PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PETITIONER, VS. THE SANDIGANBAYAN AND CEFERINO S. PAREDES, JR., RESPONDENTS.

Assailed in this petition for certiorari under Rule 45 of
the Rules of Court is the resolution promulgated on August 1, 1991 by the
Sandiganbayan which granted the private respondent’s motion to quash the
information for violation of the Anti-Graft
and Corrupt Practices Act (R.A. No. 3019) on the ground of prescription or the crime charged.

Two letter-complaints were filed on October 28, 1986 and December
9, 1986, with the Tanodbayan by Teofilo Gelacio, a political leader of Governor
Valentina Plaza, wife of Congressman
Democrito O. Plaza of Agusan del Sur, shortly after the private respondent had
replaced Mrs. Plaza as OIC/provincial governor or Agusan del Sur in March 1986 (p. 235,
Rollo). Gelacio’s complaint questioned
the issuance to Governor Paredes, when he was still the provincial attorney in 1976, of a free patent title for
Lot No. 3097-8, Pls. 67, with an area
of 1,391 sq.m., more or less, in the Rosario public land subdivision in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur.

On February 23, 1989, the Tanodbayan referred the complaint to
the City Fiscal of Butuan City who subpoenaed Governor Paredes. However, the subpoena was served on, and
received by, the Station Commander of San Francisco, Agusan del Sur, who did
not serve it on Paredes. Despite the
absence of notice to Paredes, Deputized Tanodbayan/City Fiscal Ernesto Brocoy
conducted a preliminary investigation ex parte. He recommended that an information be
filed in court. His recommendation was
approved by the Tanodbayan who, on August 10, 1989, filed the following
information in the Sandiganbayan where it was docketed as TBP Case No.
86-03368:

“That on or about January 21, 1976, or sometime prior or
subsequent thereto, in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur, Philippines, and within
the jurisdiction of this Honorable
Court, the above-named accused, a public
officer, being then the
Provincial Attorney of Agusan del Sur, having been duly appointed and
qualified as such, taking advantage of his public position, did, then and
there, wilfully and unlawfully persuade, influence and induce the Land
Inspector of the Bureau of Lands, by the name of Armando L. Luison to violate
an existing rule or regulation duly promulgated by competent authority by
misrepresenting to the latter that the land subject of an application filed by
the accused with the Bureau of Lands is disposable by a free patent when the
accused well knew that the said land had already been reserved for a school
site, thus by the accused’s personal misrepresentation in his capacity as
Provincial Attorney of Agusan del Sur and applicant for a free patent, a report
favorably recommending the issuance of a free patent was given by the said
Armando L. Luison, land inspector, thereby paving the way to the release of a
decree of title, by the Register of Deeds or Agusan del Sur, an act committed
by the accused, in outright prejudice of the
public interest.” (pp. 3-4, Rollo.)

Paredes was arrested upon a warrant issued by the
Sandiganbayan. Claiming that the
information and the warrant of arrest were null and void because he had been
denied his right to a preliminary investigation, Paredes refused to post
bail. His wife filed a petition for
habeas corpus praying this Court to order his release (Paredes vs.
Sandiganbayan, 193 SCRA 464), but we denied her petition because the proper
remedy was for Paredes to file a bail bond of P20,000 fixed by the
Sandiganbayan for his provisional liberty, and move to quash the information
before being arraigned.

On April 5, 1991, Paredes filed in the Sandiganbayan “An Urgent Motion to Quash
Information and to Recall Warrant of Arrest”
alleging that:

1.     
he is charged for an offense which has prescribed;

2.     
the preliminary investigation, as well as the
Information prepared by the Tanodbayan and the Warrant of Arrest issued by the
Sandiganbayan were invalid for lack of notice to him of the preliminary investigation
conducted by Deputized Tanodbayan Ernesto M. Brocoy and Tanodbayan Prosecutor
Josephine Z. Fernandez; and

3.     
his
constitutional right to due process had been violated by the long delay in the
termination of the preliminary investigation.

After the parties had filed their written arguments, the
Sandiganbayan issued a resolution
on August 1, 1991 granting the motion to quash on the ground of prescription of
the offense charged. The
Sandiganbayan’s ratiocination of its resolution is quoted below:

“The crime charged is alleged to have been committed on or
about January 21, 1976 when the accused allegedly misrepresented to a Lands
inspector of the Bureau of Lands that the land subject of the herein movant’s
Application for a Free Patent was disposable land. This misrepresentation allegedly resulted in the issuance of a
Torrens Title under a Free Patent to the herein accused-movant. This, the Information avers, was prejudicial
to the public interest because the land in question had been reserved for a school
site and was, therefore, not disposable.

“Thus, the charge is for the violation of Sec. 3(a) of R.A.
No. 3019 because the accused had allegedly persuaded, induced and influenced
the Public Lands Inspector to violate existing law, rules and regulations by
recommending approval of the free patent application.

