Supreme Court of the Philippines

GR No. 7593

GR No. 7593, March 27, 1913

THE UNITED STATES, COMPLAINANT AND APPEALER, AGAINST JOSE
M. IGPUARA, ACCUSED AND APPEALER.

DECISION

ARELLANO, CJ:

Accused the defendant of having committed the crime of fraud because he

appropriated, to the detriment of Juana Montilla and Eugenio Veraguth, 2,498
Philippine pesos that he had received as a deposit from Juana Montilla at the
disposal of Eugenio Veraguth. The document containing the obligation is as
follows: - "The amount of (P2498) two thousand four hundred and ninety-
eight pesos remains in our possession at the disposal of Mr. Eugenio
Veraguth, the rest of the amount of Juana Montilla's sugar. - Iloilo , June 26,
1911. - pp Ramirez & Co., Jose Igpuara. "

The Court of First Instance of Iloilo sentenced the defendant to two years of
correctional imprisonment, to pay Juana Montilla 2,498 Philippine pesos or
in case of insolvency to suffer subsidiary prison at the rate of P2.50 per day,
without being able to exceed the third part of the main penalty and payment
of costs. The defendant appealed.

I allege to be erroneous: 1st the having appraised the document granted by

the same as a restitution of deposit: 2nd the having estimated the extent of a
deposit, without having preceded tradition or material delivery of the 2498
pesos: 3rd the having classified as a crime of fraud the fact of cars.

"The deposit is constituted from the moment one receives the agena thing
with the obligation to keep it and to restore it." (Cod. Civ. 1758). The accused
received 2498 pesos, it is a proven fact. The processed book a docum, in
which he declares that they remain in his possession; He could not have said
that they were in his possession if he had not received them. And they were
in his power surely no other way than to keep it, since they remain with no
other object. They remained in the possession of the accused at the disposal
of Mr. Eugenio Ceraguth; but on August 23 of the same, Veraguth did not
require him by means of a notarial act for the restitution of the amount, and
he did not return it to date.

"The representative of Juana Montilla, says the appellant, voluntarily

accepted the amount of 2498 pesos in a document payable upon presentation
and just as he did not try to make it effective until August 23, 1911, he was
able to file or negotiate it like any other document. There is no doubt, he
continues, that if Mr. Veraguth accepted the receipt of P2498, it was because
at that time he agreed with the defendant to settle the sale in commission
transaction, leaving the collection of said amount for later, the which
remained as a loan payable upon presentation of the receipt. " (Alleg. 3 and
4)

After laying down the true facts: 1st having preceded a sales
commission; 2nd if this commission has been settled with a balance in favor
of the principal Juana Montilla of 2498 pesos; and 3rd, if this balance had
remained in the possession of the defendant, issuing a document payable
upon presentation, it has inferred two conclusions, both wrong: one, that the
document thus issued in the form of remains could have been endorsed or
negotiated like any other commercial document ; and another that the sum of
2498 pesos was held by the defendant as a loan.

The assertion of being endorsable like any other commercial document is

erroneous as long as it is made merit; first, because not every commercial
document is endorsable; and second, because only documents to order are
endorsable; with that not being a document to the order, but nominative, the
mentioned remain is not endorsable.

Also erroneous is the assertion that, according to what remains, the amount of
money in the expressed remained in the possession of the accused as a
loan. By virtue of the loan, what the lender or borrower transmits to the
borrower or borrower is the use of the thing given on loan, while in the
deposit the use of the thing deposited is not transmitted, but only the
possession for its custody or custody.

For the depositary to be able to use or dispose of the things that were
deposited, the consent of the depositor is required, and then "the rights and
obligations of the depositor and depositor will cease, according to the law,
and the applicable rules and provisions will be observed. to the mercantile
loan, to the commission or to the contract that in substitution of the deposit
they had entered into. (Cod. of Com. 309).

The defendant has not demonstrated any authorization or assistance of the

depositor to be able to use or dispose of the 2498 pesos that he accuses The
remainder, nor any contract that may have been entered into with the
depositor to convert the deposit into a loan, commission or any other contract
whatsoever.

Failure to be required for the restitution of the deposited amount that could
have been claimed on the same day or the day after the one on which the
remainder was signed cannot be turned against the depositor or have any
other meaning than the purpose of not pressuring it. Failure to immediately
claim or delay for some time the claim for the restitution of the thing
deposited, the restitution of which is due immediately, does not imply
concession of the use of the thing deposited that causes the deposit to be
denounced as a mutual loan.

