MABUHAY INSURANCE AND GUARANTY COMPANY, INC., PETITIONER, VS. HON. COURT OF APPEALS, HON. JESUS P. MORFE, ET. AL., RESPONDENTS.

In this appeal from the decision of the Court of Appeals sustaining
on certiorari the questioned orders of the lower Court ordering the
confiscation and execution of the bail bond, we reiterate the doctrine that
courts upon rendering judgments of conviction in criminal cases have the discretion
to postpone, until the last day for the perfection of appeal by the accused,
the determination of the question whether or not they should order the accused’s detention or execution of the judgment of
conviction.

Petitioner, a surety company, originally instituted in 1967, a
special civil action for certiorari in the Court of Appeals to annul the
questioned orders of the Court of First Instance of Manila, directing the
confiscation of the bail bond posted by petitioner for the provisional release
of the accused in a criminal case and directing the execution of its order of
confiscation of the bond.

The antecedent facts, as narrated by the Court of Appeals in its
decision dismissing the petitioner’s said action for certiorari follow:
“Abdurakman Assih y Jamlaila was charged of and tried before the Court of First
Instance of Manila for the crime of illegal possession of firearm and
ammunition.  The herein petitioner posted
a bond for the provisional release of the accused in the sum of P3,000.00, conditioned that ‘Abdurakman
Assin will appear and answer the charge x x in whatever Court it may be tried, and will, at all times
hold himself amenable to the orders and processes of the Court, and if
convicted will appear for judgment and render himself to the execution thereof
x x x .’

“During the trial, petitioner presented or caused to be pre­sented
the body and person of the accused before the trial Court.  On November 2, 1966, said court rendered its
judgment finding accused Abdurakman Assih guilty as charged, and sentenced him to an
indeterminate penalty ranging from a minimum of ONE (1) year and ONE (1) day to
TWO (2) years imprisonment.  The accused
voluntarily presented himself before the Court for the reading of the sentence
on December 5, 1966.  After the sentence was read, the accused, in
his own behalf, prayed in open court that he be allowed 15 days within which to
decide whether or not to appeal from the judgment.  Said prayer was granted in the Order dated December 5, 1966, as was accused’s motion to be allowed out on bail ‘in the meantime
under his original bond.’ At the same time, the court fixed a new bond for his
provisional liberty in case of appeal. 
The lower court further ordered that the bondsman of the accused be
notified to produce the person of the accused on Decem­ber 20, 1966 at 9:00
A. M., either to serve his sentence or to per­fect an appeal, as the case may
be.  It is not disputed that copy of this
order was served on and received by petitioner Mabuhay
Insur­ance & Guaranty Co., Inc.

“On December 20, 1966,
the last day for perfecting his appeal, Ab­durakman Assih merely filed his notice of appeal with the trial
court without himself appearing in person. 
For this failure to appear in person on the date set by the order of
December 5, 1966, the res­pondent Judge, on January 17, 1967, issued an order
declaring Abdurakman Assih
a fugitive from justice; deferred action on his notice of appeal until he shall
have re-submitted himself to effect­ive order of the Court by voluntary
surrender and purged himself of the taint of being a fugitive from justice;
declared the bond of the accused forfeited; and gave the petitioner bondsman 30
days within which to show cause, if any, why judgment should not be issued
against its bond.

“The petitioner took no steps to produce the person of the
accused Abdurakman Assih in
court within the period set by the said court in its order dated January 17,
1967, nor did the petitioner show cause why judgment should not be rendered
against the bond.  Hence, on March 3, 1967, the court issued an order directing immediate execution of
the judgment rendered against said bond which order was received by the
petitioner on March 9, 1967.

“Instead of taking an appeal, the petitioner filed a Motion for
Reconsideration of the Order dated March
3, 1967, praying that the writ of execution be set aside, only on May 11, 1967, or more than 60 days
after notice of said order.  In an Order
dated May 12, 1967, the
respondent judge denied the motion for lack of merit. . . . “

“. . there is no evidence on record
showing that the accused Abdurakman Assih has voluntarily surrendered or has been surren­dered
by the petitioner to the court a quo.  Up to this moment, it is not known by this
Court whether he is in the custody of the pro­per authorities or not.”^[1]

We find no merit in the present appeal seeking reversal of the
Court of Appeals’ decision dismissing petitioner’s action, by a four-to-one
vote.

1.  Petitioner’s contention based on the dissenting appellate
justice’s opinion that after the sentence of conviction is read to the accused, the accused should be
deemed placed under the custody of the
trial court to serve the sentence and his bail bond is deemed automatically
cancelled, finds no support in law nor in our juris­prudence.

The office of bail in criminal cases is “to secure the due
attendance of the party accused to answer the indictment and to submit to trial
and judgment of the court thereon.”^[2]
The accused has fifteen days from promulgation or reading of the judgment of
conviction by the Court of First Instance within which to take an appeal to the
higher courts under Rule 122, Section 6 of the Rules of Court.  The trial court’s duty to place the accused
under custody and detention for service of his sentence and consequent cancella­tion
of his bail bond does not arise until after the judgment becomes final upon the
lapse of the fifteen-day period for perfecting an appeal (Rule 120, Secs. 7 and 8).

The trial court therefore properly acted within its jurisdic­tion
in giving the accused the benefit of the fifteen-day period within which to
decide whether or not to appeal the judgment of conviction after the same was
read on December 5, 1966 and to order that petitioner as bondsman of the
accused be notified to produce the person of the accused on the fifteenth day,
i.e. Dec­ember 20, 1966, either to serve his sentence or to perfect an appeal
as the case may be.

