Source: http://lawlibrary.chanrobles.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82977:56886&catid=1582&Itemid=566
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 01:46:30+00:00

Document:
G.R. No. 182573, April 23, 2014 - RAY SHU, Petitioner, v. JAIME DEE, ENRIQUETO MAGPANTAY, RAMON MIRANDA, LARRY MACILLAN, AND EDWIN SO, Respondents.
RAY SHU, Petitioner, v. JAIME DEE, ENRIQUETO MAGPANTAY, RAMON MIRANDA, LARRY MACILLAN, AND EDWIN SO, Respondents.
We resolve the Rule 45 petition for review on certiorari filed by petitioner Ray Shu (petitioner) seeking the reversal of the decision1 of the Court of Appeals (CA) dated June 19, 2007 and its resolution dated April 4, 2008. These assailed CA rulings annulled the resolution of the Secretary of Justice finding probable cause for falsification against the respondents.
The petitioner is the President of the 3A Apparel Corporation. He filed a complaint before the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) charging the respondents of falsification of two deeds of real estate mortgage submitted to the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company (Metrobank). Both deeds of real estate mortgage were allegedly signed by the petitioner, one in his own name while the other was on behalf of 3A Apparel Corporation.
The respondents argued in their counter–affidavits that they were denied their right to due process during the NBI investigation because the agency never required them and Metrobank to submit the standard sample signatures of the petitioner for comparison.5 The findings contained in the questioned documents report only covered the sample signatures unilaterally submitted by the petitioner as compared with the signatures appearing on the two deeds of real estate mortgage. An examination of the signatures of the petitioner which appear in several documents in Metrobank’s possession revealed that his signatures in the questioned deeds are genuine.6 The respondents also argued that the examination of the documents was conducted without the original copies of the questioned deeds of real estate mortgage.
In a resolution dated June 25, 1999, the city prosecutor found no probable cause against the respondents and, consequently, dismissed the complaint for lack of merit.
The city prosecutor ruled that the questioned documents report is not conclusive evidence that the respondents committed the crime charged. It only proves that the sample signatures which were submitted solely by the petitioner are different from the signatures appearing on the questioned deeds. The pieces of evidence presented before the city prosecutor, which were not made available to the NBI and which the petitioner does not dispute prove that the same person executed the questioned deeds.7 The city prosecutor found that the similarities in the sample signatures submitted by the respondents and the signatures on the two deeds of real estate mortgage are so striking that even a layman could see that they were written by one and the same person.
The CA affirmed the findings of the city prosecutor as he had the opportunity to examine the documents submitted by the parties, including the respondents’ evidence which the NBI did not consider. The CA denied the petitioner’s motion for reconsideration; 20 hence, the present petition.
We find no merit in the respondent’s claim that they were denied due process when they were not informed by the Secretary of Justice of the pendency of the petitioner’s appeal.
In the present case, we do not find it disputed that the respondents filed with the Secretary of Justice a motion for reconsideration of her resolution. Therefore, any initial defect in due process, if any, was cured by the remedy the respondents availed of.
Since the NBI’s findings were merely recommendatory, we find that no denial of the respondents’ due process right could have taken place; the NBI’s findings were still subject to the prosecutor’s and the Secretary of Justice’s actions for purposes of finding the existence of probable cause. We find it significant that the specimen signatures in the possession of Metrobank were submitted by the respondents for the consideration of the city prosecutor and eventually of the Secretary of Justice during the preliminary investigation proceedings. Thus, these officers had the opportunity to examine these signatures.
