G.R. No. 102342, July 03, 1992
LUZ M. ZALDIVIA, PETITIONER, VS. HON. ANDRES B. REYES, JR.,
IN HIS CAPACITY AS ACTING PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, FOURTH
JUDICIAL REGION, BRANCH 76, SAN MATEO, RIZAL, AND PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES,
RESPONDENTS.
D E C I S I O N
CRUZ, J.:
The Court is asked to determine the applicable law
specifying the prescriptive period for violations of municipal ordinances.
The petitioner is charged with quarrying for commercial
purposes without a mayor's permit in violation of Ordinance No. 2, Series of
1988, of the Municipality of Rodriguez, in the Province of Rizal.
The offense was allegedly committed on May 11, 1990.[1] The
referral-complaint of the police was received by the Office of the Provincial
Prosecutor of Rizal on May 30, 1990.[2] The corresponding information was filed
with the Municipal Trial Court of Rodriguez on October 2, 1990.[3]
The petitioner moved to quash the information on the ground
that the crime had prescribed, but the motion was denied. On appeal to the
Regional Trial Court of Rizal, the denial was sustained by the respondent
judge.[4]
In the present petition for review on certiorari, the
petitioner first argues that the charge against her is governed by the
following provisions of the Rule on Summary Procedure:
Section 1. Scope. -- This rule shall govern the procedure in
the Metropolitan Trial Courts, the Municipal Trial Courts, and the Municipal
Circuit Trial Courts in the following cases:
x x x
B. Criminal Cases:
1.
Violations of traffic laws, rules and regulations;
2.
Violations of rental law;
3.
Violations of municipal or city ordinances;
4. All
other criminal cases where the penalty prescribed by law for the offense
charged does not exceed six months imprisonment, or a fine of one thousand
pesos (P1,000.00), or both, irrespective of other imposable penalties,
accessory or otherwise, or of the civil liability arising therefrom. x x
x" (Emphasis supplied.)
x x x
Section 9. How commenced. – The prosecution of criminal
cases falling within the scope of this Rule shall be either by complaint or by
information filed directly in court without need of a prior preliminary
examination or preliminary investigation: Provided, however, That in
Metropolitan Manila and chartered cities, such cases shall be commenced only by
information; Provided, further, That when the offense cannot be prosecuted de
oficio, the corresponding complaint shall be signed and sworn to before the
fiscal by the offended party.
She then invokes Act No. 3326, as amended, entitled "An
Act to Establish Periods of Prescription for Violations Penalized by Special
Acts and Municipal Ordinances and to Provide When Prescription Shall Begin to
Run," reading as follows:
Section 1. Violations penalized by special acts shall,
unless otherwise provided in such acts, prescribe in accordance with the
following rules: x x x Violations penalized by municipal ordinances shall
prescribe after two months.
Section 2. Prescription shall begin to run from the day of
the commission of the violation of the law, and if the same be not known at the
time, from the discovery thereof and the institution of judicial proceedings
for its investigation and punishment.
The prescription shall be interrupted when proceedings are
instituted against the guilty person, and shall begin to run again if the
proceedings are dismissed for reasons not constituting jeopardy.
Section 3. For the purposes of this Act, special acts shall
be acts defining and penalizing violations of law not included in the Penal
Code." (Emphasis supplied)
Her conclusion is that as the information was filed way
beyond the two-month statutory period from the date of the alleged commission
of the offense, the charge against her should have been dismissed on the ground
of prescription.
For its part, the prosecution contends that the prescriptive
period was suspended upon the filing of the complaint against her with the
Office of the Provincial Prosecutor. Agreeing with the respondent judge, the
Solicitor General also invokes Section 1, Rule 110 of the 1985 Rules on
Criminal Procedure, providing as follows:
Section 1. How Instituted - For offenses not subject to the
rule on summary procedure in special cases, the institution of criminal action
shall be as follows:
a) For
offenses falling under the jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Court, by filing
the complaint with the appropriate officer for the purpose of conducting the
requisite preliminary investigation therein;
b) For offenses falling under the
jurisdiction of the Municipal Trial Courts and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts,
by filing the complaint directly with the said courts, or a complaint with the
fiscals office. However, in Metropolitan Manila and other chartered cities, the
complaint may be filed only with the office of the fiscal.
In all cases such institution interrupts the period of
prescription of the offense charged. (Emphasis supplied.)
Emphasis is laid on the last paragraph. The respondent
maintains that the filing of the complaint with the Office of the Provincial
Prosecutor comes under the phrase "such institution" and that the
phrase "in all cases" applies to all cases, without distinction,
including those falling under the Rule on Summary Procedure.
The said paragraph, according to the respondent, was an
adoption of the following dictum in Francisco v. Court of Appeals:[5]
In view of this diversity of precedents, and in order to
provide guidance for Bench and Bar, this Court has re-examined the question
and, after mature consideration, has arrived at the conclusion that the true
doctrine is, and should be, the one established by the decisions holding that
the filing of the complaint in the Municipal Court, even if it be merely for
purposes of preliminary examination or investigation, should, and does,
interrupt the period of prescription of the criminal responsibility, even if
the court where the complaint or information is filed can not try the case on
its merits. Several reasons buttress this conclusion: first, the text of
Article 91 of the Revised Penal Code, in declaring that the period of
prescription "shall be interrupted by the filing of the complaint or
information" without distinguishing whether the complaint is filed in the
court for preliminary examination or investigation merely, or for action on the
merits. Second, even if the court where the complaint or information is filed
may only proceed to investigate the case, its actuations already represent the
initial step of the proceedings against the offender. Third, it is unjust to
deprive the injured party of the right to obtain vindication on account of
delays that are not under his control. All that the victim of the offense may
do on his part to initiate the prosecution is to file the requisite complaint.
