Title
Garcia vs. Court of Appeals
Case
G.R. No. 119063
Decision Date
Jan 27, 1997
A man accused his wife of bigamy, but the case was dismissed as the 15-year prescriptive period began when he discovered her prior marriage in 1974, expiring before the 1992 filing.
bigamy
prescriptive period
criminal liability
A

Case Summary (G.R. No. 118408)

Factual Background

The petitioner and the private respondent were husband and wife in circumstances that later produced civil and criminal litigation. The petitioner alleged that the private respondent had previously contracted a marriage with one Reynaldo Quiroca on December 1, 1951, under the name Adela Santos, and that he discovered that prior marriage in 1974. The petitioner testified in Civil Case No. 90-52730 on January 23, 1991 that he learned from Eugenia R. Balingit in 1974 that the private respondent "was already married to another man." The petitioner also filed a complaint with the Civil Service Commission on October 16, 1991 that stated the facts were "discovered only by the herein complainant in the year 1974."

Criminal Information and Charge

Assistant Prosecutor George F. Cabanilla filed an information on January 8, 1992, dated November 15, 1991, charging the private respondent with Bigamy under C.A. No. 142, as amended by R.A. No. 6085, and initially with Falsification of Public Documents though the petitioner limited his action to bigamy. The information alleged that the private respondent, being previously married to Reynaldo Quiroca and without dissolution of that marriage, unlawfully contracted a second marriage with the petitioner on or before February 2, 1957, and that the prior marriage "was discovered in 1989," to the damage and prejudice of the offended party.

Motion to Quash and Grounds

On March 2, 1992 the private respondent filed a Motion to Quash the information on the ground of prescription. She asserted that, by the petitioner's own sworn statements in the 1991 civil trial and in his October 16, 1991 complaint before the Civil Service Commission, the petitioner discovered the prior marriage in 1974. Relying on Art. 91 and Art. 92 of the Revised Penal Code, she maintained that bigamy, being punishable by prision mayor and thus an afflictive penalty under Art. 25, prescribed in fifteen years from discovery and therefore had prescribed before the filing of the information.

Trial Court Ruling

The trial court granted the motion to quash in its June 29, 1992 order. The court accepted that discovery occurred in 1974 and held that the prescriptive period for the afflictive penalty of prision mayor was fifteen years under Art. 92, so the offense had prescribed when the information was filed on November 15, 1991. The trial court rejected the prosecution's argument that prescription should be counted from the time sufficient evidence was gathered, observing that Art. 91 provides prescription commences "from the day on which the crime is discovered" and does not require the gathering of sufficient evidence. The court also denied reconsideration, finding that the private respondent's intermittent foreign travels did not interrupt the running of prescription.

Petitioner’s Reconsideration and Evidence of Absence Abroad

The petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration asserting that the private respondent's multiple sojourns abroad, as reflected in a Bureau of Immigration certification listing departures and arrivals between 1977 and 1988, interrupted the running of prescription under the proviso in Art. 91 that "the term of prescription shall not run when the offender is absent from the Philippine Archipelago." The trial court found that the certification showed only brief returns and departures and that these sojourns did not amount to the kind of absence contemplated by Art. 91 that would suspend prescription.

Court of Appeals Decision

The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court. It credited the private respondent's evidence and concluded that discovery occurred in 1974; because the information was filed in 1992, the fifteen-year prescriptive period had lapsed. The Court of Appeals also held that prescription is a mode of extinguishing criminal liability under Art. 89(5) of the Revised Penal Code and may be invoked at any stage, including on appeal, and that prescription is not waived by omission of the defense.

Issues Presented on Certiorari

Before the Supreme Court the petitioner advanced four principal assignments of error: (I) prescription should be counted from the time the State discovered the crime because bigamy is a public offense; (II) a motion to quash cannot go beyond the allegations of the information; (III) the factual bases cited in the motion to quash were inconclusive and insufficient to establish discovery in 1974; and (IV) assuming prescription commenced in 1974, the prescriptive period was interrupted several times by the private respondent's foreign departures.

The Supreme Court’s Analysis on Offended Party and Commencement of Prescription

The Court rejected the petitioner's contention that only the State may be the offended party for purposes of commencing prescription in public crimes. The Court construed Art. 91 to allow discovery by "the offended party, the authorities, or their agents" without distinction between public and private crimes. The Court relied on Section 12, Rule 110 of the Rules of Court, which defines the "offended party" as "the person against whom or against whose property, the offense was committed," and on Art. 100 of the Revised Penal Code which makes the criminally liable person civilly liable. The Court held that the offended party for prescription purposes is reasonably the private individual to whom the offender is civilly liable, and that in bigamy either the first or the second spouse may be the offended party depending on circumstances. The Court noted that the petitioner himself was described as "the offended party" in the information and thus could not insist that only the State's discovery controlled commencement of prescription.

The Supreme Court’s Analysis on Motion to Quash and Admission of External Facts

The Court addressed the petitioner's claim that a motion to quash could not go beyond the information's allegation that discovery occurred in 1989. The Court observed that exceptions to the general rule that allegations in the information are accepted as true include grounds for quash that involve extinction of liability. It explained that no express or implied repeal of the former Section 4 of the old Rule 117 occurred; the revised Rule 117 retained the substance of former Sections 3, 4, and 5 and provided in Sec. 2 that a motion to quash "shall specify distinctly the factual and legal grounds therefor," thereby allowing factual matters outside the information to be introduced where extinction of criminal liability

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