ARTURO A. MEJORADA, PETITIONER, VS. THE HONORABLE SANDIGANBAYAN AND THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENTS.

This petition for certiorari
seeks to reverse the May 23, 1979 decision of the Sandiganbayan
finding the accused Arturo A. Mejorada in Criminal
Cases Nos. 002-009 guilty beyond reasonable doubt of violating Section 3(e) of
Republic Act No. 3019, otherwise known as the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices
Act.

Eight informations
were flied by the Provincial Fiscal against the petitioner and jointly tried
before the Sandiganbayan.  The
eight informations substantially allege the same set
of circumstances constituting the offense charged.  Criminal Case No. 002 reads as follows:

That in (sic) or about and during the period comprised from October
1977 to February 1978, in the municipality of Pasig,
Metro Manila, Philippines and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court,
the above-named accused, being employed in the Office of the Highway District
Engineer, Pasig, Metro Manila as Right-of-Way-Agent,
conspiring and confederating together with two (2) other John Does whose true identities and present
whereabouts are still unknown, with evident bad faith, and for personal gain,
did then and there willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously, directly intervene,
work for, and facilitate the approval of one Isagani
de Leon’s claim for the payment in the removal and reconstruction of his house
and a part of his land expropriated by the government having been affected by
the proposed Pasig-Sta.Cruz-Calamba Road, 2nd IBRD
Project at Binangonan, Rizal,
while the accused, Arturo A. Mejorada is in the
discharge of his official and/or administrative functions and after said claim
was approved and the corresponding PNB Check No. SN 5625748 was issued and encashed in the amount of P7,200.00 give only P1.000.00 to claimant (Isagani
de Leon), appropriating, applying
and converting to themselves the amount of P6,200.00, thereby causing damage and prejudice to Isagani de Leon and the government in the aforementioned amount of P6,200.00.

Contrary to law.

Except for the date of the commission of the
offense, the name of the
aggrieved private party, the PNB Check number, the amount involved and the number of John Does,
the seven other informations are verbatim repetitions
of the above.

The facts as found by the respondent Sandiganbayan are as follows:

Arturo A. Mejorada was a public officer who was first employed
as a temporary skilled laborer in the Bureau of Public Works
on March 16, 1947, and then as right-of-way agent in the Office of the Highway
District Engineer, Pasig, Metro Manila, from February, 1974 up to
December 31, 1978.  As a right-of-way agent, his main duty was
to negotiate with property owners
affected by highway constructions or improvements for the purpose of compensating
them for the damages incurred by said owners.

Among those whose lots
and improvements were affected by the widening of the proposed Pasig-Sta. Cruz-Calamba Road,
2nd IBRD Project, at Binangonan, Rizal were lsagani de Leon, Isaac Carlos, Napoleon Maybituin,
Dominga Villaroza, Florentino de la Cruz, Cipriano Aran, Celestina S. Mallari and Rodolfo Rivera, all residents of Mambog, Binangonan, Rizal.

Sometime in October or
November, 1977, petitioner contacted the aforenamed
persons and informed them that he could work out their claims for payment of
the values of their lots and/or improvements affected by the widening of said highway.  In the process, Mejorada
required the claimants to sign blank copies of the “Sworn Statement on the Correct and Fair Market Value of
Real Properties” and “Agreement
to Demolish, Remove and Reconstruct improvements” pertinent to their
claims.  The claimants compiled without
bothering to find out what the documents were all about as they were only interested in the
payment of damages.

In said “Sworn
Statements” and “Agreements to Demolish” the value of the
respective properties of the claimants were made to appear very much
higher than the actual value claimed by
them.     Likewise, the said
“Agreements to Demolish” reflected the value of the improvements
“as per assessor” which on the average was only P2,000.00
lower than the value declared by the owners in their sworn statements.  The value as per assessor was in turn
supported by the Declarations of Real Property in the names of the claimants containing an assessed value
exactly the same as that stated in the Agreements to Demolish as per
assessor”, except the claims of De la Cruz and Aran
where there is only a difference of P400.00 and P200.00, respectively, it turned out, however, that
said Declarations of Property are not really intended for the claimants as trey were registered in the
names of other persons, thus showing that they were all falsified.

A few months after
processing the claims, accused accompanied the claimants to the Office of the
Highway District Engineer at the provincial Capitol of Pasig,
Metro Manila, to receive payments and personally assisted the claimants in
signing the vouchers and encashing the checks by
certifying as to their identities and guaranteeing payment.

