G.R. No. 191240. July 30, 2014
A petition
for review on certiorari which assails the Decision of the Court of
Appeals (CA) with respect only to the civil aspect of the case as respondent
Phillip R. Salvador had been acquitted of the crime of Estafa.
Facts:
The respondent Phillip R.
Salvador was charged with Estafa under Article 315, paragraph 2 (a) of the
Revised Penal Code. While, petitioner Cristina B. Castillo was a businesswoman
engaged in real estate business, educational institution, boutique, and
trading business. She was then enticed by Salvador and his brother, Ramon to
engage in freight and remittance business.
As Castillo had deeply fallen
in love with Salvador and since she trusted him very much as he even acted as a
father to her children while her annulment was ongoing, she agreed to
embark on the remittance business. She agreed with respondent and
Ramon that any profit derived from the business would be equally divided
among them and that respondent would be in charge of promotion and marketing in
Hong Kong, and Ramon would take charge of the operations
of business in the Philippines and she would be financing the
business.
The business has
not operated yet as Castillo was still raising the amount of US$100,000.00 as
capital for the actual operation. When petitioner already had the money, she
handed the same to Salvador which was witnessed by her disabled half-brother
Enrico B. Tan. However, the proposed business never operated as
respondent only stayed in Hong Kong for three days. When she asked respondent
about the money and the business, the latter told her that the money was
deposited in a bank. However, upon further query, respondent confessed that he
used the money to pay for his other obligations. Since then, the US$100,000.00
was not returned at all.
In his defense, Salvador
denied all the facts alleged by Castillo, except that they became close friends
and eventually fell in love and had an affair. He admitted that they traveled
to Hong Kong and Bangkok, but denied that Castillo gave him US$100,000.00
during that trip for the purpose of said business. The amount he received from her was in turn given
to Charlie Chau as payment for the pieces of diamond jewelry she got from
him, which Chau had duly acknowledged. That upon his return to
the Philippines, Castillo never asked him about the business, as she never gave
him such amount. They went to Hong Kong again to buy some goods for the
latter’s boutique. He admitted that he loved petitioner and her children
very much as there was a time when petitioner’s finances were short; he gave
her P600,000.00 for the enrollment of her children in very expensive
schools. It is also not true that he and Ramon initiated the Hong Kong and
Bangkok trips
Castillo filed the instant
petition on the civil aspect of the case, arguing that even if the Court Of
Appeals decided to acquit him it should have at least retained the award of
damages to her.
Issue:
WON the award of damages of
the civil aspect be retained.
Held:
No, the award of damages must be
removed.
Our law recognizes two kinds of acquittal, with different effects
on the civil liability of the accused. First is an acquittal on the ground that
the accused is not the author of the actor omission complained of. This
instance closes the door to civil liability, for a person who has been found to
be not the perpetrator of any act or omission cannot and can never be
held liable for such act or omission. There being no delict, civil
liability ex delicto is out of the question, and the civil action, if any,
which may be instituted must be based on grounds other than the delict
complained of. This is the situation contemplated in Rule 111 of the Rules of
Court. The second instance is an acquittal based on reasonable doubt on the guilt
of the accused. In this case, even if the guilt of the accused has not been
satisfactorily established, he is not exempt from civil liability which may be
proved by preponderance of evidence only. This is the situation contemplated in
Article 29 of the Civil Code, where the civil action for damages is
“for the same act or omission.
A reading of the CA decision
would show that respondent was acquitted because the prosecution
failed to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Said the CA:
The evidence for the prosecution
being insufficient to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the crime as charged
had been committed by appellant, the general presumption, “that a person is
innocent of the crime or wrong, stands in his favor. The prosecution failed to
prove that all the elements of Estafa are present in this case as would
overcome the presumption of innocence in favor of appellant. For in fact, the
prosecution’s primary witness herself could not even establish clearly and
precisely how appellant committed the alleged fraud. She failed to convince us
that she was deceived through misrepresentations and/or insidious actions,
in venturing into a remittance business. Quite the contrary, the obtaining
circumstance in this case indicate the weakness of her submissions.
Thus, since the acquittal is
based on reasonable doubt, respondent is not exempt from civil liability which
may be proved by preponderance of evidence only. In Encinas v. National
Bookstore, Inc., the higher court explained the concept of preponderance
of evidence as follows:
Preponderance of
evidence is the weight, credit, and value of the aggregate evidence
on either side and is usually considered to be synonymous with the term
“greater weight of the evidence” or “greater weight of the credible evidence.”
Preponderance of evidence is a phrase which, in the last analysis, means
probability of the truth. It is evidence which is more convincing to the court
as worthy of belief than that which is offered in opposition thereto.
However, in this case, no
such civil liability is proved even by preponderance of evidence. The petition
for the award of damages is denied.
