Facts:
Petitioner Anita Cheng filed two
estafa cases before the RTC of Manila against respondent spouses William and
Tessie Sy for issuing to her Philippine Bank of Commerce (PBC) checks which
were dishonored upon presentment for having been drawn against a closed
account. They were supposed to be payment of their loan from the petitioner.
On January 20, 1999, Cheng also filed two cases for violation of BP 22 alleging
the same facts before the MeTC of Manila. The estafa cases were later dismissed
for failure of the prosecution to prove the elements of the crime. One of the
criminal cases dismissed contained no declaration as to the civil liability of
Tessie Sy. But, the second one contained a statement, “Hence, if there is any
liability of the accused, the same is purely ‘civil,’ not criminal in nature.”
Later, the MeTC, Branch 25, Manila, dismissed, on demurrer, the BP Blg. 22
cases in its Order dated February 7, 2005 on account of the failure of
petitioner to identify the accused respondents in open court. The Order
also did not make any pronouncement as to the civil liability of accused
respondents.
Then, on April 26, 2005, Cheng lodged a complaint for collection of a sum of
money with damages. The case was filed in the RTC of Manila and was based on
the same PBC checks which were previously subject of the estafa and BP Blg. 22
cases.
But, on January 2, 2006, the RTC dismissed the complaint for lack of
jurisdiction, ratiocinating that the civil action to collect the amount of
P600,000.00 with damages was already impliedly instituted in the BP Blg. 22
cases in light of Section 1, paragraph (b) of Rule 111 of the Revised Rules of
Court. Petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration which was later on denied.
Hence, this petition.
Issue:
Whether
or not Section 1 of Rule 111 of the 2000 Rules of Criminal Procedure and
Supreme Court Circular No. 57-97 on the Rules and Guidelines in the filing and
prosecution of criminal cases under BP Blg. 22 are applicable to the present
case where the nature of the order dismissing the cases for bouncing checks
against the respondents was [based] on the failure of the prosecution to identify
both the accused (respondents herein)?
Held:
Yes.
Any new rules may validly be made to apply to cases pending at the time of
their promulgation, considering that no party to an action has a vested right
in the rules of procedure.
However, petitioner is in error when
she insisted that the 2000 Rules on Criminal Procedure should not apply because
she filed her BP Blg. 22 complaints in 1999. It is now settled that rules
of procedure apply even to cases already pending at the time of their promulgation.
The fact that procedural statutes may somehow affect the litigants’ rights does
not preclude their retroactive application to pending actions.
It is axiomatic that the retroactive
application of procedural laws does not violate any right of a person who may
feel that he is adversely affected, nor is it constitutionally
objectionable. The reason for this is that, as a general rule, no vested
right may attach to, nor arise from, procedural laws.
Indeed, under the present revised Rules, the criminal action for violation of
BP Blg. 22 includes the corresponding civil action to recover the amount of the
checks. It should be stressed, this policy is intended to discourage the
separate filing of the civil action. In fact, the Rules even prohibits
the reservation of a separate civil action, i.e., one can no longer file a
separate civil case after the criminal complaint is filed in court. The
only instance when separate proceedings are allowed is when the civil action is
filed ahead of the criminal case. Even then, the Rules encourages the
consolidation of the civil and criminal cases.
Thus, where petitioner’s rights may
be fully adjudicated in the proceedings before the court trying the BP Blg. 22
cases, resort to a separate action to recover civil liability is clearly
unwarranted on account of res judicata, for failure of petitioner to appeal the
civil aspect of the cases. In view of this special rule governing actions
for violation of BP Blg. 22, Article 31 of the Civil Code is not applicable.
However, in applying the procedure
discussed above, it appears that petitioner would be left without a remedy to
recover from respondents the P600,000.00 allegedly loaned from her. This
could prejudice even the petitioner’s Notice of Claim involving the same amount
filed in Special Proceedings No. 98-88390 (Petition for Voluntary Insolvency by
Kolin Enterprises, William Sy and Tessie Sy), which case was reportedly
archived for failure to prosecute the petition for an unreasonable length of
time.[21] Expectedly, respondents would raise the same defense that
petitioner had already elected to litigate the civil action to recover the
amount of the checks along with the BP Blg. 22 cases.
It is in this light that we find petitioner’s contention that she was not
assisted by a private prosecutor during the BP Blg. 22 proceedings
critical. Petitioner indirectly protests that the public prosecutor
failed to protect and prosecute her cause when he failed to have her establish
the identities of the accused during the trial and when he failed to appeal the
civil action deemed impliedly instituted with the BP Blg. 22 cases. On
this ground, we agree with petitioner.
Faced with the dismissal of the BP
Blg. 22 cases, petitioner’s recourse pursuant to the prevailing rules of
procedure would have been to appeal the civil action to recover the amount
loaned to respondents corresponding to the bounced checks. Hence, the
said civil action may proceed requiring only a preponderance of evidence on the
part of petitioner. Her failure to appeal within the reglementary period
was tantamount to a waiver altogether of the remedy to recover the civil
liability of respondents. However, due to the gross mistake of the
prosecutor in the BP Blg. 22 cases, we are constrained to digress from this
rule.
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