G.R. Nos. 27420-27421, October 5, 1927
People of the Philippine Islands vs. Faustino Garalde

FACTS

Faustino Garalde, the assistant postmaster of Bangui, Ilocos Norte, received two postal money orders from Hawaii payable to Paula Agustinez. He fraudulently forged her fingerprint and signature, along with those of witnesses, to encash the money orders and appropriate the funds for himself. Two separate informations were filed against him for the complex crime of estafa with falsification of commercial documents. The trial court convicted him in both cases, imposing a penalty of ten years and one day of *prision mayor* for each, but made these sentences conditional upon the outcome of other pending cases against him, referencing Article 88 of the Penal Code on the maximum total penalty.

ISSUE

Whether paragraph 2 of Article 88 of the Penal Code, which limits the total duration of successive penalties to three times the most severe penalty imposed (not exceeding 40 years), applies to penalties imposed in separate judicial proceedings, or only to those imposed in a single proceeding.

RULING

The Supreme Court APPLIED paragraph 2 of Article 88 to the penalties imposed in these separate proceedings.

The Court abandoned its prior doctrine in *Celis vs. Warden of Bilibid* (which limited Article 88(2) to a single proceeding) and reverted to the earlier rule in *United States vs. Carrington*. The Court held that the rationale for the legal limitto prevent the successive service of temporal penalties from becoming a de facto life sentence disproportionate to the crimes and contrary to the ends of penal lawapplies regardless of whether convictions arise from one or several proceedings. The provision is couched in general terms and is favorable to the accused. Applying it only to a single proceeding would, under the procedural rules then in force, lead to the absurd and harsh result (as seen in Garalde’s case, where he faced a potential total of about 70 years) that Article 88 was precisely designed to prevent.

Consequently, since the appellant had already been sentenced in two other cases to a total of twenty years and two days (the gravest single penalty being eight years and one day), the maximum total penalty he could serve was thrice that gravest penalty. The Court modified the appealed judgments, sentencing him to an additional four years and one day of *prision mayor* for the present cases (the amount needed to reach the threefold limit), while affirming the accessory penalties and indemnity. The Court also ruled that no subsidiary imprisonment would be served in case of insolvency for the indemnity, as his total imprisonment would already be at the maximum allowable limit.