GR 73854; (May, 1989) (Digest)
G.R. No. 73854 May 9, 1989
JOSE DE LA CONCEPCION y PULONG, petitioner, vs. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES and SANDIGANBAYAN, respondents.
FACTS
Petitioner Jose de la Concepcion, a registration clerk at Manila Bank, was tasked on December 17, 1982, to register certain deeds and pay a transfer tax to the Municipal Treasurer of Makati using a Manila Bank cashier’s check (No. 998922) for P26,250. He returned the documents to the bank on January 4, 1983, falsely reporting the tasks as accomplished. On March 8, 1983, Teresita Genese, a revenue clerk of the Quezon City Treasurer’s Office, borrowed P26,250 from a co-worker’s tax collection, repaying it with a check that was later deposited. This check was discovered to be the same Check No. 998922, but its payee had been altered from “Municipal Treasurer of Makati” to “Municipal Treasurer of Quezon City.” Manila Bank dishonored the check due to the alteration.
ISSUE
Whether the Sandiganbayan correctly convicted petitioner of the complex crime of estafa through falsification of a commercial document based on circumstantial evidence.
RULING
Yes, the Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, though it modified the penalty. The Court held that while the evidence against petitioner was circumstantial, it was sufficient to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The confluence of circumstances—petitioner’s exclusive possession of the unissued check, his false report of accomplished tasks, the subsequent alteration of the payee on the check, and the check’s surfacing in a transaction involving his co-accused Genese—formed an unbroken chain leading to the reasonable and moral certainty that petitioner participated in the falsification to defraud the Quezon City government. The Court clarified that only the Quezon City Treasurer’s Office suffered damage, as Manila Bank successfully dishonored the check. For the complex crime, the penalty for the more serious offense of estafa was applied in its maximum period. Applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law, petitioner was sentenced to an indeterminate penalty of four years and two months of prision correccional as minimum, to six years, eight months, and twenty days of prision mayor as maximum, and ordered to reimburse the amount jointly and severally with Genese.