[ G.R. No. 48619-22. June 12, 1942 ] 73 Phil. 597
[ G.R. No. 48619-22. June 12, 1942 ]
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. FIDEL FORTUNO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT. D E C I S I O N
PARAS, J.:
These four cases are before us in third instance. The defendant-appellant was convicted in the Court of First Instance of Manila, upon appeal from the Municipal Court, of four separate offenses of estafa and sentenced to undergo imprisonment in G. R. No. 48519 for two months and one day, arresto mayor, and in each of the other three cases for three months and eleven days, arresto mayor, to indemnify the offended parties respectively in the sums of P140, P94.50, P83.50 and P189, with subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to pay the costs. Appellant’s counsel de oficio has not assigned any error in the appealed judgments which, as a matter of fact and of law, are correct. The offenses charged are penalized with arresto mayor in its medium and maximum periods, which should be imposed in the minimum degree in G. R. No. 48519 in view of appellant’s plea of guilty in the Municipal Court, and in the medium degree in the other three cases in view of the absence of any modifying circumstance, it being a settled rule that the appellant’s plea of guilty entered upon appeal in the Court of First Instance cannot be considered a mitigating circumstance. (People vs. Hermino, 36 Off. Gaz., 221G; People vs. Bawasanta, 36 Off. Gaz., 2237; People vs. Javier, 36 Off. Gaz.. 2701; People vs. Cariaga. G. R. No. 46215, October 18, 1938; People vs. Jose y Payumo, 39 Off. Gaz., 306.) At the risk of repetition, the following considerations are advanced in support of our adherence to the above-mentioned rule: (1) The reason for the existence of the mitigating circumstance of plea of guilty is that it reveals to a certain extent an act of repentance, a moral disposition favorable to the defendant’s reform and submission to the law (People vs. De la Cruz, 36 Off. Gaz., 354, cited in People vs. Hermino, supra), the evident purpose of the statute being to encourage such repentance which not only ennobles the soul and tends to avoid recidivism but also saves the Government from the expenses of a trial and the judicial and executive officials from much trouble (People vs. Javier, supra). Such repentance cannot be attributed to the herein appellant who not only did not plead guilty in the competent court of origin (Municipal Court) but appealed, first, to the Court of First Instance and, then, to this Court. (2) The contrary rule will open the door to cases wherein the defendant intentionally abstains from pleading guilty in the justice of the peace or municipal court in the hope of being acquitted and, upon conviction and on appeal to the Court of First Instance, pleads guilty merely for the purpose of enjoying the benefit of such mitigating circumstance. In such cases the spontaneous willingness on the part of the defendant to admit the commission of the offense charged, the very thing rewarded by the mitigating circumstance in question, is certainly absent. (3) While a trial de novo in the Court of First Instance technically means a trial in the same manner, with the same effect, and upon the same issues as when the case was tried in the Municipal Court, in accordance with the rules of practice in the appellate court (Crisostomo vs. Director of Prisons, 41 Phil., 468), it does not follow that alt the proceedings in the lower court have thereby been wiped out so as to preclude the ascertainment of whether the defendant voluntarily pleaded guilty for the purpose of determining the presence of said mitigating circumstance (People vs. Bawasanta, supra). It appears that the appellant was sentenced by this Court to undergo imprisonment in five other cases, namely, G. R. No. 48459 for four months and one day, G. R. No. 48492 for four months and one day, G. R. No. 48523 for three months and eleven days, G. R. No. 48460 for two months and one day, and G. R. No. 48614 for a period ranging from four months and twenty days to one year, eight months and twenty-one days. As the most severe penalty imposed upon the appellant is from four months and twenty days to one year, eight months and twenty-one days, and the sum total of his several penalties does not exceed threefold the length of time corresponding to the maximum limit thereof, we cannot for the present make the pronouncement that article 70 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended by Commonwealth Act No. 217, is applicable. However, in anticipation of its future application, we may state that, if in accordance with the Indeterminate Sentence Law the appellant should be entitled to be released on parole after service of the minimum limit of the aforesaid indeterminate penalty (from four months and twenty days to one year, eight months and twenty-one day’s), or of a greater period below the maximum limit threefold the length of which is less than the sum total of all the penalties imposed upon him, his aggregate prison term would be reduced to not more than three times the period thus served. Subject to the limitation herein expressed, the judgments appealed from will be, as the same are hereby, affirmed, with costs against the appellant. So ordered. Yulo, C. J., Ozaeta and Moran. JJ., concur.