“The accused asserts
that since at the time of the alleged commission of the crime (January
21, 1976) the period of prescription
was ten (10) years under Sec. 11 of R.A. No. 3019, the crime should have
prescribed in 1986. The prosecution
seems to agree with the movant’s statement as to the term of the prescriptive
period with the qualification that the period of prescription should have
commenced to run from March 28, 1985, when the complaint was allegedly filed by
the Republic for the cancellation of the
title.

“xxx xxx xxx.

“The question then is
this: when should the period of
prescription have commenced to run as to the alleged misrepresentation
which persuaded, influenced and induced the Lands Inspector of the Bureau of
Lands resulting in the approval or the application or the accused for a free
patent?

“xxx xxx xxx.

“The Supreme Court has clearly stated that even in the case of
falsification of public documents, prescription commences from its recording
with the Registry of Deeds when the existence of the document and the averments
therein theoretically become a matter of public knowledge.

“xxx xxx xxx.

“The matter of improper inducement, persuasion or influence
upon the Lands Inspector allegedly applied by the accused through his misrepresentation may have been
unknown to others besides the two of them because their interaction would
presumably have been private. The fact
of the improper segregation of the piece
of land in question and the grant thereof to the accused, however, became,
presumptively at least, a matter of public knowledge upon the issuance of a
Torrens Title over that parcel of non-disposable public land.

“xxx xxx xxx.

“4. Notice to the whole world must be presumed
at the very latest on May 28, 1976 when the Register of Deeds of Agusan del Sur
issued Original Certificate of Title No. 8379 in the name of the accused as a
result of the grant of the patent on the school site reservation;

“5. The act of filing the approved
free patent with the Registry of Deeds is notice duly given to the various offices
and officials of the government, e.g., the Department (Ministry) of Agriculture
and the Bureau of Lands, who are affected thereby specially because it is the
Bureau of Lands which files the approved patent application with the Registry
of Deeds. If the land in question was
indeed reserved for a school site, then the Department (Ministry) of Education
would also know or would be presumed to know.” (pp. 28-33, Rollo.)

The Sandiganbayan could not abide the fact that the Lands
Inspector (Luison) who was supposedly induced by Paredes to violate the law,
and who did violate it by recommending approval of Paredes free patent
application was not charged with a crime. The Sandiganbayan concluded:

“It would seriously strain credulity to say that while the violation
of law rules or regulation by the Lands Inspector was obvious and public (since
the school site had been titled in the name of the alleged inducer Pimentel*), the beneficiary thereof could not have been
suspected of having induced the violation itself. It would be grossly unfair and unjust to say that prescription
would run in favor of the Lands Inspector who had actually violated the law put
not to the public official who had benefited therefrom and who may have,
therefore, instigated the favorable recommendation for the disposition of
non-disposable land.

“In view of all the foregoing, the Motion to Quash the
Information is granted.” (p. 36, Rollo.)

The Sandiganbayan further observed that since R.A. No. 3019 is a
special law, the computation of the
period for the prescription of the
crime of violating it is governed by Section 29 of Act No. 3326 which provides
as follows:

“Sec. 2. Prescription
shall begin to run from the day of the
commission of the violation of the law, and if the same be not known at the
time, from the discovery thereof and the institution of judicial proceedings
for its investigation and punishment.

“The prescription
shall be interrupted when proceedings are instituted against the guilty
person, and shall begin to run again if the proceedings are
dismissed for reasons not constituting jeopardy.”

The Sandiganbayan correctly observed that “the date of the
violation of the law becomes the operative date for the commencement of the
period of prescription” (p. 34, Rollo).

Assuming that
Paredes did induce Lands
Inspector Luison to recommend approval of his application for free patent
(which both of them denied doing), the date of the violation, for the purpose of computing the period or prescription, would be the date of filing his application on January 21, 1976.

The theory of the prosecution that the prescriptive period should
not commence upon the filing of Paredes’ application because no one could have
known about it except Paredes and Lands Inspector Luison, is not correct for,
as the Sandiganbayan pointedly observed: “it is not only the Lands Inspector who passes upon the
disposability or public land x x x other public officials pass upon the
application for a free patent including the location of the land and,
therefore, the disposable character thereof” (p. 30, Rollo). Indeed, practically all the department
personnel, who had a hand in processing and approving the application, namely: (1) the lands inspector who inspected the
land to ascertain its location and occupancy; (2) the surveyor who prepared its
technical description; (3) the regional director who assessed the application
and determined the land classification; (4) the Director of Lands who prepared
the free patent; and (5) the Department Secretary who signed it, could not have
helped “discovering” that the subject of the application was
nondisposable public agricultural land.

The Sandiganbayan correctly observed that the “crime”
whether it was the filing of Paredes’ application for a free patent in January
1976 or his supposedly having induced Luison to recommend its approval,
prescribed ten (10) years later, on January 21, 1986. Gelacio’s complaint, dated October 28, 1986, was filed late.