2.  Under the very terms of
the bail bond posted by peti­tioner whereby it undertook that the accused will
“appear and ans­wer the charge . . and will at all times hold himself amenable to the orders
and processes of the court, and if convicted will appear for judgment and
render himself to the execution thereof…. “, it was clearly the duty of
petitioner as bondsman to produce the per­son of the accused on December 20,
1966, in accordance with the trial court’s order of December 5, 1966 when the
judgment of con­viction was promulgated and notice of which was duly served
upon and received by petitioner.  In
other words, petitioner’s responsi­bility under its bail bond subsisted for as
long as the case was under the jurisdiction and control of the trial court and
said jurisdiction would only be lost upon surrender of the accused for
execution of the judgment of conviction or upon due perfection of an appeal
from the judgment.  Petitioner’s bail
bond necessarily subsisted and was effective up to December 20, 1966, which was the last day of the
fifteen-day period for the perfection of an appeal by the accused.  If the accused presented his notice of appeal,
the trial Court then would order his being taken into custody in the absence of
a new bail bond on appeal duly allowed and approved by it.  It cannot be contended, therefore, that the
trial Court’s action requiring peti­tioner as bondsman to produce the person of
the accused on the fifteenth day from promulgation of sentence for the
perfection of his appeal or for service of sentence with the lapse of the
period for appeal amounted to an extension of the terms of the bail bond
without the knowledge or consent of petitioner-bondsman and was beyond the
jurisdiction of the trial court.

3.  The question herein
presented has heretofore been re­solved by the Court in the same manner as
here, and no valid reason has been presented by petitioner for revision or modifica­tion
of our previous rulings.  In People
vs. Valle,^[3]
the Court, speaking through the Chief Justice, thus dismissed similar
contentions of the therein bondsman-appellant:

“The first assignment of error^[4]
has nothing to do with the propriety or validity of the order of confiscation
of the bond.  Moreover, since the defend­ant
was entitled to appeal, the lower court
had the dis­cretion to postpone, until the last day for the perfect­ion
of such appeal, the determination of the question whether it should or should
not order defendant’s de­tention or the execution of the decision of
conviction.

“With respect to the other alleged errors^[5]
assigned by appellant, it should be noted that its liability, under the bond,
continued until after the accused had been surrendered and the court had
ordered the cancellation of said bond. 
Thus, in People vs. Lorredo (50 Phil. 218) it
was held:

‘Moreover, one of the conditions of the bond subs­cribed by the
appellants is that if the accused is convic­ted, he will render himself
amenable to the judgment as well as to the execution thereof.  After notification of the judgment, the
accused had fifteen days within which to perfect his appeal, and it is only
after the expiration of the said fifteen days, without the accused having made
use of his right, that the said judgment becomes final.  (Sec. 47, General Orders No. 58).  Neither the fact, then, that the court
granted the ac­cused ten days within which to comply with the judgment, nor the
fact that his attorney guaranteed said compliance, relieves his sureties from
their liability in case of non-compliance with said judgment, because, as we
have already seen, in order to be relieved from the obliga­tion contracted by
them by virtue of their bond, a judicial order relieving them of their
liability is necessary.'”

4.  A bondsman who wishes to
be relieved from his undertaking as such should petition the Court for his
discharge as a surety in accordance with the provisions of Rule 114, section 16
of the Rules of Court.

“Sec. 16. 
Discharge of sureties.  —
Upon application filed with the court and after due notice to the fiscal, the
bail bond shall be cancelled and the sureties, discharged from liability (a)
where the sureties so request upon surrender of the defendant to the court; (b)
where the defendant is re-arrested or ordered into custody on the same charge
or for the same offense; (c) where the defendant is discharged by the court at
any stage of the proceedings, or acquitted, or is convicted and surrendered to serve the sentence; and (d) where
the defendant dies during the pendency of the
action.”

Petitioner did not avail
itself of the above-quoted provision and ask for its discharge as a surety nor
did it manifest to the trial Court at the promulgation of sentence its wish to
be relieved of its responsibility for the custody of the accused.  Under the above-quoted Rule, petitioner could
very well have asked the trial court to relieve it as the jailer and custodian
of the accused by surrendering the person of the accused to the said court and
asking for the cancellation of its bail bond.

5.  Finally, it should be
noted that petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration of the trial Court’s
order of March 3, 1967 for execution of the judgment against the bond only on
May 11, 1967 or more than 60 days from its receipt on March 9, 1967 of said
order, which motion for reconsideration was in due course denied by the trial
court.  Petitioner having failed to file
a timely appeal from the Court’s order could no longer avail of the remedy of
the special civil action for certiorari in lieu of its lost right of
appeal, since no errors of jurisdiction were committed by the trial court.^[6]

ACCORDINGLY, the appealed judgment of the Court of Appeals
is affirmed and the petition is dismissed. 
With costs against petitioner.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando, Barredo,
and Villamor, JJ., concur.

^[1]
The Court of Appeals’ references to the annexes of the petition filed with it
are omitted.

^[2]
Words & Phrases, Perm. Ed., 62-63; Vide, Rule 114, secs. 1 and 2.

^[3]
L-18044, April 30, 1963 (7 SCRA 1025).

^[4]
The error assigned was that the lower Court erred in postponing or in not
immediately executing its judgment of conviction after the promulgation or
reading thereof on September 14, 1959.

^[5]
The allegations were that the lower Court erred in releasing the accused after
promulgation of its sentence of conviction without the bondsman’s knowledge or
consent and in ordering the confiscation of the bail bond after the bondsman
had produced the accused on the date of the promulgation of the sentence, September
14, 1959, and in the morning of the 15th day September 29, 1959. The therein
accused however failed to come back in the afternoon, as undertaken her with the
court’s consent, to file her notice of appeal and appeal bond.

^[6]
Fernando vs. Vasquez, L-26417, Jan.
30, 1967.