G.R. Nos. L-23779-80 April 29, 1977
FEDERICO QUIZON and PROFITISA QUIZON, petitioners, vs. HON. JOSE L. BALTAZAR, Municipal Judge of San Fernando, Pampanga; ELIODORO B. GUINTO, Assistant Provincial Fiscal, of Pampanga; and CECILIA SANGALANG, respondents.

FACTS

On May 11, 1964, private respondent Cecilia Sangalang, assisted by Assistant Provincial Fiscal Eliodoro B. Guinto, filed two separate criminal complaints for serious oral defamation against petitioners Federico Quizon and Profitisa Quizon with the Municipal Court of San Fernando, Pampanga. The alleged defamatory utterances were committed on November 11, 1963. Upon arraignment, the petitioners filed a motion to quash the complaints, contending that the offense had already prescribed. They argued that under Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code, oral defamation prescribes in six months, and applying the computation method from the case of People vs. Del Rosario, the six-month period from November 12, 1963, ended on May 9, 1964, making the filing on May 11, 1964, untimely.
The respondent municipal judge denied the motion to quash. The court adopted the prosecution’s computation, reasoning that under Article 13 of the Civil Code, when laws speak of months without designating them by name, a month is understood to be 30 days. The court thus computed the six-month period by counting 30 days for each month from December 1963 to April 1964, treating November and May as designated months with their actual calendar days. This method resulted in 180 days ending on May 11, 1964, the filing date, thereby finding the complaints filed within the prescriptive period.

ISSUE

Whether the respondent municipal judge committed grave abuse of discretion in denying the motion to quash by incorrectly computing the six-month prescriptive period for the crime of serious oral defamation.

RULING

Yes, the Supreme Court granted the petition, declaring the orders null and void and ordering the dismissal of the criminal cases. The Court held that the respondent judge’s computation was plainly erroneous and constituted a grave abuse of discretion. The legal logic is anchored on the settled interpretation of Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code in relation to Article 13 of the Civil Code, as established in People vs. Del Rosario. In that case, the Court definitively ruled that the term “month” in the Revised Penal Code’s prescriptive periods must be understood as a month of 30 days, not as a solar or calendar month. Furthermore, in computing the period, the first day (the day of the commission or discovery of the crime) is excluded, and the last day (the day of filing) is included.
Applying this correct computation to the instant case: the crime was discovered on November 11, 1963. Excluding November 11, the six-month (180-day) prescriptive period began to run on November 12, 1963. Counting 180 days from November 12, 1963, the period ended on May 9, 1964. Since the complaints were filed on May 11, 1964, they were filed two days after the offense had prescribed. The respondent judge’s contrived method of computation, which selectively applied Article 13 of the Civil Code to treat some months as 30-day periods and others as calendar months, directly contradicted the clear precedent in Del Rosario. The Supreme Court found no substantial reason to depart from this established doctrine. Allowing a trial to proceed for a patently prescribed offense would be unjust, making certiorari and prohibition appropriate remedies despite the denial of a motion to quash being