FIRST DIVISION
[G.R. No. 171030. April 23, 2014.]
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PATRICIA G. CONCEPCION, private complainant-petitioner, vs. MARIETA B. LOTERTE, respondent.
NOTICE
Sirs/Mesdames :
Please take notice that the Court, First Division, issued a Resolution datedApril 23, 2014which reads as follows:
"G.R. No. 171030 — PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PATRICIA G. CONCEPCION, private complainant-petitioner, v. MARIETA B. LOTERTE, respondent.
In Criminal Case No. 94-140416, respondent Marieta B. Loterte was charged with Estafa in an Information that read as follows:
That on or about August 8, 1993, in the City of Manila, Philippines, the said accused, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously defraud PATRICIA CONCEPCION in the following manner, to wit: the said accused received from said Patricia Concepcion assorted jewelries in the total amount of P633,000.00 for the purpose of selling the same on commission basis under the express obligation on the part of said accused of remitting the proceeds of the sale thereof, if able to sell and/or returning the same, if unable to sell, but said accused, once in the possession of the said jewelries, far from complying with her obligation, failed and refused and still fails and refuses to remit the proceeds of the sale thereof and/or return the said jewelries to said Patricia Concepcion despite demands made upon her to do so, with intent to defraud, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously misappropriated, misapplied and converted the said sum of P633,000.00 to her own personal use and benefit, to the damage and prejudice of said Patricia Concepcion in the aforesaid sum of P633,000.00 Philippine Currency. 1TAESDH
In her defense, respondent claimed that there was no agreement between herself and petitioner-complainant Patricia Concepcion regarding the sale of jewelry on commission. Instead, respondent asserted that she obtained loans from Concepcion and also guaranteed the loans of other persons in consideration of a 3% commission on the principal amounts. Unfortunately, she and the borrowers whose loans she guaranteed defaulted on their obligations which to her knowledge amounted to P350,000.00. That she was only prevailed upon to sign Exhibit A on August 8, 1993 because she was told it was only a formality and Concepcion's husband who was a police officer got mad when she initially declined to sign and said: "Putang ina mo, kung naging lalaki ka lang, binaril na kita." She further testified that Concepcion's husband slammed his closed fists on the table and cleaned his gun with a handkerchief in her presence.
After trial, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Manila, Branch 55 found respondent guilty beyond reasonable doubt of Estafa as charged in the information and sentenced her to suffer imprisonment of four (4) years and two (2) months of prision correccional, as minimum, to twenty (20) years of reclusion temporal, as maximum. In addition, respondent was directed to indemnify Concepcion the amount of P633,000.00 with interest and to pay P10,000.00 as attorney's fees.
Respondent sought a review of her conviction with the Court of Appeals. The appellate court in a Decision dated July 28, 2005 disposed of the case in this wise:
IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the decision appealed from is REVERSED, and a new one ENTERED acquitting the accused on ground of reasonable doubt, without prejudice to the right of the complainant to pursue her claim against the accused civilly. 2
Concepcion's motion for reconsideration of the aforementioned Decision was denied by the Court of Appeals.
Aggrieved, Concepcion filed the present petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court, questioning only the civil aspect of the appellate court's Decision. In particular, Concepcion took exception to the factual finding of the Court of Appeals that her Exhibit A, an acknowledgement receipt for 232 items of jewelry worth P633,000.00 in the handwriting of respondent, was fake or contrived. Thus, Concepcion prayed for the following reliefs from this Court:
WHEREFORE, it is respectfully prayed that the instant Petition be given due course and after due consideration, judgment be rendered modifying the court a quo's Decision dated July 28, 2005 and the Resolution dated January 9, 2006, denying the Motion for Reconsideration on the civil aspect, thus: aTEADI
1.) Declaring Exhibit A, a document consisting of five (5) pages, dated August 8, 1993, a document depicting the jewelry transaction between petitioner and respondent, to be [the] document that it purports to be, contrary [to] the Court of Appeals['] declaration that it is fake and contrive[d];
2.) Ordering respondent Marieta Loterte to pay petitioner the amount of P633,000.00 as her unpaid obligation for the unremitted jewelries on August 8, 1993[;]
3.) Ordering the remand of the case to the court of origin for reception of additional evidence, if necessary, to determine the actual amount of respondent's obligation.
