It
is a fundamental
principle that criminal actions
shall be instituted and tried in the court of any municipality or
territory where the offense was
committed or where any of its essential ingredients occurred (Section 15, Rule 110, 2000 Rules of
Criminal Procedure, as amended).
The rationale herein is so that the Accused will not be compelled to move to,
and appear in a different court from that of the province where the crime was
committed, as it would cause him great inconvenience in looking for witnesses
and other evidence in another place (Hernandez
vs. Albano, 19 SCRA 85).
Said
municipality or territory where the offense was committed or where any
of its essential ingredients occurred fixes not only the venue of the criminal
case but also its jurisdiction. This if for the reason that in criminal cases,
venue is jurisdictional as the court has no jurisdiction to try an offense
committed outside its territorial jurisdiction (People vs. Mercado, 65 PHIL
665).
Relative to violations of Batas Pambansa
Blg. 22 of which Accused has been charged of, the elements or essential
ingredients of the offense are as follows:
1) The making, drawing and issuance
of any check to apply for account or for value;
2) The knowledge of the maker, drawer
or issuer that at the time of issue there are no sufficient funds in or credit
with the drawee bank for the payment of such check in full upon its
presentment; and
3)
The subsequent dishonor of the check by the drawee
bank for insufficiency of funds or credit or dishonor for the same reason had
not the drawer, without any valid cause, ordered the bank to stop payment (Ting
vs. Court of Appeals, 344 SCRA 551).
It is evident
that the elements of said offense do not take place simultaneously but one
after the other. It may occur then that the making, drawing and issuance
of a check takes place in one municipality or territory while the
dishonor thereof in another. Hence, it may be instituted and tried in the court
of the municipality or territory where it was made, drawn and issued or where
it was dishonored. Otherwise said, it is only courts of either municipality or territory (place of
issuance or place of dishonor), and no other which can validly exercise
jurisdiction and thus hear and decide cases involving said cases.
While it is clear based on the checks
themselves that they were dishonored in Tuguegarao, the drawee bank being China
Banking Corporation, Tuguegarao Branch, there is no allegation or proof
whatsoever based on Private Complainant’s Complaint-Affidavit and its
supporting documents, where it was made drawn, and issued to herein Accused.
The
truth of the matter as Accused has
declared and clearly shown in his Counter-Affidavit is that she issued and
delivered the subject checks to Private Complainant in his place of residence
which is Iguig, Cagayan.
Most
evidently, contrary to the
very spirit and
purpose of the
rule on venue, Private
Complainant, for her own convenience and advantage and to the great
inconvenience and disadvantage of Accused, filed her criminal complaint against
the latter in Cabanatuan City, for no other reason than that being her place of
residence. Having not alleged or shown that the alleged offenses or any
ingredient thereof, were committed in Cabanatuan City, the Honorable Office of
the City Prosecutor of Cabanatuan City, has absolutely no basis whatsoever to
file the instant Information in Cabanatuan City. It has no legal authority
whatsoever to falsely and arbitrarily allege in said information that the said
offenses were committed within the jurisdiction of the Honorable Court.
Indubitably, the purpose behind such unwarranted action
is to arbitrarily establish jurisdiction over the instant cases in Cabanatuan
courts when in fact there was none at all. The bare and unsubstantiated
allegation however in the information does not determine the place where the
criminal action is to be instituted. To say that the allegation of the
information is determinative of the jurisdiction of the court will have the
effect of conferring upon the investigating and filing prosecutor the absolute
discretion to determine which court has jurisdiction over an offense, a
situation which is not only constitutionally unsound but also anathema to the
rule of law (p. 61, Notes and Comments on the Bouncing Checks Law).
Clearly,
Private Complainant, who has the
burden of showing that herein cases are within the jurisdiction of the
Honorable Court, has miserably failed to do so. The Honorable Office of the
City Prosecutor of Cabanatuan City should have summarily dismissed her said
criminal complaints.
On
the contrary, herein Accused has attested and shown through his
Counter-Affidavit and supporting documents, that in fact, she issued the subject
checks in Iguig, Cagayan. Clearly then, all the acts which are essential to the
offense of which Accused has been charged of, took place in the province of
Cagayan. Hence, the Honorable Court has not jurisdiction whatsoever to try and
hear the instant cases. They should therefore be quashed.
The Rules of Summary Procedure provide that:
Should
the court, upon consideration of the complaint or information and the
affidavits submitted by both parties, find no cause or ground to hold the
accused for trial, it shall order the dismissal of the case; otherwise, the
court shall set the case for arraignment and trial (Section 13, The 1991
Revised Rule on Summary Procedure).
Thus, even without this motion to quash, the
Honorable Court on its own, may order the dismissal of the instant cases, if
upon consideration of the complaint or information together with the affidavits
submitted by both parties, it finds no cause or ground to hold the Accused
for trial. There is absolutely nothing in the affidavits submitted by both
parties, which will establish any cause or ground for the Honorable Court to
acquire jurisdiction over the instant cases. Most certainly then, there is
likewise no cause or ground for the Honorable Court to hold the Accused for trial.
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