The Commercial Code of 1829, prior to the one now in force, in its art. 408
provided that "the depositary of an amount of money cannot use it, and if he
does so, all damages that occur in the amount deposited will remain in his
charge and he will satisfy the depositor with the legal return of its
amount." In this case, the commentators of that Code said, for its purposes
the deposit becomes mutual, a just punishment imposed on the person who
thus abuses the sacred title of deposit and which is a means of preventing the
stimulus of earnings from making him enter in speculations that can be fatal
to the deponent, much more insured while the deposit exists, than when he
only has a personal action left to claim. According to article 548, case 5 of
the Criminal Code, those commentators continued saying, Those who, to the
detriment of another, appropriate or distract money, effects or any other
movable thing that they received in deposit, commission or administration or
by another title that produces an obligation to deliver or return it or deny
having received it, will incur the penalties of art. above (what a penalty such
an act as a crime of fraud). The corresponding article in the Criminal Code of
the Philippines is 535, case 5.o.

In a judgment of cassation of September 28, 1895, the doctrine is stated that

"committing the crime of fraud according to No. 5 of article 548 of the
Spanish Penal Code, who to the detriment of another seizes or distracts
money or effects received In commission to deliver them, the sentencing
chamber has correctly applied this article to the appellant who, with notorious
damage, since he has not yet reinstated the person or persons who own the
securities, voluntarily and abusively disposed of them, appropriating them or
even distracting them from the destination. who was commissioned to give
them. "

It is unquestionable that by no title were the 2498 pesos that he voluntarily

and abusively used to the detriment of his principal Juana Montilla and the
depositor Eugenio Veraguth belonged to the accused.

Wrong is also the intelligence that seems to want to be given to two decisions
of this Supreme Court as implying that for this Supreme Court what
constitutes fraud is not having the money deposited but denying having
received it. In the first of these cases there was no evidence that the defendant
had appropriated the grain deposited in his possession, "but on the contrary,
all probabilities are that after the departure of the defendant from the town of
Libmanan, on December 20 In 1898, two days after the uprising of the Nueva
Caceres Civil Guard, the revolutionary troops would have seized the palay,
"and, given this, it was said that it is not enough not to return the thing
deposited, but that proof of that the depositary has appropriated or diverted
the deposit for his own benefit or that of another. It was accused of refusal to
return and it was said that the Code did not penalize the refusal to return but
the refusal to have received. This in terms of crime of omission; that
regarding the crime of commission, it has not been said, in the decision, that
appropriating or distracting the thing deposited was not a crime of fraud. in
the second of these decisions, "the defendant did not keep any part of the
proceeds of the sale: this product, whatever it may have been, was delivered
by the defendant to the owner; and there being no proof of appropriation, the
commission agent could not be condemned as defendant of scam. that
appropriating or distracting the thing deposited was not the crime of fraud. in
the second of these decisions, "the defendant did not keep any part of the
proceeds of the sale: this product, whatever it may have been, was delivered
by the defendant to the owner; and there being no proof of appropriation, the
commission agent could not be condemned as defendant of scam. that
appropriating or distracting the thing deposited was not the crime of fraud. in
the second of these decisions, "the defendant did not keep any part of the sale
proceeds: this product, whatever it may have been, was delivered by the
defendant to the owner; and in the absence of proof of the appropriation, the
commission agent could not be condemned as defendant of scam.

Being in accordance with the law and arranged according to the merits of the
process, the sentence appealed.

It is confirmed with the costs.

Ten days after the sentence was handed down and ten days after it was
handed down, the case was returned.

So ordered.

Gomez, Johnson and Trent.

THE UNITED STATES, COMPLAINANT AND APPEALER, AGAINST

JOSE M. IGPUARA, ACCUSED AND APPEALER.

CRIME OF SCAM: APPROPRIATION OF MONEY REMAINING IN THE

POWER OF THE COMMISSIONER AT THE DISPOSAL OF ITS
OWNER, THE COMMITTEE.-

The balance of a commission account that remains in the possession of the

commissioner at the disposal of the principal, acquires from this moment the
concept of amount received in deposit, that he is obliged to return or restore
him at any time that he claims it, without being able to lawfully dispose of it
unless he is convicted of a crime, for distracting for its use or appropriating
something of agena belonging that for no another title has become his.

It could only become yours by way of the amount received on loan, if the
owner's will expressly stated, which would then be subject to the obligation
of not being able to claim it unless the expiration, or legal or conventional, of
the term in which it can be done effective a debt on the basis of a loan.

And without a doubt he commits the crime of fraud, the one that having in his
possession a certain and determined amount of money as a deposit at the
disposal of his owner, distracts it for his own use or appropriates it to the
detriment of this, well known, put that he has not yet reimbursed, thus acting
voluntarily and abusively for no other reason than to trust him.

