Castillo v Salvador

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.