with sufficient discretion to receive it. When the date of hearing came,
the accused failed to appear, whereupon the court ordered the,forfeiture of the
bond giving the bondsman 30 days within which to produce the accused and to show
cause why judgment should not be rendered against it for the amount of its bond.
On July 21, 1955, the accused himself filed a motion for reconsideration
attaching thereto an affidavit of merit.

Because the bondsman failed to comply with the court’s order dated July
18,1955, the trial court rendered judgment against it for the amount of its
bond, while ordering the arrest of the accused unless he files a new bail bond.
Thereupon, upon receipt of said order, the accused filed on October 23, 1956 a
new bond thru the Alliance Insurance and Surety Co., Inc. for the same amount of
P7,000.00, which was duly approved, resulting in the abatement of the order for
his arrest.

On June 17, 1957, the Globe Assurance Co., Inc., the original bondsman, filed
a motion praying that the accused be required to file a new bail bond in order
that its own bond may be cancelled, which motion the court denied considering
that said bond has already been declared forfeited in view of its failure to
produce the accused on the date of hearing. The bondsman filed a motion for
reconsideration, which the court also denied on the ground that the order
forfeiting the bond has already beeome final and executory. The bondsman filed a
second motion for reconsideration, which the court likewise denied, although it
stated that if it could produce the accused within sixty days the court might
look with favor its petition for relief, whereupon the bondsman interposed the
present appeal.

Under the rules of this Court, when the appearance of an accused is required,
his sureties shall be notified to produce him before the court on a given date.
If the accused fails to appear as required, the bond is declared forfeited and
the bondsmen are given 30 days within which to produce the accused and to show
cause why judgment should not be rendered against them for the amount of the
bond. Within the said period of 30 days the bondsmen (a) must produce the body
of the accused, or give their reasons for his non-production; and (b) must
explain satisfactorily why the accused did not appear when first required so to
do. If they fail to comply with these requisites, the court shall render
judgment against them on the bond (Section 15, Rule 110, Rules of Court).

In the instant cases, the lower court issued a notice setting their hearing
on July 15, 1955, copy of which was sent to bondsman-appellant thru the Sheriff
of Manila who made the corresponding return on the back thereof to the effect
that he has served the same by leaving a copy with a person authorized to
receive it. When said date came, the accused failed to appear and so the court
declared the bond forfeited and g$ve the bondsman 30 days within which to
produce the accused and to show cause why judgment should not be rendered
against it for the amount of the bond. And since the bondsman-appellant failed
to either produce the accused or give a satisfactory explanation of its failure
within the period set for doing so, the lower court rendered judgment against it
for the amount of the bond. The lower court, therefore, did nothing but to
comply with the rules relative to the bond filed by appellant.

But it is contended that three days after the confiscation of the
bond was ordered by the trial court, the accused on his own accord filed a
motion for reconsideration praying for the lifting of the order for the reasons
stated in his affidavit of merit, which motion the court should have entertained
not only because it was seasonably filed but because the reasons alleged for his
failure appear to be satisfactory. While these reasons may be satisfactory with
regard to the order of arrest, which in effect were so found by the trial court
when it ordered the release of the accused on condition that he files a new bail
bond, they were not satisfactory insofar as the appellant is concerned, it
appearing that it utterly failed to explain its failure to produce the accused
sb required by the court. What appellant did was to file a motion for the
cancellation of its own bond, which the lower court properly denied, considering
that the order forfeiting the bond had become final long ago.

It is true that the bondsman now claims that it failed to respond to the
order of July 18, 1955 because it never received a copy thereof which jnade it
impossible for it to implement it, but this is hard to believe considering the
time that has elapsed since its issuance to the date it filed its motion for
cancellation. To this effect, we find satisfactory the following comment of the
Solicitor General:

“* * * The facts as shown by the records however, furnish adequate support to
warrant the application of the presumption of law to the effect that said orders
were duly received by appellant-bondsman. No convincing explanation has been
adduced to prove a conclusion to the contrary. In fact, several notices of
hearing have reached bondsman-appellant, and it is rather difficult to believe*
that the abovementioned orders of the court were the only ones not received by
appellant. Indeed, th”e almost two years that had lapsed from the time the last
order was issued until the motion for substitution and cancellation of bond was
filed, is quite considerably long enough to have made appellant discover the
status of the case as part of their business operation, especially so in the
face of an assertion by appellant in its motion for reconsideration fehat ‘even
as early as September, 1954,. the accused already moved his residence! without
even notifying the bondsman so that the notice sent by us as early as September,
1954 returned unclaimed’ and ‘since then, all notices vsent to the accused
returned unclaimed.'”

However, considering the fact that three days after the forfeiture
of appellant’s bond the accused immediately submitted to the jurisdiction of the
court giving weighty reasons for his failure to appear, we agree with the
Solicitor General that the amount adjudged against appellant may be reduced to a
degree this Court may deem reasonable, following the policy enunciated in
several similar cases,^[1] especially that
of People vs. Puyal, 98 Phil., 415; 52 Off. Gaz. (16) 6886.

Wherefore, the order of the trial court dated September 12, 1955 is hereby
modified in the sense of reducing the amount adjudged against appellant to
P2,000.00. No pronouncement as to costs.

Paras, C.J., Bengzon, Padilla, Labrador, Reyes, J.B.L., Barrera,
Gutierrez David, and Paredes, JJ., concur.

Order modified.

^[1]People vs. Alamada, 89
Phil.,1; People vs. Reyes, 48 Phil.,139.