G.R. No. 84087 April 12, 1989
TEODORA CATUIRA, petitioner, vs. THE HON. COURT OF APPEALS, THE HON. EUSTAQUIO P. STO. DOMINGO, and THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Teodora Catuira was charged with ten counts of violating the Bouncing Checks Law (B.P. Blg. 22). She filed a motion to quash the informations on two grounds: that they did not charge an offense and that the criminal action had prescribed. The prosecution opposed but subsequently filed an Ex Parte Motion to Amend Informations, attaching ten amended informations. The Regional Trial Court (RTC) denied the motion to quash. It ruled the first ground was moot due to the filing of amended informations under Rule 110, Section 14 of the Rules of Court. On prescription, the RTC held the offenses, involving amounts like P17,800, carried an afflictive penalty prescribing in fifteen years per Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC). Since the checks were issued in 1982 and the informations filed in 1986, prescription had not set in.
Catuira elevated the matter via a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, which referred it to the Court of Appeals (CA). The CA dismissed the petition for insufficiency in form and substance, noting the failure to submit certified true copies of the assailed orders as required by Rule 65. It also found the alleged errors were not jurisdictional and could be raised during trial, making certiorari improper. Catuira then filed this special civil action for certiorari under Rule 65 to annul the CA’s resolution.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of Appeals committed grave abuse of discretion in dismissing Catuira’s petition for certiorari.

RULING

The Supreme Court denied the petition, finding no grave abuse of discretion by the CA. The dismissal was proper due to Catuira’s failure to comply with the mandatory requirement of Section 1, Rule 65 to submit certified true copies of the challenged RTC orders, rendering her petition deficient in form. On substance, the RTC correctly admitted the amended informations, as the fiscal’s authority to file them before the accused pleads is expressly sanctioned by Rule 110, Section 14. This was a valid exercise of jurisdiction, not correctable by certiorari but by appeal. Regarding prescription, the trial court correctly ruled it had not set in, albeit for a different reason. The charges were for estafa through bouncing checks under Article 315(2)(d) of the RPC, as increased by P.D. No. 818. For amounts over P12,000, the penalty is reclusion temporal, the prescription for which is twenty years under Article 90 of the RPC, not fifteen. Even under the special law on prescription (Act No. 3326, as amended), which Catuira invoked, the twelve-year period had not lapsed when the informations were filed in 1986. Thus, the CA’s dismissal was legally sound.