CIRIACO INGCO, PETITIONER-APPELLANT, VS. BENEDICTO M. SANCHEZ, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS PROVINCIAL FISCAL OF BATANGAS, AND CESAR MAÑEBO, RESPONDENTS-APPELLEES.

The issue posed in this case is whether or not a criminal charge
against an elective munici­pal official for acts done or committed by him in
the discharge of his official functions during a previous term of office, may
still be prosecuted after he had been reelected and while he is serving office
for a subsequent term.

Ciriaco Ingco
had been elected mayor of Bauan, Batangas,
in November, 1955, was reelected in November, 1959, and again reelected in
November, 1963.  In September, 1963, one
Cesar Mañebo accused the said mayor of estafa through falsifica­tion of public documents committed
in the latter’s discharge of his official functions during the pe­riod from
February through August, 1963.  The
charge, which was filed before the Acting Prosecutor of the Department of
Justice, was endorsed to the Provincial Fiscal of Batangas
for preliminary investigation.  It was
not until after the Novem­ber, 1963 elections, however, that the fiscal com­menced
the preliminary investigation of the case.

On January 8, 1964, Mayor Ingco moved for the dismissal of the complaint on the
ground that the respondent provincial fiscal had neither jurisdic­tion nor
authority to proceed with the preliminary investigation, alleging that his
reelection to the position had operated to condone the alleged mal­feasance
committed by him during his previous term of office.  The motion to dismiss was denied by the
investigating fiscal and so was the motion for re­consideration of the order of
its denial.

Hence, Mayor Ingco filed with the Court
of First Instance of Batangas, a petition for writ of
prohibition to restrain the respondent fiscal from proceeding with the
investigation of the criminal complaint against him.  After hearing, the court denied the petition
on the theory that reelection to office “does not operate to wash away or
condone the liability of an elective public official for an act violative of our penal laws which he might have committed during his past term of office.” Not sa­tisfied,
the petitioner has elevated the case to Us by direct
appeal.

The appeal is devoid of merit.

The fallacy in petitioner-appellant’s proposi­tion to prohibit
the fiscal from further
investiga­ting the criminal complaint lies in his pretense that his case is
parallel to Pascual vs. Provincial Board of
Nueva Ecija,^[1]
wherein a pronouncement was made that a public officer should never be removed
for acts done prior to his present term of office.  There is a whale of a difference between the
two cases.  The basis of the
investigation which has been commenced here, and which is sought to be
restrained, is a criminal
accusation the object of which is to
cause the indictment and punishment of petitioner-appellant as a private
citizen; whereas in the case cited, the subject of the investigation was an
administrative charge against the officer therein involved and its object was
merely to cause his suspension or removal from public office.  While the criminal case involves the
character of the ma­yor as a private citizen and the People of the Philippines
as a community is a party to the
case, an administrative case involves only his actuations as a public officer
as affect the populace of the municipality where he serves.  The ruling, therefore, that – “when the
people have elected a man to office it
must be assumed that they did this with knowledge of his life and character and that they
disregarded or forgave his faults or misconduct if he had been guilty of
any” – refers only to an action for removal from office and does not apply
to a criminal case, because a crime is a public wrong more atrocious in
character than mere misfeasance or malfeasance com­mitted by a public officer
in the discharge of his duties, and is injurious not only to a person or group
of persons but to the State as a whole.  This must be the reason why Article 89 of the
Revised Pe­nal Code, which enumerates the grounds for extinction of criminal
liability, does not include reelection to office as one of them, at least
insofar as a public officer is concerned. 
Also, under our Constitution,^[2]
it is only the President who may grant the pardon of a criminal offense.

The circumstance that the offense alleged to have been committed
was perpetrated in connection with the mayor’s discharge of his official duties, is no reason to stop the prosecution of the case for
the alleged acts constitute a crime distinct in it­self, and detachable from
its character as an admi­nistrative offense committed by a public officer.  If petitioner-appellant’s wrongful acts as
charged may properly be the cause for removal, he might invoke his reelection
as a defense in an administrative proceedings to
remove him, but, certainly, this de­fense cannot be successfully invoked in the
criminal charge against him.  Applied to
the case at bar, this is the
import of the authority that “where certain conduct of a public officer
subjects him to a criminal prosecution under the common law, the fact that a
statute makes such conduct a ground for his removal from office does not
relieve him of his criminal liability.”^[3]

IN VIEW HEREOF, the decision appealed from is hereby
affirmed.  No costs, on equitable
grounds.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, JBL, Dizon, Makalintal, Bengzon, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Ruiz Castro,
and Fernando, JJ.,
concur.

^[1]
G. R.No. L-11959, October 31, 1959.

^[2]
Sec. 10 [6], Article VII.

^[3]
67 C. J. S. p. 431, citing Pa. -Commonwealth v. Philipps,
20 Pa. Dist. & Co. 141, 28 Laz Leg. Reg. 19.