G.R. NO. 166510 : April 29, 2009] PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Petitioner, v. BENJAMIN "KOKOY" ROMUALDEZ, and SANDIGANBAYAN, Respondent.
Facts:
The Office of the Ombudsman charged Romualdez before the Sandiganbayan with violation of Section 3 R.A. 3019, as amended, otherwise known as the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. The City of Manila within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, accused Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez, a public officer being then the Provincial Governor of Leyte, while in the performance of his official function, committing the offense in relation to his Office, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and criminally with evident bad faith, cause undue injury to the Government.
He is the elected Provincial Governor of Leyte and without abandoning said position, and using his influence with his brother-in-law, then President Ferdinand E. Marcos, had himself appointed and/or assigned as Ambassador to foreign countries thereby enabling himself to collect dual compensation from both the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Provincial Government of Leyte.
Romualdez moved to quash the information on two grounds, namely: (1) that the facts alleged in the information do not constitute the offense with which the accused was charged; and (2) that the criminal action or liability has been extinguished by prescription.
Romualdez posited that the 15-year prescription under Section 11 of R.A. 3019 had lapsed since the preliminary investigation of the case for an offense committed on or about and during the period from 1976 to February 1986 commenced only in May 2001 after a Division of the Sandiganbayan. He argued that there was no interruption of the prescriptive period for the offense because the proceedings undertaken under the 1987 complaint filed with the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) were null and void and that he was charged with an offense not covered by the Revised Penal Code; the law on the prescription of offenses punished under special laws (Republic Act No. 3326) does not contain any rule similar to that found in the Revised Penal Code.
The petitioner opposed the motion to quash on the argument that Romualdez is misleading the court in asserting that on the issue of prescription. the People argued that Section 15, Article XI of the Constitution provides that the right of the State to recover properties unlawfully acquired by public officials or employees, from them or from their nominees or transferees, shall not be barred by prescription, laches or estoppel, and that prescription is a matter of technicality to which no one has a vested right. Romualdez filed a Reply to this Opposition.
The accused alleges in the subject Motion that he actually rendered services to the government. To receive compensation for actual services rendered would not come within the ambit of improper or illegal use of funds or properties of the government; nor would it constitute unjust enrichment tantamount to the damage and prejudice of the government. The Sandiganbayan granted Romualdez' motion to quash in the first Resolution assailed in this petition.
Issue: Whether or not the criminal action or liability has been extinguished by prescription.
Ruling:
The Court required the parties to submit their respective memoranda on whether or not prescription lies in favor of respondent. The matter of prescription is front and foremost before us. It has been raised that following our ruling in Romualdez v. Marcelo, the criminal charges against private respondent have been extinguished by prescription.
However, said cases were quashed based on prevailing jurisprudence that informations filed by the PCGG and not the Office of the Special Prosecutor/Office of the Ombudsman are null and void for lack of authority on the part of the PCGG to file the same. This made it necessary for the Office of the Ombudsman as the competent office to conduct the required preliminary investigation to enable the filing of the present charges.
The initial filing of the complaint in 1989 or the preliminary investigation by the PCGG that preceded it could not have interrupted the fifteen (15)-year prescription period under Rep. Act No. 3019. As held in Cruz, Jr. v. Sandiganbayan, the investigatory power of the PCGG extended only to alleged ill-gotten wealth cases, absent previous authority from the President for the PCGG to investigate such graft and corruption cases involving the Marcos cronies.
Accordingly, the preliminary investigation conducted by the PCGG leading to the filing of the first information is void ab initio, and thus could not be considered as having tolled the fifteen (15)-year prescriptive period, notwithstanding the general rule that the commencement of preliminary investigation tolls the prescriptive period. After all, a void ab initio proceeding such as the first preliminary investigation by the PCGG could not be accorded any legal effect by this Court. The rule is that for criminal violations of Rep. Act No. 3019, the prescriptive period is tolled only when the Office of the Ombudsman receives a complaint or otherwise initiates its investigation.
As such preliminary investigation was commenced more than fifteen (15) years after the imputed acts were committed, the offense had already prescribed as of such time. Further, the flaw was so fatal that the information could not have been cured or resurrected by mere amendment, as a new preliminary investigation had to be undertaken, and evidence had again to be adduced before a new information could be filed. The rule may well be that the amendment of a criminal complaint retroacts to the time of the filing of the original complaint. Yet such rule will not apply when the original information is void ab initio, thus incurable by amendment. Besides, the only proceeding that could interrupt the running of prescription is that which is filed or initiated by the offended party before the appropriate body or office.
In the case at bar, however, the complaint was filed with the wrong body, the PCGG. Thus, the same could not have interrupted the running of the prescriptive periods. The fact that prescription lies in favor of private respondent posed an additional burden on the petitioner, which had opted to file a Rule 65 petition for certiorari instead of the normal recourse to a Rule 45. Prescription would have been considered in favor of private respondent whether this matter was raised before us in a Rule 45 or a Rule 65 petition. Yet the bar for petitioner is markedly higher under Rule 65 than under Rule 45, and its option to resort to Rule 65 instead in the end appears needlessly burdensome for its part, a burden not helped by the fact that prescription avails in favor of private respondent.
Hence, the Second Motion for Reconsideration is granted.
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