PEDRO BACASNOT Y CALIAO, PETITIONER, VS. THE HON. SANDIGANBAYAN & THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENTS.

This petition for certiorari assails the Decision dated June 7, 1982, of respondent Sandiganbayan finding accused-petitioner Pedro Bacasnot y Caliao, guilty beyond
reasonable doubt of the crime of Malversation of
Public Funds/Property.  The dispositive portion of the assailed decision reads:

“WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered finding accused Pedro Bacasnot y Caliao GUILTY beyond
reasonable doubt as principal of the crime of Malversation
of Public Funds, as defined and penalized under Article 217, Paragraph 4, of
the Revised Penal Code, and there being no modi­fying circumstance on record,
hereby sentences him to suffer the indeterminate penalty of TWELVE (12) YEARS
AND ONE (1) DAY as minimum, to EIGHTEEN (18) YEARS, EIGHT (8) MONTHS and ONE
(1) DAY as maximum, both of reclusion temporal, to suffer
perpetual special disqualification, to pay a fine of P3,900,961.39, to
indemnify the National Food Authority in the same amount of P3,900,961.39 malversed by him and
to pay the costs of this action.” (Rollo, p.
111)

Petitioner was the Operation Officer and the Grains Stock Control
Officer of the National Food Authority (NFA, for short) at Malaybalay,
Bukidnon from May, 1975 until his suspension in
October, 1980.  As such
he was issued Special Orders Nos. 19-B and 38 (Exhs.
A-3 and A-4) autho­rizing him to assist in the procurement operations in Bukid­non.  He was an
accountable officer and he was required to post a
bond.  (Exhs. A-5 and A-6)

Petitioner’s area of responsibility covered the entire province
of Bukidnon.  He was responsible for numerous warehouses
where thousands or millions of kilos of corn grains, palay,
rice and corn grit were stored.

On or about November
21, 1979, a team of auditors from the Commission on Audit (COA)
assigned at the NFA head office examined the stocks and empty sacks
accountabilities of petitioner.  He was
found to have incurred shortages in his accountabilities, not only for stocks
of corn grains, rice and palay, but also for empty
sacks.  Initial
examination (Exh. M) revealed
that he had incurred shortages as follows:

Total Shortages…           P4,438,151.05

===========

Petitioner was informed of such shortages in a letter/formal
demand (Exh. N) dated August 26, 1980.  He replied thereto on September 12, 1980 (Exh.
O) and on September 18, 1980 (Exh. 5) claiming that
the shortages were due to (a) poor storage facilities; (b) bumper harvests in
1978 which led to the utilization of additional temporary warehouses; (c)
vulnerability of the stocks to the natural elements; and (d) uncontrolled
infestation.

Thereafter and following well-established guidelines, the COA
made the corresponding studies and after reevaluation/recomputation
of tolerable allowance due to insect infestation using “uncontrollable
formulation” the Auditor­-in-Charge, NGA, reduced petitioner’s shortages
on stocks from P4,438,151.72 to P3,539,940.67,
excluding petitioner’s shortage on empty sacks valued at P361,020.72, thereby
pegging his total shortages at P3,900,961.39, broken down as follows:

Total Money Value of
Stocks . .       P3,539,940.67

Add:  Sacks of various types and capacities.                                                             361,020.72

TOTAL SHORTAGE . .
. . . . .       P3,900,961.39

===========

Exhs. T to T-20

Petitioner was thus prosecuted for malversation
of public funds/property before respondent Sandiganbayan,
which as earlier stated, found him guilty thereof.

In assailing his conviction petitioner raises the following
issues:

1.       Whether or not the
evidence submitted by the prosecution has satisfactorily established that the
shortage was due to misappropriation or embezzlement or conversion of the
accused as alleged in the information for his own benefit or use, and

2.       Whether or not the
guilt of the accused was proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Article 217 of the Revised Penal Code provides that it shall be prima
facie evidence for malversation when a public
officer fails to have duly forthcoming any public funds or property for which
he is chargeable on demand by any duly authorized officer.  That presumption of guilt is founded on human
experience and is valid.  (Albores vs. Court of Appeals, 132 SCRA 604)

“In malversation, all that is
necessary to prove is that the defendant received in his possession public
funds, that he could not account for them and did not have them in his
possession and that he could not give a reasonable excuse for the disapperance of the same. 
An accountable public officer may be convicted
of malversation even if there is no direct evidence
of misappro­priation and the only evidence is that there is shortage in his
accounts which he has not been able to explain satisfactorily.” (De Guzman
vs. People 119 SCRA, 337)