It is important to note that this decision was promulgated
on May 30, 1983, two months before the promulgation of the Rule on Summary
Procedure on August 1, 1983. On the other hand, Section 1 of Rule 110 is new,
having been incorporated therein with the revision of the Rules on Criminal
Procedure on January 1, 1985, except for the last paragraph, which was added on
October 1, 1988.
That section meaningfully begins with the phrase, "for
offenses not subject to the rule on summary procedure in special cases,"
which plainly signifies that the section does not apply to offenses which are
subject to summary procedure. The phrase "in all cases" appearing in
the last paragraph obviously refers to the cases covered by the Section, that
is, those offenses not governed by the Rule on Summary Procedure. This
interpretation conforms to the canon that words in a statute should be read in
relation to and not isolation from the rest of the measure, to discover the
true legislative intent.
As it is clearly provided in the Rule on Summary Procedure
that among the offenses it covers are violations of municipal or city
ordinances, it should follow that the charge against the petitioner, which is
for violation of a municipal ordinance of Rodriguez, is governed by that rule
and not Section 1 of Rule 110.
Where paragraph (b) of the section does speak of
"offenses falling under the jurisdiction of the Municipal Trial Courts and
Municipal Circuit Trial Courts," the obvious reference is to Section 32(2)
of B.P. No. 129, vesting in such courts:
(2) Exclusive original jurisdiction over all offenses
punishable with imprisonment of not exceeding four years and two months, or a
fine of not more than four thousand pesos, or both such fine and imprisonment,
regardless of other imposable accessory or other penalties, including the civil
liability arising from such offenses or predicated thereon, irrespective of
kind, nature, value, or amount thereof; Provided, however, That in offenses
involving damage to property through criminal negligence they shall have
exclusive original jurisdiction where the imposable fine does not exceed twenty
thousand pesos.
These offenses are not covered by the Rule on Summary
Procedure.
Under Section 9 of the Rule on Summary Procedure, "the
complaint or information shall be filed directly in court without need of a
prior preliminary examination or preliminary investigation."[6] Both
parties agree that this provision does not prevent the prosecutor from
conducting a preliminary investigation if he wants to. However, the case shall
be deemed commenced only when it is filed in court, whether or not the
prosecution decides to conduct a preliminary investigation. This means that the
running of the prescriptive period shall be halted on the date the case is
actually filed in court and not on any date before that.
This interpretation is in consonance with the afore-quoted
Act No. 3326 which says that the period of prescription shall be suspended "when
proceedings are instituted against the guilty party." The proceedings
referred to in Section 2 thereof are "judicial proceedings," contrary
to the submission of the Solicitor General that they include administrative
proceedings. His contention is that we must not distinguish as the law does not
distinguish. As a matter of fact, it does.
At any rate, the Court feels that if there be a conflict
between the Rule on Summary Procedure and Section 1 of Rule 110 of the Rules on
Criminal Procedure, the former should prevail as the special law. And if there
be a conflict between Act No. 3326 and Rule 110 of the Rules on Criminal
Procedure, the latter must again yield because this Court, in the exercise of
its rule-making power, is not allowed to "diminish, increase or modify
substantive rights" under Article VIII, Section 5(5) of the Constitution.
Prescription in criminal cases is a substantive right.[7]
Going back to the Francisco case, we find it not irrelevant
to observe that the decision would have been conformable to Section 1, Rule
110, as the offense involved was grave oral defamation punishable under the
Revised Penal Code with arresto mayor in its maximum period to prision
correccional in its minimum period. By contrast, the prosecution in the instant
case is for violation of a municipal ordinance, for which the penalty cannot
exceed six months,[8] and is thus covered by the Rule on Summary Procedure.
The Court realizes that under the above interpretation, a
crime may prescribe even if the complaint is filed seasonably with the
prosecutor's office if, intentionally or not, he delays the institution of the
necessary judicial proceedings until its too late. However, that possibility
should not justify a misreading of the applicable rules beyond their obvious
intent as reasonably deduced from their plain language. The remedy is not a
distortion of the meaning of the rules but a rewording thereof to prevent the
problem here sought to be corrected.
Our conclusion is that the prescriptive period for the crime
imputed to the petitioner commenced from its alleged commission on May 11,
1990, and ended two months thereafter, on July 11, 1990, in accordance with
Section 1 of Act No. 3326. It was not interrupted by the filing of the
complaint with the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor on May 30, 1990, as this
was not a judicial proceeding. The judicial proceeding that could have
interrupted the period was the filing of the information with the Municipal
Trial Court of Rodriguez, but this was done only on October 2, 1990, after the
crime had already prescribed.
WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED, and the challenged Order
dated October 2, 1991 is SET ASIDE. Criminal Case No. 90-089 in the Municipal
Trial Court of Rodriguez, Rizal, is hereby DISMISSED on the ground of
prescription. It is so ordered.
Narvasa, C.J., Gutierrez, Jr., Paras, Feliciano, Padilla,
Bidin, Griño-Aquino, Medialdea, Regalado, Davide, Jr., Romero, Nocon, and
Bellosillo, JJ., concur.
[1] Rollo, p. 18.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Id., p. 19; Through Judge Andres B. Reyes, Jr.
[4] id., p. 21.
[5] 122 SCRA 538.
[6] The phrase "filed directly in court without need of
prior preliminary examination or preliminary investigation" was deleted
under the Revised Rule on Summary Procedure effective on November 15, 1991.
[7] People vs. Castro, 95 Phil. 463.
[8] Section 447, Local Government Code.