G.R. No. 139930 - REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES v. EDUARDO M. COJUANGCO, JR., JUAN PONCE
ENRILE, MARIA CLARA L. LOBREGAT, JOSE R. ELEAZAR, JR., JOSE C. CONCEPCION,
ROLANDO P. DELA CUESTA, EMMANUEL M. ALMEDA, HERMENEGILDO C. ZAYCO, NARCISO M.
PINEDA, IAKI R. MENDEZONA, DANILO S. URSUA, TEODORO D. REGALA, VICTOR P.
LAZATIN, ELEAZAR B. REYES, EDUARDO U. ESCUETA, LEO J. PALMA, DOUGLAS LU YM,
SIGFREDO VELOSO AND JAIME GANDIAGA.
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CONCURRING OPINION
BERSAMIN, J.:
I
CONCUR with the Majority Opinion
written by Justice Abad. Like him, I find and hold that the State already lost
the right to prosecute respondents for violating Section 3(e) of Republic Act
No. 3019 by February 8, 1990, or ten years after
UNICOM filed its Amended Articles of Incorporation.
Respondents
were charged with violating Section 3 (e) of Republic Act No. 3019 for allegedly
watering down the P495 million worth of no-par value stocks in UNICOM by
United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) with funds taken from the Coconut Industry
Investment Fund (CIIF). But the offense charged clearly prescribed upon the
lapse of ten years from the date of its commission on February 8, 1980, the prescriptive
period applicable to the offense charged.[1]
The
issue of when to reckon the commission of the offense charged is not difficult
to determine. I disagree that the commission of the offense should be reckoned
from the filing of the 1980 General Information Sheet (GIS). Instead, I find it
more logical to reckon the commission of the offense to the filing of the
Amended Articles of Incorporation on February 8, 1980 in the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC). Indeed, the Certificate of Increase of Capital Stock
that UNICOM filed on September 17, 1979 involved the affected shareholdings.[2] The second page of the certificate
clearly showed that UCPB had subscribed to 4,000,000 no-par value shares worth P495
million.[3] The certificate is significant because it reflected
the very same shareholdings that respondents allegedly diluted by increasing
UNICOMs capital stock from 10 million to one billion shares.
Although
it did not reflect the subject investment of UCPB, the Amended Articles of Incorporation
filed on February 8, 1980 is indisputably the only trustworthy evidence that
proved the dilution. I note that the State itself presented the Amended
Articles of Incorporation to establish its allegations because the Amended
Articles of Incorporation showed that UNICOM had increased its capital stock to
P1,000,000,000.00, divided as follows: 500,000,000 Class A voting
common shares; 400,000,000 Class B voting common shares; and 100,000,000
Class C non-voting common shares, all
having a par value of P1.00 per share.[4] The filing in the SEC and the
subsequent approval by the SEC of the Amended Articles of Incorporation on
February 8, 1980 indubitably consummated
the unlawful transaction alleged in the information. Reckoning the prescription
period from February 8, 1980 was really warranted by the records.
As
to whether or not the criminal action prescribed as to Eduardo M. Cojuangco,
Jr. because his supposed absence from the country in the period from 1986 to
1991 had interrupted the running of the period of prescription, I respectfully submit
that there was no interruption even assuming that said respondent had truly
been absent from the country in that period.
The applicable rule for computing the
prescriptive period of a violation of Republic Act No. 3019 is Act No. 3326 (An Act to Establish Periods of Prescription
for Violations Penalized by Special Acts and Municipal Ordinances and to
Provide When Prescription Shall Begin to Run).[5] The relevant provision is Section 2,
which states:
Section 2. Prescription shall begin to run from the day of the commission of the violation of the law, and if the same be not known at the time, from the discovery thereof and the institution of judicial proceeding for its investigation and punishment.
The prescription shall be interrupted when
proceedings are instituted against the guilty person, and shall begin to run
again if the proceedings are dismissed for reasons not constituting jeopardy.
It
is noticeable that Section 2, supra,
does not state the effect on the prescriptive period of an accuseds absence
from the country.
Yet, the Minority insist that
respondent Cojuangco, Jr.s purported absence from the country interrupted the
running of the prescriptive period, citing Article 91 of the Revised Penal Code, which pertinently provides
that [t]he term of prescription shall not run when the offender is absent from
the Philippine Archipelago. The Minority justify their insistence by relying
on Article 10 of the Revised Penal Code that
declares the Revised Penal Code to be
supplementary to special laws unless such special laws should specially provide
the contrary.