The respondents were not likewise denied their right to due process when the NBI issued the questioned documents report. We note that this report merely stated that the signatures appearing on the two deeds and in the petitioner’s submitted sample signatures were not written by one and the same person.30 Notably, there was no categorical finding in the questioned documents report that the respondents falsified the documents. This report, too, was procured during the conduct of the NBI’s investigation at the petitioner’s request for assistance in the investigation of the alleged crime of falsification. The report is inconclusive and does not prevent the respondents from securing a separate documents examination by handwriting experts based on their own evidence. On its own, the NBI’s questioned documents report does not directly point to the respondents’ involvement in the crime charged. Its significance is that, taken together with the other pieces of evidence submitted by the parties during the preliminary investigation, these evidence could be sufficient for purposes of finding probable cause – the action that the Secretary of Justice undertook in the present case.
In light of the discussion above, we rule that the findings of the Secretary of Justice are more in accord with the duty to determine the existence of probable cause than the findings of the city prosecutor.
From the evidence submitted by the parties, the petitioner offered sufficient evidence showing that falsification might have been committed and that the respondents might have been responsible therefor. The NBI’s questioned documents report states that the questioned deeds of mortgage and the sample signatures submitted by the petitioner were not written by one and the same person. It was also shown that the respondents Dee, So, Magpantay and Miranda signed and participated in the execution of the two deeds of real estate mortgage and the respondent Macillan signed and submitted these documents to the Office of the Registrar of Deeds for San Juan, Metro Manila. The petitioner also submitted evidence that the passport used in notarizing the documents was a cancelled passport. Furthermore, as the Secretary of Justice found, the respondents did not show that the petitioner received the proceeds of the loan.
In contrast, the city prosecutor negated the questioned documents report issued by the NBI. He concluded that the documents submitted by the respondents showed that even a layman could see the striking similarities of the alleged signatures of the petitioner in the questioned deeds and in the documents submitted by the respondents. He also concluded that the petitioner misrepresented to the respondents–notaries public Miranda and Magpantay that the passport used in notarizing the questioned deeds was not yet cancelled.
Read in this light, the respondents’ defense that there are striking similarities in the specimen signatures they submitted and those of the questioned deeds is a matter of evidence whose consideration is proper only in a full–blown trial. In that proper forum, the respondents can present evidence to prove their defense and controvert the questioned documents report; they can raise as issue the alleged irregularities in the conduct of the examination.
We also find that the CA erred in ruling that the city prosecutor’s findings should be given more weight than the findings of the Secretary of Justice.
Contrary to the findings of the CA, we find that the Secretary of Justice did not gravely abuse the exercise of her discretion in reversing the findings of the city prosecutor.
WHEREFORE, we GRANT the petition and REVERSE and SET ASIDE the decision of the Court of Appeals dated June 19, 2007 and its resolution dated April 4, 2008.
Carpio, (Chairperson), Brion, Del Castillo, Perez, and Perlas–Bernabe, JJ., concur.
1 Penned by Associate Justice Josefina Guevara–Salonga; concurred in by Associate Justice Vicente Q. Roxas and Ramon R. Garcia, Rollo, pp. 46.
4 Id. at p. 37.
7 Id. at p. 38.
20 Id at. p. 48.
29Cabarrus Jr. v. Bernas, A.C. No. 4634. September 24, 1997.
31Villanueva et al. v. Caparas, G.R. No. 190969, January 30, 2013.
33 Panuncio v. People of the Philippines, G.R. No. 165678, July 17, 2009.
34Ricaforte v. Jurado, G.R. No. 154438, September 5, 2007; United Coconut Planters Bank vs. Looyuko et al., G.R. No. 156337, September 28, 2007.
36Lee et al. v. KBC Bank N.V., G.R. No. 164673, January 15, 2010.
37Kalalo v. Office of the Ombudsman et al., G.R. No. 158189, April 23, 2010.
38Jimenez et al. v. Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the United Prysbeterian Church in the United States of America et al. G.R. No. 140472. June 10, 2002.
40Villanueva and the Secretary of Justice v. Caparas, G.R. No. 190969 : January 30, 2013; This is embodied in Section 38, paragraph 1, Chapter 7, Book IV of the Revised Administrative Code.

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