Kim v. People

Facts:

Petitioner Yong Chan Kim was employed as a Researcher at the Aquaculture Department of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) with head station at Tigbauan, Iloilo. He conducted prawn surveys which required him to travel to various selected provinces in the country where there are potentials for prawn culture. Petitioner was issued Travel Order No. 2222 which covered his travels to different places in Luzon from 16 June to 21 July 1982, a period of 35 days. Under this travel order, he received P6,438.00 as cash advance to defray his travel expenses.

Petitioner was issued another travel order, T.O. 2268, requiring him to travel from the Head Station to Roxas City from 30 June to 4 July 1982, a period of 5 days/ He received a cash advance of P495.00.

Petitioner presented both travel orders for liquidation, submitting Travel Expense Reports to the Accounting Section. When the Travel Expense Reports were audited, it was discovered that there was an overlap of 4 days in the 2 travel orders for which petitioner collected per diems twice. In sum, the total amount in the form of per diems and allowances charged and collected by petitioner under Travel Order No. 2222, when he did not actually and physically travel as represented by his liquidation papers, was P1,230.00.

Petitioner denied the alleged anomaly, claiming that he made make-up trips to compensate for the trips he failed to undertake under T.O. 2222 because he was recalled to the head office and given another assignment.

2 complaints of Estafa were filed against him. In the first case, he was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt while the latter was dismissed for failure to prosecute.

Petitioner appealed but the RTC affirmed the decision of MTC.

Petitioner filed a notice of appeal with the Regional Trial Court which ordered the elevation of the records of the case to the IAC.

Petitioner filed with the appellate court a petition for review. CA dismissed the petition for having been filed out of time. MR was denied for lack of merit.

Alonzo v. Villamor, et al.: The Court can overlook the wrong pleading filed, if strict compliance with the rules would mean sacrificing justice to technicality. The imminence of a person being deprived unjustly of his liberty due to procedural lapse of counsel is a strong and compelling reason to warrant suspension of the Rules. Hence, we shall consider the petition for review filed in the Court of Appeals as a Supplement to the Notice of Appeal. As the Court declared in a recent decision, '. . . there is nothing sacred about the procedure of pleadings. This Court may go beyond the pleadings when the interest of justice so warrants. It has the prerogative to suspend its rules for the same purpose. . . Technicality, when it deserts its proper office as an aid to justice and becomes its great hindrance and chief enemy, deserves scant consideration from courts.

Conscience cannot rest in allowing a man to go straight to jail, closing the door to his every entreaty for a full opportunity to be heard, even as he has made a prima facie showing of a meritorious cause, simply because he had chosen an appeal route, to be sure, recognized by law but made inapplicable to his case, under altered rules of procedure. While the Court of Appeals can not be faulted and, in fact, it has to be lauded for correctly applying the rules of procedure in appeals to the Court of Appeals from decisions of the RTC rendered in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction, yet, this Court, as the ultimate bulwark of human rights and individual liberty, will not allow substantial justice to be sacrificed at the altar of procedural rigor.

Issue: 
Whether or not the decision of MTC and RTC are supported by the facts and evidence or contrary to law and that the courts a quo have acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction or have acted without or in excess of jurisdiction.

Held:

Yes.

In order that a person can be convicted under Estafa, it must be proven that he had the obligation to deliver or return the same money, good or personal property that he had received. The petitioner had no obligation to return the same money which he had received.

Liquidation simply means the settling of an indebtedness. An employee, such as herein petitioner, who liquidates a cash advance is in fact paying back his debt in the form of a loan of money advanced to him by his employer, as per diems and allowances. Similarly, as stated in the assailed decision of the lower court, "if the amount of the cash advance he received is less than the amount he spent for actual travel . . . he has the right to demand reimbursement from his employer the amount he spent coming from his personal funds. In other words, the money advanced by either party is actually a loan to the other. Hence, petitioner was under no legal obligation to return the same cash or money, i.e., the bills or coins, which he received from the private respondent.

Since ownership of the money (cash advance) was transferred to petitioner, no fiduciary relationship was created. Absent this fiduciary relationship between petitioner and private respondent, which is an essential element of the crime of estafa by misappropriation or conversion, petitioner could not have committed estafa.

Additionally, it has been the policy of private respondent that all cash advances not liquidated are to be deducted correspondingly from the salary of the employee concerned. The evidence shows that the corresponding salary deduction was made in the case of petitioner vis-a-vis the cash advance in question.