FIRST DIVISION
G.R. No. 225593, March 20, 2017
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PALA TOUKYO Y PADEP, Accused-Appellant.
R E S O L U T I O N
PERLAS-BERNABE, J.:
Before the Court is an ordinary appeal1 filed by accused-appellant Pala Toukyo y Padep (Toukyo) assailing the Decision2 dated July 3, 2015 of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CR HC No. 05510, which modified the Decision3 dated March 6, 2012 of the Regional Trial Court of Baguio City, Branch 61 (RTC) in Criminal Case No. 31270-R, and accordingly, found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of Illegal Possession of Dangerous Drugs, defined and penalized under Section 11 of Republic Act No. (RA) 9165,4 otherwise known as the "Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002."
That on or about the 22nd day of November, 2010, in the City of Baguio, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously deliver one (1) piece marijuana, a dangerous drug, in brick form wrapped in brown packaging tape weighing 1,000 grams, to Agent Ryan Peralta, a member of the PDEA-CAR who acted as poseur buyer, knowing the same to be a dangerous drug, in violation of the aforementioned provision of law.The prosecution alleged that on November 22, 2010, Agent Ryan Peralta (Agent Peralta) of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency - Cordillera Administrative Region (PDEA-CAR) received information from a civilian informant regarding the illegal drug selling activities of Toukyo. After confirming via text message that Toukyo was indeed selling a brick of marijuana for P2,000.00, the PDEA-CAR sent a buy-bust team comprised of Agents Peralta, John Kay-an (Agent Kay-an), and Santino Awichen (Agent Awichen) to entrap Toukyo. In the afternoon of even date near a restaurant located at Burnham Park, Agent Peralta and the informant met with Toukyo. After Toukyo showed Agent Peralta the brick of marijuana, Agent Peralta executed the pre-arranged signal, leading to Toukyo's arrest. Agents Kay-an and Awichen immediately marked the seized marijuana at the place of arrest, and thereafter, Agent Peralta took the marijuana as well as the backpack where it is placed. Upon reaching the PDEA-CAR field office, Agent Peralta turned over the backpack containing the seized marijuana to Agent Dick Dayao (Agent Dayao), who in turn, executed the proper documentation and delivered the seized item to the Crime Laboratory.7 A qualitative examination reveals that the backpack indeed contains one (1) kilogram/1,000 grams of marijuana.8
CONTRARY TO LAW.6
Art. 89. How criminal liability is totally extinguished. - Criminal liability is totally extinguished:In People v. Bayotas,21 the Court eloquently summed up the effects of the death of an accused pending appeal on his liabilities, as follows:
1. By the death of the convict, as to the personal penalties; and as to pecuniary penalties, liability therefore is extinguished only when the death of the offender occurs before final judgment.
From this lengthy disquisition, we summarize our ruling herein:Thus, upon Toukyo's death pending appeal of his conviction, the criminal action is extinguished inasmuch as there is no longer a defendant to stand as the accused.23 Notably, there is no civil liability that arose from this case, there being no private complainant to begin with.
1. Death of the accused pending appeal of his conviction extinguishes his criminal liability as well as the civil liability based solely thereon. As opined by Justice Regalado, in this regard, "the death of the accused prior to final judgment terminates his criminal liability and only the civil liability directly arising from and based solely on the offense committed, i.e., civil liability ex delicto in senso strictiore."
2. Corollarily, the claim for civil liability survives notwithstanding the death of accused, if the same may also be predicated on a source of obligation other than delict. Article 1157 of the Civil Code enumerates these other sources of obligation from which the civil liability may arise as a result of the same act or omission:
a) Law
b) Contracts
c) Quasi-contracts
d) x x x
e) Quasi-delicts
3. Where the civil liability survives, as explained in Number 2 above, an action for recovery therefor may be pursued but only by way of filing a separate civil action and su ject to Section 1, Rule 111 of the 1985 Rules on Criminal Procedure as amended. This separate civil action may be enforced either against the executor/administrator or the estate of the accused, depending on the source of obligation upon which the same is based as explained above.
4. Finally, the private offended party need not fear a forfeiture of his right to file this separate civil action by prescription, in cases where during the prosecution of the criminal action and prior to its extinction, the private-offended party instituted together therewith the civil action. In such case, the statute of limitations on the civil liability is deemed interrupted during the pendency of the criminal case, conformably with provisions of Article 1155 of the Civil Code, that should thereby avoid any apprehension on a possible privation of right by prescription.22
Endnotes:
1 See Notice of Appeal dated August 18, 2015; rollo, pp. 18-19.
2 Id. at 2-17. Penned by Associate Justice Noel G. Tijam (now a member of this Court) with Associate Justices Mario V. Lopez and Myra V. Garcia-Fernandez concurring.
3 CA rollo, pp. 64-73. Penned by Presiding Judge Antonio C. Reyes.
4 Entitled "AN ACT INSTITUTING THE COMPREHENSIVE DANGEROUS DRUGS ACT OF 2002, REPEALING REPUBLIC ACT NO. 6425, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE DANGEROUS DRUGS ACT OF 1972, AS AMENDED, PROVIDING FUNDS THEREFOR, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES," approved on June 7, 2002.
5 Records, pp. 1-2.
6Rollo, p. 3.
7 Id. at 3-5.
8 Id. at 15. See also Initial Laboratory Report dated November 22, 2010 (Records, p. 12) and Chemistry Report No. D-83-2010 (Records, p. 36), both of which states that the marijuana examined had a net weight of "908.9 grams."
9 Id. at 5-6.
10 CA rollo, pp. 64-73.
11 Id. at 73.
12 Id. at 65-73.
13 See Brief for the Accused-Appellant dated October 17, 2012; CA rollo, pp. 32-62.
14Rollo, pp. 2-17.
15 Id. at 16.
16 Id. at 12-15.
17 Id. at 7-12. See also records, pp. 12 and 36.
18 Id. at 28.
19 Id. at 29.
20 Id. at 30.
21 306 Phil. 266 (1994).
22 Id. at 282-283, citations omitted.
23 See People v. Paras, G.R. No. 192912, October 22, 2014, 739 SCRA 179, 184, citation omitted.