CARLOS ASPRA Y CRUSILLO, PETITIONER, VS. THE DIRECTOR OF PRISONS, RESPONDENT.

Carlos Aspra y Crusillo applies for the writ of habeas corpus directed to the
Director of Prisons. In his return on behalf of the respondent, the Solicitor
General agrees that the petition should be granted.

It appears that the petitioner was committed to the New Bilibid Prison in
Muntinlupa, Rizal, of which the respondent is the director, on October 23, 1948,
to serve six sentences meted out by the Municipal Court of the City of Manila in
six different cases of estafa. In each case, the penalty imposed was 3
months and 11 days of arresto mayor with an indemnity the total of
which was P144.

In U.S. vs. Ballesteros, (1 Phil. 208), this Court held that “A
defendant convicted of eight crimes of estafa must be sentenced to a total
penalty not to exceed three times the penalty provided by law for one of the
crimes.” And in Bagtas vs. Director of Prisons (85 Phil., 24), a case
analogous to the case at bar in many particulars, it was ruled that the length
of the petitioner’s imprisonment should not exceed three times the most serious
of the six sentences he got, plus subsidiary imprisonment for the total
indemnity he had been condemned to pay the offended parties.

The petitioner in the instant case had up to the date of his petition gone
through 1 year, 3 months and a number of days imprisonment, already beyond the
period provided under the threefold rule of Article 70 of the Revised Penal
Code.

The petitioner is therefore entitled to the writ, and the respondent is
ordered to release him immediately, without costs.

Moran, C.J., Ozaeta, Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, and
Reyes, JJ., concur.