Right after the claimants
had received the proceeds of their checks, accused accompanied them to his car
which was parked nearby where
they were divested of the amounts paid to them leaving only the
sum of P1,000.00 to each except Isaac Carlos to whom
P5,000.00 was left, explaining to them that there were many who
would share in said amounts.  All the
claimants were helpless to complain because they were afraid of the accused and
his armed companion.

The claimants, through the assistance of counsel, filed their complaints with the Provincial Fiscal’s Office of Pasig, Metro Manila,
narrating in their supporting sworn statements what they later testified to in
court.

Five issues are raised in this petition to review the decision of
the Sandiganbayan:

I.   Whether or
not the essential elements constituting the offense penalized by section 3(e) of Republic Act No. 3019,
otherwise known as the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act have been clearly
and convincingly proven by the prosecution;

II.  Whether or not the Sandiganbayan
is a court of competent jurisdiction duly constituted in accordance with Pres.
Dec. No. 1606;

III.  Whether or not the penalty imposed upon the
petitioner is excessive and contrary to the three-fold rule as provided for by
Article 70 of the Revised Penal Code;

IV.            Whether or not there is a variance
between the offense charged in the information
and the offense proved;

V. Whether or not the conclusion drawn from the
record of the Sandiganbayan in arriving at a verdict of conviction of petitioner is
correct as a question of law
which this Honorable Court is authorized to pass upon.

I.   Petitioner contends that the eight informations filed against him before the Sandiganbayan are fatally defective in that it failed to
alleged the essential ingredients or elements constituting the offense
penalized by Section 3(e) of Rep. Act No. 3019.

The section under which,
the accused-petitioner was
charged provides:

Sec. 3. 
Corrupt practices of public officers.  – In addition to acts or omissions of public officers already penalized by existing
law, the following shall constitute corrupt practices of any public officer and
are hereby declared to be unlawful:

*        *           *

(e)     Causing any undue
injury to any party, including the Government, or giving any private party any
unwarranted benefits, advantage or preference in the discharge of his official
administrative or judicial functions through manifest partiality, evident bad faith or gross inexcusable
negligence.  This provision shall apply
to officers and employees of offices or government corporations charged with the grant of licenses or permits or
other concessions.

Petitioner enumerated three
elements which in his opinion constitute a violation of Section 3 (e).

First, that the accused must be a public officer charged with the
duty or granting licenses or permits or
other concessions.  Petitioner contends
that inasmuch as he is not charged with the duty of granting licenses, permits
or other concessions, then he is not the officer contemplated by Section 3 (e).

Section 3 cited above
enumerates in eleven subsections the corrupt practices of any public officer
declared unlawful.  Its reference to
“any public officer” is without distinction or qualification and it
specifies the acts declared unlawful.  We
agree with the view adopted by the Solicitor General that the last sentence of
paragraph (e) is intended to
make clear the inclusion of officers and employees of offices or government
corporations which under the ordinary concept of “public officers”
may not come within the term.  It is a
strained construction of the provision to read it as applying exclusively to
public officers charged with the duty of granting licenses or permits or other
concessions.

The first element,
therefore, of Section 3 (e) is that the accused must be a public
officer.  This, the informations
did not fail to allege.

Second, that such public officer caused undue injury to any party, including
the Government, or gave any private party unwarranted benefits, advantage or
preference in the discharge of his official administrative or judicial functions.

Petitioner denies that
there was injury or damage caused the Government because the payments were
allegedly made on the basis of a document solely made by the Highway District Engineer to which petitioner had no hand in
preparing.  The fact, however, is that
the government suffered undue injury as a result of the petitioner’s having inflated the true claims of complainants which became the basis of the
report submitted by the Highway District Engineer to the Regional
Director of the Department of Highways and which eventually became
the basis of payment.  His contention
that he had no participation is belied by the fact that as a
right-of-way-agent, his duty was precisely to negotiate with property owners
who are affected by highway constructions for the purpose of compensating them.

On the part of the
complainants, the injury caused to
them consists in their being divested of a large proportion of
their claims and receiving payment in an amount even lower than the
actual damage
they incurred.  They were deprived of the just compensation
to which they are entitled.

Third, the
injury to any party or giving
any private party any
unwarranted benefits, advantage
or preference was done through
manifest, partiality, evident
bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence.

Petitioner argues that
for the third element to be present, the alleged injury or damage to the complainants and the government must have been caused by the
public officer in the discharge of his official administrative or judicial
functions and inasmuch as when the damage was caused to the complainants, he
was no longer discharging his official administrative functions, therefore, he
is not liable for the offense charged.

