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NACHURA,J.:
On August 16, 1984, petitioners were charged before the Regional Trial Court (RTC)
of Makati with, as aforesaid, the crime of other forms of swindling in the
Information,1 docketed as Criminal Case No. 11787, which reads:
Contrary to law.2
After trial on the merits, the RTC rendered its Decision3 on June 30, 1994, finding
petitioners guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime charged and sentencing
them to suffer the penalty of imprisonment for two months and to pay the fine of
P18,085.00 each.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals, in its February 19, 1999 Decision4 in CA-G.R. CR
No. 18270, affirmed the decision of the trial court. In its December 22, 1999
Resolution,5 the appellate court further denied petitioners motion for
reconsideration.
Assailing the aforesaid issuances of the appellate court, petitioners filed before this
Court, on February 11, 2000, their petition for review, docketed as G.R. No.
141208.6 The Court, however, on March 13, 2000, denied the same for petitioners
failure to state the material dates. Since it subsequently denied petitioners motion
for reconsideration on June 28, 2000,7 the judgment of conviction became final and
executory.
With the consequent issuance by the trial court of the April 19, 2001 Warrant of
Arrest,8 the police arrested, on April 27, 2001, petitioner Carmelita C. Llamas for her
to serve her 2-month jail term. The police, nevertheless, failed to arrest petitioner
Francisco R. Llamas because he was nowhere to be found.9
On July 16, 2001, petitioner Francisco moved for the lifting or recall of the warrant of
arrest, raising for the first time the issue that the trial court had no jurisdiction over
the offense charged.10
There being no action taken by the trial court on the said motion, petitioners
instituted, on September 13, 2001, the instant proceedings for the annulment of the
trial and the appellate courts decisions.
The Court initially dismissed on technical grounds the petition in the September 24,
2001 Resolution,11 but reinstated the same, on motion for reconsideration, in the
October 22, 2001 Resolution.12
Section 1, Rule 47 of the Rules of Court, limits the scope of the remedy of
annulment of judgment to the following:
The remedy cannot be resorted to when the RTC judgment being questioned was
rendered in a criminal case. The 2000 Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure itself
does not permit such recourse, for it excluded Rule 47 from the enumeration of the
provisions of the 1997 Revised Rules of Civil Procedure which have suppletory
application to criminal cases. Section 18, Rule 124 thereof, provides:
There is no basis in law or the rules, therefore, to extend the scope of Rule 47 to
criminal cases. As we explained in Macalalag v. Ombudsman, when there is no law
or rule providing for this remedy, recourse to it cannot be allowed x x x.14
Here, petitioners are invoking the remedy under Rule 47 to assail a decision in a
criminal case. Following Bitanga, this Court cannot allow such recourse, there being
no basis in law or in the rules.
In substance, the petition must likewise fail. The trial court which rendered the
assailed decision had jurisdiction over the criminal case.
Jurisdiction being a matter of substantive law, the established rule is that the
statute in force at the time of the commencement of the action determines the
jurisdiction of the court.15 In this case, at the time of the filing of the information,
the applicable law was Batas Pambansa Bilang 129,16 approved on August 14,
1981, which pertinently provides:
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Article 316(2) of the RPC, the provision which penalizes the crime charged in the
information, provides that
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2.Any person who, knowing that real property is encumbered, shall dispose of the
same, although such encumbrance be not recorded.
The penalty for the crime charged in this case is arresto mayor in its minimum and
medium periods, which has a duration of 1 month and 1 day to 4 months, and a fine
of not less than the value of the damage caused and not more than three times
such value. Here, as alleged in the information, the value of the damage caused, or
the imposable fine, is P12,895.00. Clearly, from a reading of the information, the
jurisdiction over the criminal case was with the RTC and not the Metropolitan Trial
Court (MeTC). The MeTC could not have acquired jurisdiction over the criminal
action because at the time of the filing of the information, its jurisdiction was limited
to offenses punishable with a fine of not more than P4,000.00.17
SO ORDERED.
Petition denied.