In the case at bar, petitioner admits there was a shortage.  But he claims that the same was mainly due to
infestation by weevils and rodents, usual shrinkage, spillage and poor
conditions of the various warehouses where the stocks were piled.  The evidence on record however shows that to
verify the alleged infestation, the NFA ma­nagement directed a study of tolerable
allowance for uncontrolled infestation. 
The result of the study still left petitioner with an accountability of
P3,539,940.67 plus an additional accountability for
empty sacks valued at P361,020.72. 
Therefore, even on the assumption that the warehouses under his control
and supervision were inadequate for storage, or were exposed to the elements,
or the stocks were subject to uncontrolled infestation, at the very least, the
petitioner should not have incurred such an extraordi­nary shortage of empty
sacks, since such materials cannot be totally eaten up by insects, and even if
damaged by the elements, parts thereof would still exist or be salvage­able.  For such quantity of empty sacks to be
totally in­existent, the answer would be they were either stolen or
misappropriated.  It simply boggles the
mind to accept the proposition advanced by the petitioner that stocks of corn
grains, palay and rice totalling
1,428,879.86 kilos and P361,020.72 worth of empty
sacks would disappear without human intervention, gross inexcusable negligence
or willful misappropriation.  Even
granting that the stocks and empty sacks under the custody and responsibility
of petitioner were exposed to the elements, or stored in inadequate warehousing
facilities or subjected to uncontroll­able infestation such quantities of
accountable properties affected thereby would, at the very least, leave some
rem­nants in their storage places.

Citing the case of Albores vs. Court of
Appeals (132 SCRA 604) wherein it was held that “even granting that the
shortage is too great to be attributable to shrinkage, that consideration is
neither sufficient to convict.” Petitioner now claims that like Albores (who was found short of 4,658 cavans
and 38 kilos of corn valued at P75,­656.94), he is
also entitled to acquittal on reasonable doubt.

The aforesaid case of Albores is not
applicable in the case at bar.  In the
said case, the Court found that:

“The accused was the one who requested that his accountability
be liquidated because he wanted to transfer to another office.  Mr. Arsenio Guer­ra,
then the RCA Agency Manager and his immediate supervisor, testified that there
was no report of any anomaly having been committed by the ac­cused.  The accused himself voluntarily submitted the
records with which the auditors established the shortage.  When informed of the shortage by the
auditors, the accused consulted the Branch Manager, Vicente Caballero, the Chief of the Agency Manager, who informed him that he
was found short because he was not given any shrinkage allowance.  This conduct of the accused we find
consistent with good faith.” (p. 610, supra)

Petitioner in the case at bar cannot be said to have acted in
good faith.  On the contrary, he has not
contradic­ted or rebutted the evidence of the prosecution showing numerous
irregularities in his records, operations and transactions as Grains Stock
Control Officer of Bukidnon.

Notable among such irregularities found by the audit team are the
following:  (1) duplicate copies of
warehouse stock receipts (WSR) were cancelled to make it appear that the stocks
covered were not received by him; (2) WSRs were not
reflected in his accountabilities in the stock report; (3) duplicate copies of WSRs were altered to increase their moisture contents; (4)
1,443 bags of palay categorized as damaged stocks
were rebagged and intentionally mixed with soil, sand
and gravel and other foreign matters (Exh.
“M-1”); (5) poor warehouse keeping and negligence, compounded by
non-performance by the classifier of his assigned tasks; (6) excessive losses
due to abnor­mal drying operations; (7) rampant alterations in warehouse
documentation on empty sacks transactions; and (8) non-issuance of official
receipts for sales of stocks.  (Exhs. “M”,
“M-1” to “M-2”)

These documents submitted as evidence were received from
petitioner himself (Exh. “D”).  What is apparent in these altered and
cancelled documents is a scheme to conceal irregularities and justify losses
incurred.  Not only that, actual stock
inventory revealed some bags of palay to have been rebagged and filled with gravel, sand and foreign matters,
an obnoxious attempt to cover-up losses by showing that appellant had 1,443
bags purportedly filled with palay.

If there had been no timely audit and inventory, petitioner could
have gone scot-free in his attempt to cover-up his losses.  Under the circumstances, his conten­tion that
he has led a non-luxurious life and is not wealthy is an obvious non–sequitur.

WHEREFORE, this Petition is hereby DISMISSED, and the
assailed decision is hereby AFFIRMED.

SO ORDERED.

Teehankee, C.J., Yap, Fernan, Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera, Gutierrez, Jr., Cruz, Gancayco,
Padilla, Bidin, Sarmiento, and Cortes, JJ., concur.

Feliciano, J., on leave.