The argument is devoid of merit. 
The Sandiganbayan established the fact that
the petitioner took advantage of his position as a right-of-way-agent by making
the claimants sign the aforementioned agreements to demolish and sworn
statements which contained falsified declarations of the value of the
improvements and lots.  There was evident
bad faith on the part of the
petitioner when he inflated the values of the true claims and when he divested
the claimants of a large share of the amounts due them.

In view of the above holding, We also
dispose of the fourth issue which relates to the allegation that petitioner
cannot be convicted for a violation of the Anti-Graft Law because the evidence
adduced by the prosecution is not
the violation of Section 3 (e) but the crime of robbery.  Contrary to the petitioner’s averment, We find no variance
between the offense charged in the informations
and the offense proved.  The prosecution
was able to establish through the corroborating testimonies of the witnesses
presented how, through evident bad faith, petitioner caused damage to the
claimants and the Government.  The manner
by which the petitioner divested the
private parties of the compensation they received was part of the scheme which
commenced when the petitioner approached the claimants and informed them that he could work out their claims for payment of the
values of their lots and/or improvements affected by the widening of the Pasig-Sta.
Cruz – Calamba Road.  The
evidence presented by the prosecution clearly establish
a violation of Section 3 (e).

II.  The petitioner also assails the competency of the Sandiganbayan to hear and decide this case.  He argues
that before the Sandiganbayan could legally function as a judicial body, at
least two (2) divisions, or majority of the justices shall have been duly
constituted and appointed.

We previously ruled on this matter in the case
of De Guzman v. People (G.R. No. 54288,
December 15, 1982, 119 SCRA 337).  In
that case, the petitioner De Guzman questioned the authority of the Sandiganbayan to hear and decide his case on the same
ground that herein petitioner assails its jurisdiction.  The Court upheld the authority of the Sandiganbayan saying that:

Although the Sandiganbayan
is composed of a Presiding Justice and
eight Associate Justices, it does
not mean that it cannot validly
function without all of the Divisions constituted.  Section 3 of P.D.1606 provides that the
“Sandiganbayan shall sit in three divisions of three justices each” while
Section 5 thereof Provides that the unanimous vote of three justices in a
division shall be necessary for
the pronouncement of a judgment.

Thus the Sandiganbayan functions in
Divisions of three Justices each and each Division functions independently of
the other.  As long as a division has
been duly constituted it is a judicial body whose pronouncements are binding as judgments of the Sandiganbayan.

The judgment convicting petitioner
was a unanimous Decision of the
First Division duly constituted.  It thus
met the requirement for the pronouncement of judgment as required by Section 5
of P.D. 1606 supra.

III.  The third issue raised by the
petitioner concerns the penalty imposed by the Sandiganbayan
which totals fifty-six (56) years and eight (8) days of imprisonment.  Petitioner impugns this as contrary to the
three-fold rule and insists that the duration of the aggregate penalties should
not exceed forty (40) years.

Petitioner is mistaken in
his application of the three-fold rule as set forth in Article 70 of the
Revised Penal Code.  This article is to
be taken into account not in the imposition of the penalty but in connection with the service of the sentence imposed [People v. Escares, 102 Phil 677 (1957)].  Article 70 speaks of “service” of
sentence, “duration” of penalty and penalty “to be inflicted”.  Nowhere in the article is anything mentioned
about the “imposition of penalty”. 
It merely provides that the prisoner cannot be made to serve more than
three times the most severe of these penalties the maximum of which is forty years.

The Sandiganbayan,
therefore, did not commit any error in imposing eight
penalties for the eight informations filed against
the accused-petitioner.  As We pointed out in the case of People v. Peralta
(No. L-19069, October 29, 1968, 25 SCRA 759, 783-784):

. . . Even without the authority provided by Article 70, courts can
still impose as many penalties
as there are separate and distinct offenses committed, since for every
individual crime committed, a corresponding penalty is prescribed by law.  Each single crime is an outrage against the
State for which the latter, thru the courts of justice, has the power to impose
the appropriate penal sanctions.

In the light of the above
reasons, petitioner cannot assail the penalty imposed upon him as harsh, cruel
and unusual (See Veniegas v. People, G.R. No.
57601-06, July 20, 1982, 115 SCRA 790, 792).

We deem it unnecessary to pass upon the fifth
issue raised in view of the foregoing discussion.

WHEREFORE, the petition is denied for lack of merit.

SO ORDERED.

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