MANUEL EUGENIO, PETITIONER, VS. HON. BIENVENIDO A. TAN AND BENITO CRUZ, RESPONDENTS.

This petition for certiorari and mandamus is related to G. R.
No. L-2804—Manuel Eugenio, petitioner-appellant, vs. Jose Tiangco,
oppositor-appellee—wherein the herein petitioner twice unsuccessfully attempted
to establish that the deceased Paula Tiangco had left a will in the hands of her
surviving husband Benito Cruz.

After Judge Castelo had overruled the herein petitioner’s
opposition to the issuance of letters of administration to Jose Tiangco in
intestate proceeding No. 442 on the ground that the therein oppositor and herein
petitioner Manuel Eugenio had not proved that Paula Tiangco had left a will, the
petitioner filed a criminal complaint in the justice of the peace court of
Malabon, Rizal, against Benito Cruz, charging him with a violation of section 2
of Rule 76 in that, having been in possession of the last will and testament of
the late Paula Tiangco, he had failed and refused and still failed and refused
to deliver the said last will and testament to the court having jurisdiction,
notwithstanding his knowledge of the institution of intestate proceedings of the
estate of the said deceased. The accused Benito Cruz waived the right to a
preliminaryinvestigation, and the case was forwarded to the Caloocan branch of
the Court of First Instance of Rizal. An information was there filed by the
assistant provincial fiscal at the behest of counsel for the complainant; but,
subsequently, upon learning of the finding of the court in intestate proceeding
No. 442 to the effect that the deceased Paula Tiangco had left no will in the
possession of the accused Benito Cruz, the fiscal motu proprio asked for
the dismissal of the case, and Judge Castelo dismissed it accordingly.

Undaunted, and with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause,
counsel for the complainant Manuel Eugenio filed another criminal action against
the accused Benito Cruz in the Rizal City branch of the Court of First Instance
of Rizal, presided over by the respondent judge, Hon. Bienvenido A. Tan. After a
preliminary examination of the facts as borne out by the records of the previous
proceedings relating to the supposed will in question, Judge Tan dismissed the
second complaint for lack of probable cause.

Thereafter Manuel Eugenio filed the present petition for
certiorari and mandamus against Judge Tan to annul his order of dismissal and to
compel him to proceed with the preliminary investigation and hearing of said
case.

The petition is entirely devoid of merit. The respondent judge
did not exceed his jurisdiction and did not commit any abuse of discretion in
dismissing the second criminal complaint against Benito Cruz for lack of
probable cause. Nor is it the ministerial duty of a judge, enforceable thru
mandamus, to give due course to a criminal complaint which he finds to be devoid
of factual basis.

The petition is denied, with costs against the petitioner.

Moran, C.J., Paras, Feria, Padilla, Tuason, Montemayor,
and Reyes, JJ., concur.
Bengzon, and Torres, JJ., did
not take part.