I
cannot accept the Minoritys insistence. I certainly doubt that the omission by
the Legislature from Act No. 3326 of the effect on the running of the
prescriptive period of the absence of the accused from the country was an
inadvertent drafting error on the part of the Legislature. As such, the
omission does not give to the Court the license to apply Article 91 of the Revised Penal Code at will in order to supply
the omission. Casus omissus pro habendus
est. A person, object, or thing omitted from an enumeration in a statute
must be held to have been intentionally omitted.[6] It is settled that if cases should arise
for which Congress has made no provision, the courts cannot supply the omission.[7] A casus omissus does not justify judicial legislation,[8] most particularly in respect of
statutes defining and punishing criminal offenses.[9]
Bearing
in mind that prescription is a matter of positive legislation and cannot be
established by mere implications or deductions,[10] I construe the silence of Act No.
3326 on the effect of the absence of the accused from the country as a clear and undeniable legislative statement
that such absence does not interrupt the running of the prescriptive period for
violations of special penal laws. In Romualdez
v. Marcelo,[11] the Court clearly declared so,
holding that Section 2, supra, was:
xxx conspicuously silent as to whether the absence
of the offender from the Philippines bars the running of the prescriptive
period. The silence of the law can only be interpreted to mean that Section 2
of Act No. 3326 did not intend such an interruption of the prescription unlike
the explicit mandate of Article 91.
Thus, as previously held:
Even on the assumption that there is in fact a
legislative gap caused by such an omission, neither could the Court presume
otherwise and supply the details thereof, because a legislative lacuna cannot
be filled by judicial fiat. Indeed, courts may not, in the guise of the
interpretation, enlarge the scope of a statute and include therein situations
not provided nor intended by the lawmakers. An omission at the time of the
enactment, whether careless or calculated, cannot be judicially supplied however
after later wisdom may recommend the inclusion. Courts are not authorized to
insert into the law what they think should be in it or to supply what they
think the legislature would have supplied if its attention has been called to
the omission.[12]
This construction entirely precludes the
application of Article 91 of the Revised
Penal Code even in a suppletory manner.
Section 2 of Act No. 3326 expressly
provides only one instance in which the prescriptive period is interrupted, that is, when criminal proceedings are
instituted against the guilty person.[13] In that regard, the filing of the
complaint for purposes of preliminary investigation interrupts the period of
prescription.[14] Hence, the prescriptive period for
criminal violations of R.A. No. 3019 is tolled only when the Office of the
Ombudsman either receives a complaint, or initiates its own investigation of
the violations.[15]
Herein, the running of the 10-year
prescriptive period was tolled only when the Office of the Ombudsman actually
received the complaint filed by the Office of the Solicitor General. Although
the records do not bear the date of receipt by the Office of the Ombudsman, I
am nonetheless sure that the date was definitely not March 1, 1990, when the
complaint was wrongly filed with the Presidential Commission on Good Government
(PCGG). Rather, the date could only be after
October 2, 1990, when the Court promulgated the decision in Cojuangco, Jr. v. Presidential Commission on
Good Government,[16] simply because that decision was
what caused the PCGG to transfer the wrongly-filed complaint to the Office of
the Ombudsman in order to commence the criminal prosecution.[17] To recall, the Court said in Cojuangco, Jr. v. Presidential Commission on
Good Government that it would be more in the interest of a just and fair
administration of justice if the PCGG was prohibited from conducting a
preliminary investigation and instead to just allow the Office of the Ombudsman
to investigate and take appropriate action.[18] Yet, by that time (i.e., October 2, 1990), prescription had
already set in (as of February 8, 1990).
I
cannot subscribe to the Minoritys submission that the period of prescription
should run from the date of discovery instead of the date of the commission of
the offense.
The
transaction in question was evidenced by public instruments and records. There is good authority for the view that
when the offense has not been concealed, such as when it is evidenced by public
documents or is a matter of public record open to inspection, the State will
not be permitted to plead ignorance of the act of the accused in order to evade
the operation of the Statute of Limitations.[19] Nor may we presume a connivance among
respondents from the fact that the boards of directors of UNICOM and UCPB had
interlocking members who might have effectively concealed the transaction from
the public in order to justify the reckoning from the date of discovery. As Justice
Abads Majority Opinion sufficiently indicates, this case was not like a criminal
prosecution based on the secretive granting of behest loans as to which reckoning
the period from the date of discovery of the offense would be justified. The
transaction in question had already left the boardrooms of both UCPB and UNICOM
when the SEC approved the increase in capitalization. In People v. Sandiganbayan,[20] the Court applied the date-of-commission
rule as the start of the reckoning because the illegal transaction involved had
passed the hands of several public officials. Here, the fact that the increased
capitalization was approved and certified by no less than the SEC, the
government agency established to protect both domestic and foreign investments
and the public,[21] called for the use of the
date-of-commission rule.