Other reliefs just and equitable are likewise prayed for. 3
In her Comment, respondent countered that the civil liability arising from the crime was necessarily extinguished by her acquittal of the crime charged. With more reason that she cannot be deemed civilly liable since the documentary basis of both her criminal and civil liabilities, Exhibit A, was found to be fake and contrived by the appellate court. However, respondent proposed that based on the language of the assailed Decision the civil liability referred to in the dispositive portion thereof is not the liability arising from the crime but to some other obligation arising from the actual contract of the parties. For this reason, respondent contended that Concepcion should file such civil action separately and therein prove her claims, instead of claiming indemnity in the present petition. Respondent also appended to her Comment the Decision dated June 15, 2006 of the RTC of Manila, Branch 44 in Civil Case No. 95-72548, an action for the declaration of nullity of contract (Exhibit A in Criminal Case No. 94-140416) which respondent and her spouse filed against Concepcion and her spouse. In that separate proceeding, the trial court found that Exhibit A was null and void since respondent's consent thereto was vitiated.
In her Reply, Concepcion reiterated that the Court of Appeals' finding that Exhibit A was fake and contrived was without basis and was allegedly a mere conclusion without citation of specific evidence.
Essentially, the present petition puts forward the following issues for the Court's consideration:
1.) Whether the Court of Appeals erred in finding that Exhibit A was fake or contrived; and
2.) Whether the Court of Appeals erred in ruling that Concepcion should file a separate civil action to pursue her claim against respondent.
Anent the first issue, the Court has examined the evidence on record and we see no compelling reason to disturb the Court of Appeals' observations regarding Exhibit A. We quote with approval the following excerpts from the assailed Decision dated July 28, 2005:
What is wrong with Exhibit A? In the first place, it purports to show that on one single occasion, the complainant [Concepcion] gave to the accused [respondent] so many pieces of jewelry that it had to take six pages of yellow paper to write them down. We took the pains to count all the items listed and arrived at a grand total of 232 items. This was never done by them before. In the only other receipt of its kind produced in court, Exhibit HHH, she merely entrusted two pieces to the accused. The defense had this to say: Imagine a jewelry transaction made in public in the presence of five to eight people. Jewelries worth P700,000 scattered on a table where the accused was made to select jewelries worth P633,000 where the majority of the items range from P1,000 to P4,000 each. A simple housewife carrying such a big bulk in [sic] her person in a depressed area like Tambunting St., Sta. Cruz, Manila. No sane person would indulge in such activity.
The event described is extremely surreal. . . .
From the patently artificial way the receipt Exhibit A was drawn up, it is very likely that it was only meant to cover up some other act or transaction. An inspection of its text reveals discrepancies that need explanation. The total value of the jewelries is already stated at the start of the writing to be P633,000. But the complainant had to make two separate lists of jewelries to make them add up to this amount. How did the amount come to be predetermined? The receipt was admittedly written by the accused — until we come to the end of the instrument. There we see that the printed names of the accused, her cousin Savariz and Cornelio Arcega were written by the accused, but it would not take an expert to observe and conclude that the names of Jimenea and Laurente were in a different penmanship. Does this not suggest that these last two persons were not around when the receipt was drawn up because their names were not written by the accused?
Our analysis of the receipt becomes clear of difficulties if we adopt the version of the accused. The events fall into place. As the accused said, she came to the house of the complainant and was received by the complainant who was with her husband and her husband's fellow policeman Cornelio Arcega. The complainant pressured her to sign a receipt acknowledging an obligation of P633,000 that would be secured by an undertaking to return jewelries worth that amount. Because of the astronomical amount involved, the enumeration became unwieldy. The accused was made to draw up two lists to come up with the right figure. When the receipt was signed, only Arcega and Savariz were around, so that the accused wrote their names as witnesses. Jimenea and Laureate signed after the fact, which was why their names were written by someone else.
There was an explanation for the figure contained in the receipt. The accused revealed that the amount of the loans she guaranteed as well as her personal loans had reached P350,000. But because of her irregular payments, the complainant made her sign for P633,000 which included interest for another 5 years. 4
Aside from the foregoing, there were other notable discrepancies in the prosecution evidence which the prosecution failed to sufficiently explain. Concepcion testified that she had 20 to 25 jewelry transactions with respondent prior to the execution of Exhibit A which supposedly built up her confidence in entrusting respondent with such a large quantity of jewelry. However, aside from Exhibit HHH (which involved only two items), she failed to produce similar documents/receipts to prove such other jewelry transactions as she claimed the receipts were returned to the respondent upon the remittance of the proceeds of the sale or the return of the unsold jewelry. Concepcion asserted that the period for the return of unsold jewelry in all her transactions with respondent was 40 days but in Exhibit A the period stated was six months. Concepcion attempted to justify this by testifying that she did not notice immediately that the period stated in Exhibit A was six months as she was concerned mainly with the amount and did not pay much attention to the last portion of the document. Interestingly, Exhibit HHH stated that the period to return the items listed therein was one month, which again was contrary to the testimony of Concepcion.
