This case has been cited 4 times or more.
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2012-06-26 |
ABAD, J. |
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| In the prosecution of cases of behest loans, the Court reckoned the prescriptive period from the discovery of such loans. The reason for this is that the government, as aggrieved party, could not have known that those loans existed when they were made. Both parties to such loans supposedly conspired to perpetrate fraud against the government. They could only have been discovered after the 1986 EDSA Revolution when the people ousted President Marcos from office. And, prior to that date, no person would have dared question the legality or propriety of the loans.[20] | |||||
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2012-06-26 |
ABAD, J. |
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| Lastly, I need to remind that in the interpretation of the law on prescription of crimes, that which is most favorable to the accused is to be adopted.[22] As between Section 2 of Republic Act No. 3326 and Article 91 of the Revised Penal Code, therefore, the former is controlling due to its being more favorable to the accused. This interpretation also accords most with the nature of prescription as a statute of repose whose object is to suppress fraudulent and stale claims from springing up at great distances of time and surprising the parties or their representatives when the facts have become obscure from the lapse of time or the defective memory or death or removal of witnesses.[23] More than being an act of grace, prescription, as a statute of limitation, is equivalent to an act of amnesty, which shall begin to run upon the commission of the offense rather than upon the discovery of the offense.[24] | |||||
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2006-07-28 |
YNARES-SANTIAGO, J. |
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| In the case at bar, the flaw in the information is not a mere remediable defect of form, as in Pecho v. Sandiganbayan where the wording of the certification in the information was found inadequate, or in People v. Marquez, where the required certification was absent. Here, the informations were filed by an unauthorized party. The defect cannot be cured even by conducting another preliminary investigation. An invalid information is no information at all and cannot be the basis for criminal proceedings.[8] | |||||
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2004-10-21 |
SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ, J. |
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| The Ombudsman dismissed OMB Case No. 0-97-1740 by reason of prescription. Section 11 of Republic Act No. 3019 provides that all offenses punishable under this Act shall prescribe in ten years.[5] The Ombudsman held that "the transactions made the bases of the complaint occurred between 1976 to 1980, while the complaint was filed only on September 15, 1997, or after the lapse of more than ten (10) years." Since the entire series of transactions were made through duly recorded public instruments, then following People vs. Dinsay,[6] and People vs. Sandiganbayan,[7] the period of prescription should commence to run from the time of the commission of the offense. | |||||