Having interlocking directors between
UNICOM and UCPB was insignificant considering that the transaction in question was
not done only within the two corporations, but involved the participation of
the SEC, a third party with the express duty to ensure the legality of
corporate transactions like increased capitalization.
Lastly,
I need to remind that in the interpretation of the law on prescription of
crimes, that which is most favorable to the accused is to be adopted.[22] As between Section 2 of Republic Act
No. 3326 and Article 91 of the Revised
Penal Code, therefore, the former is controlling due to its being more favorable
to the accused. This interpretation also accords most with the nature of
prescription as a statute of repose whose object is to suppress fraudulent and
stale claims from springing up at great distances of time and surprising the
parties or their representatives when the facts have become obscure from the
lapse of time or the defective memory or death or removal of witnesses.[23] More than being an act of grace,
prescription, as a statute of limitation, is equivalent to an act of amnesty,
which shall begin to run upon the commission of the offense rather than upon
the discovery of the offense.[24]
I
VOTE to deny the petition.
LUCAS P. BERSAMIN
Associate
Justice
[1] Prior to March 16, 1982, the applicable prescriptive period for all offenses punishable under Republic Act No. 3019 was ten years (Section 11 of Republic Act No. 3019). Batas Pambansa Blg. 195 (which took effect upon its approval on March 16, 1982) raised the period of prescription to fifteen years.
[2] Rollo, pp. 80-83.
[3] Id., p. 81.
[4] Rollo, p. 92.
[5] Republic v. Desierto, G.R. No. 136506,
August 23, 2001, 363 SCRA 585, 597-598; Domingo
v. Sandiganbayan, G.R. No. 109376, January 20, 2000, 322 SCRA 655, 663.
[6] Municipality of Nueva Era, Ilocos Norte v.
Municipality of Marcos, Ilocos Norte, G.R. No. 169435, February 27, 2008,
547 SCRA 71, 94; Commission on Audit of
the Province of Cebu v. Province of Cebu, G.R. No. 141386, November 29,
2001, 371 SCRA 196, 205.
[7] Del Monte Mining Co. v. Last Chance
Mining Co., 171
U.S. 55, 66 (1898).
[8] Ebert v. Poston, 266 U.S. 548, 543 (1925).
[9] Black, Handbook
on the Construction and Interpretation of Laws (2008), p. 59 citing Broadhead v. Holdsworth, L.R. 2 Ex. Div.
321 and State v. Peters, 37 La. Ann. 730.
[10] Hermanos v. Dela Riva, G.R. No. L-19827, April 6, 1923.
[11] G.R.
No. 165510-33, July 28, 2006, 497 SCRA 89.
[12] Quoting Canet v. Decena, G.R.
No. 155344, January 20, 2004, 420 SCRA 388, 394.
[13] See People
v. Romualdez, G.R. No. 166510, April 29, 2009, 587 SCRA 123; Presidential Ad Hoc
Fact-Finding Committee on Behest Loans v. Desierto, G.R. No. 130817, August 22, 2001, 363 SCRA 489.
[14] Sanrio
Company Limited v. Lim, G.R.
No. 168662, February 19, 2008, 546 SCRA 303; Brillante v. Court of Appeals, G.R. Nos. 118757 & 121571,
October 19, 2004, 440 SCRA 541.
[15] People
v. Romualdez, G.R. No.
166510, April 29, 2009, 587 SCRA 123, 134.
[16] G.R. Nos. 92319-20, October 2, 1990, 190 SCRA 226.
[17] Rollo, pp. 43-44.
[18] Supra,
note 16, at p. 257.
[19] I Feria & Gregorio, Comments
on the Revised Penal Code, 1958 First Edition, pp. 666-667, citing People v. Dinsay, 40 O.G. No. 18, 63.
[20] G.R. No. 101724, July 3, 1992, 211 SCRA 241, 246-247.
[21] See P.D. No. 902-A.
[22] People v. Reyes, G.R. Nos. 74226-27, July 27, 1989,
175 SCRA 597, 608-609.
[23] Bergado v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 84051, May 19, 1989, 173
SCRA 497, 503; Sinaon v. Sorogon,
G.R. No. L-59879, May 13, 1985, 136 SCRA 407, 410.
[24] People v. Sandiganbayan, G.R. No. 101724, July 3, 1992, 211
SCRA 241, 247.