G.R. No. 859 : September 13, 1902
THE UNITED STATES, complainant-appellee, vs. BRAULIO ROQUE, defendant-appellant.

FACTS:
The defendant, Braulio Roque, was convicted in the lower court of the crime of falsificación (falsification) under Article 304 in relation to Article 300(1) of the Penal Code. The evidence presented showed that his employer, Captain Harford, gave him money to pay various shop bills, including one owed to H. Price & Co. for 64 pesos. Instead of paying the bill, Roque signed the name “M. Legaspi” (an employee of H. Price & Co.) to a document that purported to be a receipt for the payment. He then delivered this forged receipt to Captain Harford and retained the money for approximately two weeks. He only paid the bill to H. Price & Co. after learning that his deception had been discovered.

ISSUE:
Whether the act of signing another person’s name to a receipt, without evidence of imitating or attempting to imitate that person’s genuine handwriting, constitutes the crime of falsificación under Article 300(1) of the Penal Code.

RULING:
No. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of conviction and acquitted the defendant.
The Court held that for the crime of falsificación under Article 300(1) of the Penal Codedefined as “counterfeiting or feigning any writing, signature, or rubric”the element of similitude is essential. There must be evidence that the accused imitated or attempted to imitate the genuine handwriting, signature, or rubric of another person. This doctrine is settled by the Supreme Court of Spain and has been adopted by the Philippine Supreme Court.
In this case, there was no evidence presented that Roque imitated or attempted to imitate the genuine handwriting of M. Legaspi when he signed Legaspi’s name to the receipt. Therefore, the crime of falsificación was not proven. The Court noted that the proper charge should have been for the crime of estafa (swindling). Consequently, the defendant was acquitted, with costs de oficio.