TEODORA CATUIRA, PETITIONER, VS. THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS SIXTH DIVISION, THE HON. EUSTAQUIO P. STO. DOMINGO IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS PRESIDING JUDGE, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT O…

The Court of Appeals dismissed for insufficiency in form and
substance the petition for certiorari which the accused, Teodora Catuira, filed against
the Regional Trial Court of Calamba, Laguna, to annul
its order denying her motion to quash the ten (10) informations
against her for violation of the Bouncing Checks Law (B.P. Blg.
22).  Alleging that the Appellate Court
acted with grave abuse of discretion, the accused filed this special civil
action of certiorari under Rule 65 to annul its decision.

The petitioner’s motions to quash the informations
in the Regional Trial Court alleged that: (1) the informations
did not charge an offense, and, (2)
that the criminal action had prescribed.

The prosecution opposed
the motion to quash, but on July 3, 1987, the trial fiscal filed an Ex
parte Motion
to Amend Informations, attaching thereto the ten
amended informations. 
On July 7, 1987, the trial court denied the Motion to Quash because
under Rule 110, Sec. 14, of the New Rules of Criminal Procedure, “’the
information or complaint may be amended, in substance or form, without leave of
court, at any time before the accused pleads; x x x’ and as the
prosecution filed amended informations against the
accused on July 3, 1987, the first
ground of the motion had become
moot & academic.” (Annex AA.)

It also ruled that the
crimes had not prescribed because –

“the
penalty imposable for the offenses charged, considering the least amount
involved in all these cases (P17,800.00) carries an afflictive penalty.  Pursuant to Art. 90
of the Revised Penal Code, the offenses charged will only prescribe after
fifteen (15) years.” (Annex AA.)

The crimes charged were
committed on September
30, 1982.  The
informations were filed on October
10, 1986, or after
only four (4) years, hence, the crimes had not yet prescribed.

Petitioner sought a
review of the trial court’s ruling through a petition for certiorari, mandamus,
and prohibition in this Court (Teodora Catuira vs. Hon.
Eustaquio P. Sto. Domingo, and People of the Philippines, G.R. Nos. 82409-18) but We referred the case to the Court of Appeals for proper
determination.

On May 6, 1988, the Court
of Appeals dismissed the petition for “not being sufficient in form and
substance” and because the errors raised against the respondent Judge
“do not appear to be jurisdictional in nature which are correctible
by certiorari, being at most errors in the exercise of jurisdiction,”
and, furthermore, as “petitioner can raise at the trial the question now
being posed in her petition, she has, in contemplation of the rules, a plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary
course of law (Sec. 1, Rule 65, Rules of Court; PCIB vs. Escolin, March 29, 1974;
Landicho vs.
Tensuan, June 30, 1987).”

Dissatisfied with the
Appellate Court’s resolution, she has appealed to this Court.

After a careful consideration
of the petition for review, We do not find it to be
impressed with merit.  The dismissal of
her petition by the Court of Appeals was proper because her failure to comply
with the mandatory requirement of Section 1, Rule 65 of the Rules of Court to
submit certified true
copies of the assailed orders of the trial court rendered her petition
deficient in form and substance.

The fiscal’s
authority to file amended informations in the trial
court before the accused was arraigned is sanctioned by the Rules of Court (Sec. 14, Rule 110), hence, the lower court did not
abuse its discretion in admitting the amended informations.

The jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Court over the criminal
cases is indubitable and its order admitting the amended informations was a valid exercise of
that jurisdiction which can only be corrected by appeal, not by certiorari
(Arcaya vs. Telerom, 57
SCRA 363; Demaronsing vs. Tandayag, 58 SCRA 484; Confederation of Citizens Labor Unions vs. National
Labor Relations Commission, 60 SCRA 450).

On the issue of whether the crimes had prescribed, the trial
court correctly ruled that prescription had not set in.

Considering that the
lowest amount involved in the ten informations was
P17,800 and that under Presidential Decree No. 818,
increasing the penalties for Estafa committed by
means of Bouncing Checks, the accused shall be punished by:

“1.     The penalty of
reclusion temporal if the amount of the fraud is over Twelve Thousand
(P12,000) pesos but does not exceed Twenty-Two
Thousand (P22,000) pesos, and if such amount exceeds the latter sum, the
penalty provided in this paragraph shall be imposed in its maximum period,
adding one year for each additional Ten Thousand (P10,000) pesos but the total
penalty which may be imposed shall in no case exceed thirty (30)
years.  In such cases, and in
connection with the accessory penalties, which may be imposed under the Revised
Penal Code, the penalty shall be termed reclusion perpetua; x x x.” (Sec. 1, PD. 818.)

the prescriptive
period under Art. 90 of the Revised Penal Code is twenty (20) years from the discovery of the crime, not
fifteen (15) years, as erroneously held by the trial court.

It is futile for the petitioner to invoke Act No. 3763 which
amended Act No. 3326 fixing a 12-year prescriptive period for “violations penalized by special acts x x x by imprisonment for
six years or more” because
the crimes charged in the informations against her –
multiple estafa through the issuance of bouncing
postdated checks – are punished under Art. 315, par. 1(d), of the Revised Penal Code,
not by a special act.  In any event, even the shorter prescriptive
period fixed by Act No. 3763 had not yet expired when the informations were filed against the petitioner.

WHEREFORE, the petition is denied for lack of
merit.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, (Chairman), Cruz, Gancayco, and Medialdea, JJ., concur.