APPEAL against a judgment of the Iloilo Court of First Instance.

The facts are listed in the decision of the Court.

WA KINCAID & HARTIGAN, for the appellant.

FISCAL GENERAL, for the Government.

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Supreme Court of the Philippines

G.R. No. 8026

G.R. No. 8026, March 27, 1913

THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE. VERSUS TEODORO
CASTILLO AND DAMASO MANIQUIS , DEFENDANTS AND
APPELLANTS.

DECISION

MORELAND, J.:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Courty of First Instance of Nueva

Ecija, convicting the accused of the crime of robbery of an inhabitated house,
being armed, and sentencing each one of them to 12 years and 1 day of
cadena temporal under Art. 508, paragraph 4, Penal Code, with the
accessories provided by law, to indemnify the family of the offended party in
the sum of P500, and to pay one-half of the costs.

It appears that Donato Ur Leon who, with his wife, was the owner of the
goods robbed, declared that about 7 o'clock on the night in question his house
was assaulted  by four men, three of whom carried bolos and the fourth a
revolver. He recognized among the four the two accused, Teodoro Castillo
and Damaso Maniquis. Teodoro Castillo fired three shots, and then Leon,
living his wife, escaped by the window and did not return until after the trunk
which he had in the house had been opened and the contents had been taken
out and carried away. The contents of the trunk consisted of money and of
jewelry. As soon as he had escaped he went to the teniente of the barrio and
secured the arrest of the accused; that upon the arrest of Teodoro Castillo he
made a confession before many people, admitting that he had committed the
crime. Damaso Manique was not arrested until some time afterwards. Leon
testified also that among the four thieves Teodoro was the first who entered
the house and immediately after him came Damaso Maniquis; that he
recognized the two clearly; that he had known Teodoro Castillo before
because he had been several times at the house to buy things, and that he had
had no trouble with any of these people.

The testimony of this witness is corroborated by that of his wife. Juana

Dizon, who adds the information that after Leon had disappeared through the
window leaving her alone with the armed robbers, she saw Damaso Maniquis
carry the trunk and pass it through the window. She stated also that he did
this without her consent and without the consent of her husband. She declared
also that of the four individuals she recognized only the two accused. She
recognized Damaso because she had seen him before frequently and she
identified him in the presidencia soon after he was arrested. She recognized
Teodoro Castillo also and asserted that she had heard his confession. She said
that while they were in the house they pointed a revolver at her and
threatened her with bolos, but they did not do her any personal damage.

The other witnesses called by the prosecution were the two policemen, Julio
Sagana and Eligio Gabriel, who testified that Donato told them about the
robbery, mentioning Teodoro Castillo and Damaso Maniquis as two of the
thieves; that they immediately went to the house of Teodoro where they
surprised him and captured him. They captured him on the night of the
robbery. When thay found him, he and his wife and one Joaquin were talking
in a low voice while still another person was on guard below; that the
accused was wet and his trousers were covered with mud and he appeared to
be tired. These two policemen heard the confession of the accused and say
that it was made before many people; that they said nothing to him on the
way from his house to the house of Donato and that he did not say who were
his companions in the robbery.

The defense of the accused is an alibi. They present several witnesses who
testify that the accused were not at the place of the robbery on the night in
question, but were at other places more or less distant therefrom.

The identity of the accused is proved beyond question. Donato, on the very
night of the robbery and immediately after his escape, complained the
authorities, naming the individuals here on appeal and stating that they were
the persons who had committed the robbery. The court below had no
hesitation in finding the accused guilty of the crime of robbery, and we are
equally certain, after a careful examination of the whole record. that they
have been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The court found them
guilty of the crime of robbing an inhabitated house, at the same time  carrying
arms, in violation of Article 508, paragraph 4, of the Penal Code.

The qualification of the crime and the penalty imposed is not proper. The
house was not entered in any of the ways required to bring the case within the
provisions of Art. 508 of the Penal Code. The crime should be punished
under paragraph 5 of Art. 503, bearing in mind the aggravating circumstances
of nocturnity and dwelling.

The judgment is modified and the accused are each hereby sentenced to 6
years, 10 months and 1 day of presidio correcional, to the accessories
provided by law, to indemnify Donato Ur de Leon in the sum of P500 and to
pay one-half the costs. No costs in this court.

After the expiration of 10 days let judgment be entered in accordance

herewith, and 10 days thereafter let the case be returned to the court whence
it came for execution.

So ordered.

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