In all, we do not find any reversible error on the part of the appellate court in not accepting that Exhibit A was what it purported to be, even if we use the lesser standard of preponderance of evidence in civil cases. It is elementary that: CSTcEI
In civil cases, the party having the burden of proof must establish his case by a preponderance of evidence. "Preponderance of evidence" is the weight, credit, and value of the aggregate evidence on either side and is usually considered to be synonymous with the term "greater weight of the evidence" or "greater weight of the credible evidence." "Preponderance of evidence" is a phrase which, in the last analysis, means probability of the truth. It is evidence which is more convincing to the court as worthy of belief than that which is offered in opposition thereto. . . . . 5
We have likewise previously held that in civil cases, courts determine, based on the evidence presented, in light of common human experience, which of the theories proffered by the parties is more worthy of credence. 6 In the case at bar, the appellate court noted that Exhibit A appeared to conform more to the testimony of respondent than that of Concepcion.
As for the second issue, there seems to be some ambiguity in the ruling of the Court of Appeals on the civil liability of the accused. In the assailed Decision dated July 28, 2005, the appellate court held that "[t]he civil liability has not been sufficiently litigated in this case to enable us to make a finding consistently with Section 2, Rule 120 of the Rules of Court." Thus, it was decreed that the acquittal was without prejudice to the right of Concepcion to pursue her claim against the accused civilly. In the assailed Resolution dated January 9, 2006, the same court, in denying Concepcion's motion for reconsideration of the civil aspect, ruled that Concepcion "should file a civil case in the trial court where the factual questions may be adequately resolved based on a standard of proof applicable to civil cases."
We have held that "the civil liability arising from the offense or ex delicto is based on the acts or omissions that constitute the criminal offense; hence, its trial is inherently intertwined with the criminal action. For this reason, the civil liability ex delicto is impliedly instituted with the criminal offense." 7 The exceptions would be when the complainant waives the civil action or reserves the right to institute the civil action separately or files it prior to the criminal action.
Section 2, Rule 120 of the Rules of Court provides:
Section 2. Contents of the judgment. — If the judgment is of conviction, it shall state (1) the legal qualification of the offense constituted by the acts committed by the accused and the aggravating or mitigating circumstances which attended its commission; (2) the participation of the accused in the offense, whether as principal, accomplice, or accessory; (3) the penalty imposed upon the accused; and (4) the civil liability or damages caused by his wrongful act or omission to be recovered from the accused by the offended party, if there is any, unless the enforcement of the civil liability by a separate civil action has been reserved or waived.
In case the judgment is of acquittal, it shall state whether the evidence of the prosecution absolutely failed to prove the guilt of the accused or merely failed to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. In either case, the judgment shall determine if the act or omission from which the civil liability might arise did not exist. (Emphasis supplied.)
In the case at bar, it is undisputed that there was no reservation, prior institution or waiver of the civil action and thus, it has been deemed impliedly instituted with the filing of the criminal action. However, the Court of Appeals failed to make a categorical statement on whether or not the act or omission from which the civil liability might arise existed in this criminal case.
It stands to reason that if Exhibit A, the evidence upon which the prosecution rests its theory that respondent has committed Estafa through the misappropriation of Concepcion's personal property, was simulated or contrived, then the fact upon which respondent's civil liability for the return of such personal property or their value did not exist. Nonetheless, the Court cannot turn a blind eye to respondent's judicial admission that she was indebted to Concepcion, albeit on several transactions of another nature that involved different amounts. CIScaA
Since we uphold the Court of Appeals' appreciation of Exhibit A as a front for some other transaction between Concepcion and respondent, this transaction does not pertain to the civil liability ex delicto that has been impliedly instituted with the criminal action subject of this petition. There is likewise a dearth of evidence on record as to the actual civil liability of the respondent. Thus, the appellate court did not err in decreeing that such civil liability should be litigated in a separate civil action and not in these proceedings.
WHEREFORE, the instant petition is DENIED for lack of merit.
SO ORDERED."
Very truly yours,
(SGD.) EDGAR O. ARICHETADivision Clerk of Court
Footnotes
1. Records, p. 1.
2. Rollo, p. 270.
3. Id. at 38.
4. Id. at 267-269.
5. Cavile v. Litania-Hong, 600 Phil. 453, 470-471 (2009).
6. Yuchengco v. Sandiganbayan, 515 Phil. 1, 32 (2006).
7. Lim v. Kou Co Ping, G.R. No. 175256, August 23, 2012, 679 SCRA 114, 128.