The reason for the extinction
of the State’s right to prosecute a crime after the lapse of the
statutory limitation period for filing the criminal action, is that:

“Statutes of Limitation are construed as being acts of
grace, and as a surrendering by the sovereign of its right to
prosecute or of its right to prosecute at
its discretion, and they are considered as equivalent to acts of
amnesty. Such statutes are
founded on the liberal theory that prosecutions should not be allowed to
ferment endlessly in the files of the
government to explode only after
witnesses and proofs necessary
to the protection of accused
have by sheer lapse of time
passed beyond availability. They serve,
not only to bar prosecutions on aged and untrustworthy evidence, but also to
cut of prosecution for crimes a reasonable time after completion, when no further danger to society is
contemplated from the criminal activity.” (22 CJS 573-574.)

“In the absence of a special provision otherwise, the statute
of limitations begins to run on the
commission of an offense and not from
the time when the offense is discovered
or when the offender becomes known, or it normally begins to run when the crime
is complete.” (22 CJS 585; Underscoring ours.)

Even if the ten-year prescriptive period commenced to run from
the registration and issuance of the free patent title by the Register of Deeds
on May 28, 1976, registration being constructive notice to
the whole world, the prescriptive period would have fully run its course on May
28, 1986, or five (5) months before Gelacio filed his complaint, and more than
thirteen (13) years before judicial
proceedings were initiated in the Sandiganbayan August 10, 1989 by the filing of the information therein.

Batas Pambansa Blg. 195 which was approved on March 16, 1982,
amending Section 11 of R.A. No. 3019 by increasing from ten (10) to fifteen
(15) years the period for the prescription or extinguishment of a violation of
the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, may not be given retroactive
application to the “crime” which was committed by Paredes in January
1976 yet, for it would be prejudicial to the accused. It would deprive him or the substantive benefit of the shorter
(10 years) prescriptive period under Section 11, R.A. 3019 which was an
essential element of the “crime” at the time he committed it.

“Protection from prosecution under a statute of limitation is
a substantive right. Where the statute
fixes a period of limitation as to a prosecution for a particular offense, the
limitation so fixed is jurisdictional, and the time within which the offense is
committed is a jurisdictional fact, it being necessary that the indictment or
information be actually filed within the time prescribed.” (22 CJS 574.)

“Fact that the statute of limitations is jurisdictional necessarily
determined that a prosecution within the
period specified is an essential element
of the offense.” (People vs. Allen, 118 P 2d, 927; Emphasis supplied.)

“Unless statutes of limitation are clearly retrospective in their terms, they do not apply to crimes previously
committed (22 CJS 576; People vs. Lurd, 12 Hun 282; Martine vs. State, 24 Tex 61; Underscoring ours.)

To apply B.P. Blg. 195 to Paredes would make it an ex post facto law for it would alter his situation to his disadvantage by making him
criminally liable for a crime that had already been extinguished under the law
existing when it was committed. An ex
post facto law is defined as:

“A law passed after the occurrence
of a fact or commission of an act,
which restrospectively changes the legal consequences
or relations of such fact of deed. By Art. 1 Sec. 10 of U.S. Const., the states
are forbidden to pass ‘any ex post facto law.’ Most all state constitutions
contain similar prohibitions against ex post facto laws.

“An ‘ex post facto law’ is defined as a law which provides for
the infliction of punishment upon a person for an act done which, when it was
committed, was innocent; a law which aggravates a crime or makes it greater
than when it was committed; a law
that changes the punishment or inflicts a greater punishment than the law
annexed to the crime when it was
committed: a law that changes the rules
of evidence and receives less or different testimony than was required
at the time of the commission of the
offense in order to convict the offender; a law which, assuming to regulate civil
rights and remedies only, in effect imposes a penalty or
the deprivation of a right which, when done, was lawful; a law which deprives persons accused of
crime of some lawful protection to
which they have become entitled, such as the
protection of a former
conviction or acquittal, or of the proclamation of amnesty; every law
which, in relation to the
offense or its consequences, alters
the situation of a person to his
disadvantage. Wilensky v. Fields, Fla., 267 So. 2d 1, 5.” (Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, p. 520.)

Since an ex post facto law is
prescribed by our Constitution (Sec. 22, Article III, 1987 Constitution), the Sandiganbayan committed no reversible error in ruling that Paredes may
no longer be prosecuted for his supposed violation of R.A. 3019 in 1976, six
(6) years before B.P. Blg. 195 was approved on March 16, 1982. The new prescriptive period under that law
should apply only to those offenses which were committed after the approval of
B.P. Blg. 195.

WHEREFORE, the petition for review is DENIED for lack of
merit. The resolution dated August 1,
1991 of the Sandiganbayan in Crim. Case No. 13800 is AFFIRMED. No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, C.J., Gutierrez, Jr., Cruz, Paras, Feliciano, Padilla,
Bidin, Medialdea, Regalado, Davide, Jr., Romero, Nocon, and Bellosillo, JJ., concur.

* Paredes.