THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. RESURRECCION B. PEÑAS, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

The appellant was convicted on three separate charges for estafa
with falsification of public documents by the Court of First Instance
of Cebu and sentenced in each case to an indeterminate penalty of four
years, two months and one day of prision correccional to ten years and one day of prision mayor,
to pay a fine of P100, to indemnify the Government of the Commonwealth
of the Philippines in the sum of P200 and to pay the costs. He appealed
from these decisions of conviction and attributes to the lower court
the following errors:

1. In not declaring that he was placed in double jeopardy.
2. In not declaring that the acts alleged in each of the three cases constitute only one offense.
3. In not acquitting him in each case.

The informations in the three cases read as follows:

(G. R. No. 46353)

“That
on or about January 4, 1937, in the City of Cebu, Philippines, the
accused Resurreccion B. Peñas, who was then assistant postmaster of
Barotac Viejo, Iloilo, and as such had in his possession and custody a
blank money order book, wilfully, criminally and illegally, with abuse
of his official position, falsified money order No. 419, series No.
6990, by making it appear that said money order was issued in the
municipality of Barotac Viejo, Iloilo, in favor of the accused
Resurreccion B. Peñas, in the amount of $100, payable at the post
office of the City of Cebu; he also imitated and forged the signature
of the postmaster of Barotac Viejo, Sulpicio Peñafiel, thus causing
false facts to appear on said money order No. 6990, such as the
intervention of persons who in fact did not intervene nor had any
knowledge of the issuance of said money order, for the herein accused
Resurreccion B. Penas did not deposit in the post office of Barotac
Viejo, Iloilo, the sum of $100 or its equivalent of P200, nor did the
postmaster; Sulpicio Peñafiel, intervene or have any knowledge of the
issuance of said money order; that after falsifying money order No.
6990, the accused went to the post office of Cebu and, with intent of
gain, presented the money order and collected the amount of P200
appearing therein, to the damage and prejudice of the Insular
Government.

“Contrary to article 315 in connection with article 171 of the Revised Penal Code.”

(G. R. No. 46354)

“That
on or about January 4, 1937, in the City of Cebu, Philippines, the
accused Resurreccion B. Peñas, who was then assistant postmaster of
Barotac Viejo, Iloilo, and as such had in his possession and custody a
blank money order book, wilfully, criminally and illegally, with abuse
of his official position, falsified money order No. 419, series No.
6991, by making it appear that said money order was issued in the
municipality of Barotac Viejo, Iloilo, in favor of the accused
Resurreccion B. Peñas, in the amount of $100, payable at the post
office of the City of Cebu; he also imitated and forged the signature
of the postmaster of Barotac Viejo, Sulpicio Peñafiel, thus causing
false facts to appear on said money order No. 6991, such as the
intervention of persons who in fact did not intervene nor had any
knowledge of the issuance of said money order, for the herein accused
Resurreccion B. Peñas did not deposit in the post office of Barotac
Viejo, Iloilo, the sum of $100 or its equivalent of P200, nor did the
postmaster, Sulpicio Peñafiel, intervene or have any knowledge of the
issuance of said money order; that after falsifying money order No.
6991, the accused went to the post office of Cebu and, with intent of
gain, presented the money order and collected the amount of P200
appearing therein, to the damage and prejudice of the Insular
Government.

“Contrary to article 315 in connection with article 171 of the Revised Penal Code.”

(G. R. No. 46355)

“That
on or about January 4, 1937, in the City of Cebu, Philippines, the
accused Resurreccion B. Peñas, who was then assistant postmaster of
Barotac Viejo, Iloilo, and as such had in his possession and custody a
blank money order book, wilfully, criminally and illegally, with abuse
of his official position, falsified money order No. 419, series No.
6992, by making it appear that said money order was issued in the
municipality of Barotac Viejo, Iloilo, in favor of the accused
Resurreccion B. Peñas, in the amount of $100, payable at the post
office of the City of Cebu; he also imitated and forged the signature
of the postmaster of Barotac Viejo, Sulpicio Peñafiel, thus causing
false facts to appear on said money order No. 6992, such as the
intervention of persons who in fact did not intervene nor had any
knowledge of the issuance of said money order, for the herein accused
Resurreccion B. Peñas did not deposit in the post office of Barotac
Viejo, Iloilo, the sum of $100 or its equivalent of P200, nor did the
postmaster, Sulpicio Peñafiel, intervene or have any knowledge of the
issuance of said money order; that after falsifying: money order No.
6992, the accused went to the post office of Cebu, and, with intent of
gain, presented the money order and collected the amount of P200
appearing1 therein, to the damage and prejudice of the Insular
Government.

“Contrary to article 315 in connection with article 171 of the Revised Penal Code.”

