G.R. No. 177425 - Gipa vs. Southern Luzon Institute

The petitioner, Delia Ines Ringor, was charged in Criminal Case No. 2278-K filed before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Cabugao, Ilocos Sur for an Information charging her with estafa under paragraph 1(b), Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC).
Upon arraignment on October 21, 2004, the petitioner entered a plea of not guilty, and after the pre-trial conference was deemed terminated on November 4, 2004, the case proceeded to trial on the merits.
Following the trial, the RTC rendered a Decision on September 8, 2009, finding the petitioner guilty beyond reasonable doubt of estafa and sentencing her to an indeterminate penalty of prision correccional to prision mayor, along with an order to indemnify Peoples Consumer Store (PCS) the sum of ₱66,860.90.

The petitioner was employed as a sales clerk/agent of Peoples Consumer Store (PCS), a merchandise distributor owned by Honesto Ibarra and managed by Annelyn Ingan.
In her capacity as a sales clerk/agent, her duties included:

Scouting the towns of Sinait, Badoc, Currimao, and Batac in Ilocos Sur for potential customers.
Soliciting and noting down orders from customers.
Submitting the orders to Ingan for approval and, upon approval, delivering the ordered merchandise along with accompanying delivery receipts.
Collecting payments from the customers, which she was obliged to remit to PCS.

On March 24, 2003, the petitioner booked an order of grocery products from L.A. Currimao Store (LACS).

The order amounted to ₱68,622.90, but the delivered merchandise’s value was only ₱66,860.90 due to one item being unavailable at that time.

After delivering the merchandise to LACS, the petitioner issued a handwritten delivery receipt to Ingan and, seven days later, reported that she had lost the money collected from LACS.
In her explanation, she initially claimed to have been a victim of a robbery and later changed her account to state that she lost the money in a mini bus.
Testimonies from Ingan and her brother, Nestor Ibarra, indicated inconsistencies in the petitioner’s account and confirmed that she failed to remit the ₱66,860.90 to PCS after collecting it.

The RTC’s findings proved that the petitioner misappropriated the payment collected from LACS by failing to deliver it to PCS, constituting estafa.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals (CA) rendered its Decision on August 12, 2011, affirming the RTC’s factual findings but modified the conviction from estafa to qualified theft under Article 310 in relation to Article 308 of the RPC.

The CA imposed an indeterminate penalty of ten (10) years and one (1) day of prision mayor as minimum to twenty (20) years of reclusion temporal as maximum.
The actual damages in the amount of ₱66,860.90 were also affirmed.

The petitioner’s motion for reconsideration was denied by the CA in its Resolution dated October 5, 2011.
Ultimately, the petitioner elevated the case to the Supreme Court through a Petition for Review on Certiorari, seeking to annul the CA’s Decision and Resolution on the ground that the prosecution failed to establish all the elements necessary for qualified theft.

Whether the Court of Appeals (CA) erred in convicting the petitioner of the felony of qualified theft under Article 310 in relation to Article 308 of the RPC.

Whether the prosecution was able to establish, by evidence on record, that the petitioner took the payment intended for PCS from LACS.
Whether it was indeed part of the petitioner’s job description to personally collect payments from PCS’ customers, thereby imposing upon her a duty of remittance and a high degree of trust (grave abuse of confidence).
Whether the lack of direct evidence regarding the taking of the money undermines the prosecution’s case for qualified theft.