G.R. No. L-42925. January 31, 1977.
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, petitioner, vs. HON. RICARDO D. GALANO, Presiding Judge, Court of First Instance of Manila, Branch XIII, and GREGORIO SANTOS, respondents.

FACTS

On October 2, 1962, a criminal complaint for estafa was filed against Gregorio Santos in the Municipal Court of Batangas. The complaint alleged the offense was committed within Batangas. Santos was arraigned, pleaded not guilty, and trial commenced. In September 1964, Santos jumped bail, leading to the forfeiture of his bond and the archiving of the case. He was re-arrested nine years later in September 1973, and trial resumed. During the proceedings, evidence indicated the crime was actually committed in Manila. Consequently, upon Santos’s motion, the Batangas City Court dismissed the case on November 5, 1974, for lack of territorial jurisdiction.
The complainant then refiled the case with the Manila Fiscal’s Office. After a preliminary investigation, an information was filed with the Manila Court of First Instance on July 29, 1975. Santos moved to dismiss this new information on grounds of prescription and double jeopardy. Respondent Judge Ricardo D. Galano granted the motion on December 8, 1975, ruling the offense had prescribed, as the Batangas complaint did not validly interrupt the prescriptive period due to that court’s eventual lack of jurisdiction. The prosecution’s motion for reconsideration was denied.

ISSUE

Whether the filing of the complaint in the Batangas court, which was later dismissed for lack of territorial jurisdiction, effectively interrupted the prescriptive period for the crime of estafa.

RULING

Yes. The Supreme Court set aside the dismissal orders and remanded the case for trial. The Court held that the offense had not prescribed. Applying Article 91 of the Revised Penal Code, the prescriptive period commences from the discovery of the crime and is interrupted by the filing of a complaint or information. The period begins to run again only when proceedings terminate without conviction or acquittal.
The ruling emphasized the settled doctrine that jurisdiction in criminal cases is determined by the allegations in the complaint or information, not by the eventual result of the evidence. The Batangas complaint expressly alleged commission of the offense within its territory, thereby vesting it with jurisdiction to entertain the case at the time of filing. Consequently, the pendency of that case for twelve years—including the nine years Santos was a fugitive—validly interrupted the ten-year prescriptive period for estafa. The subsequent dismissal for lack of jurisdiction based on the evidence adduced did not retroactively nullify this interruption. The Court cited People v. Olarte, which established that the filing of a complaint in court, even one without jurisdiction, suspends the running of the statute of limitations. Therefore, when the information was filed in Manila in 1975, the prescriptive period had not lapsed. The Court ordered the Manila court to proceed with the trial with utmost dispatch, reproducing the evidence already presented in Batangas.