(1) Previous to his prosecution in the herein three cases, the
appellant was charged with and found guilty of infidelity in the
custody of documents for which he was sentenced to an indeterminate
penalty of six months and one day to four years and two months of prision correccional
and to pay a fine of P500, plus costs. The facts constituting the crime
of infidelity in the custody of documents, like those alleged in the
information in the case wherein the appellant was convicted of said
crime, are entirely distinct from those constituting the complex crime
of estafa with falsification of public documents with which
he was charged in the said three cases. There is no point of similarity
between the two offenses except that in both crimes the perpetrator is
a public officer and that the document concealed, removed or destroyed
in the case of infidelity in the custody of documents and that
falsified in the case of falsification are public or official
documents. The conviction or acquittal in a case of infidelity in the
custody of documents is no bar to the prosecution for the crime of
falsification of the same documents. This is so because, one who
conceals or destroys an official or public document in order to be
punishable under the provisions of article 226 of the Revised Penal
Code, which prohibits and penalizes infidelity in the custody of
documents, need not falsify these documents in any of the ways provided
in article 171 of the said Code. It is enough that he should remove,
conceal or destroy said documents. In order that a public officer may
be punished for the crime of falsification of a public document, it is
not necessary that he should remove, conceal or destroy the falsified
document. The doctrines of double jeopardy and previous conviction do
not apply to cases wherein the following requisites are not present:
that the defendant or defendants in both the former and later cases are
the same; that the acts complained of in the two cases are likewise the
same, and that the offenses are also the same or identical. (Secs. 24
and 26 of General Orders, No. 58; U. S. vs. Claveria, 29 Phil., 527; U. S. vs. Bayona Vitog, 37 Phil., 42; U. S. vs. Ching Po, 23 Phil, 578; U. S. vs. Lim Tigdien and Esteves, 30 Phil., 222.)

(2) On the dates alleged in the three informations, the appellant was
assistant postmaster in the municipality of Barotac Viejo, for which
reason he was aware that no money order could be bought or issued for a
sum greater than $100, as expressly provided in section 1968 of the
Administrative Code. In accordance, therefore, with said provision of
the law, in order to issue a money order for P600, it was necessary to
make three separate money orders.

As shown by Exhibits A, B
and C, which are the falsified money orders subject of the three
informations, the appellant falsified the same on a single date:
November 24, 1936, and he collected them also on a single date, January
4, 1937—from which it is inferred that the three acts of falsification
and the said three acts of appropriation of the sum of P200 in each
case proceed from a single purpose of the appellant, namely, to
appropriate for himself the sum of P600. If he had to resort to this
means falsifying three money orders, it was because he was aware that
he could not do otherwise, in view of the legal provision, which he was
supposed to know, limiting the issuance of money orders to sums not
greater than $100 or P200. When, for the attainment of a single purpose
which constitutes an offense, various acts are executed, such acts must
be considered only as one offense. Under this view, the appellant
committed only the complex crime of estafa with falsification
of three postal money orders which are, without doubt, official and
public documents, the falsification being the means he employed to
appropriate, as he did, for himself the sum of P600, to the prejudice
of the Government.

Considering that the law prescribes a
more severe penalty for the crime of falsification (art. 171, Revised
Penal Code) than for estafa (art. 315, case 3, Revised Penal
Code), we should impose on the appellant, in conformity with the
provisions of article 48 of the said Code, the maximum of prision mayor, this being the penalty prescribed for the crime of falsification of public documents when committed by public officers.

Wherefore, under the Indeterminate Sentence Law, the penalty that
should foe imposed on the appellant in the said three cases is that of
eight years and one day to ten years and one day of prision mayor (People vs. Co Pao, 58 Phil., 545; People vs. Gayrama, 60 Phil., 796; People vs.
Haloot, 37 Off. Gaz., 2901), to indemnify the Government of the
Commonwealth of the Philippines in the sum of P600, and to pay a fine
of P2,000 and the costs.

(3) Having arrived at this
conclusion, we consider it unnecessary to discuss the third error
assigned by the appellant to the lower court.

In view of the foregoing, the appealed judgments are modified as expressed in this decision. So ordered.

Avanceña, C. J., Imperial, Laurel, and Concepcion, JJ., concur.

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DISSENTS IN PART

VILLA-REAL, J.:

I
dissent only from that part of the majority opinion declaring that the
penalty next lower in degree, from which must be taken the minimum to
be imposed on the appellant in accordance with the Indeterminate
Sentence Law as amended by Act No. 4225, is prision mayor in
its medium degree, because the complex crime committed by him is
penalized by the Revised Penal Code with the maximum degree of prision mayor,
plus a fine not to exceed P5,000. (Arts. 171 and 48 of the Revised
Penal Code.) It is my opinion that the penalty should be taken from prision correccional in accordance with the procedure outlined in my dissenting opinion in the case of People vs. Haloot (37 Off. Gaz., 2901), for the reasons therein stated.