G.R. No. 39047 -39052; October 31, 1933
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee, vs. VIRGILIO L. VILLANUEVA, defendant-appellant.

FACTS

The defendant, Virgilio L. Villanueva, was the postmaster of Santa Lucia, Ilocos Sur. Six postal money orders—one for P200 in favor of Irene Sanchez and five (four for P200 and one for P100) in favor of Feliciano Isidro—were sent from Hawaii and California. The payees, informed by letters, inquired at the post office but were told by the defendant that the money orders had not arrived. Later, the defendant admitted to Isidro that he had received and appropriated the funds. He signed two documents admitting he forged the payees’ signatures on the money orders, collected, and misappropriated the amounts. The defendant failed to record the receipts in the registered matter book. At trial, his claims of having paid the payees or having authorization to sign were contradicted by his written admissions and the payees’ denials.

ISSUE

Whether the defendant is guilty of separate crimes of falsification of public documents and malversation of public funds for each money order.

RULING

Yes. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction. The defendant committed six separate crimes of falsification of public documents (one for each money order) by forging the payees’ signatures to make it appear they received the amounts, even if the signatures were not imitated, as the act made it appear they intervened when they did not. He also committed six separate crimes of malversation of public funds, as the amounts were public funds in his custody and he appropriated them on different occasions. The falsification was not a necessary means for malversation but was done to conceal it. The penalties imposed were: for each falsification, eight years and one day of prision mayor; for each malversation, one year, eight months, and twenty-one days of prision correccional. The Court recommended executive clemency, considering the total penalty excessive.

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