Bongcac vs. Sandiganbayan

A final and executory judgment of conviction is immutable and may no longer be amended, modified, or reversed, except for correction of clerical errors, nunc pro tunc entries causing no prejudice to any party, or where the judgment is void; execution thereof is the fruit and end of the suit and cannot be delayed by subsequent dilatory petitions. Bail is deemed automatically cancelled upon execution of the judgment of conviction under Section 22, Rule 114 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Petitioner Panfilo D. Bongcac was the secretary of Tagbilaran City Mayor Jose V. Torralba and was designated as the Mayor's representative to the City Market Committee, Consultant and Coordinator on market matters, and adviser to the Acting Market Administrator. Respondents Engr. Fortunato Lim and Toribio Bon were applicants for stalls or tiendas in the Cogon Public Market in Tagbilaran City and were referred to petitioner. The criminal cases against petitioner were for Estafa under Article 315, paragraph 1(b), of the Revised Penal Code and were docketed as Criminal Case Nos. 18005 and 18006 before the Sandiganbayan. The present proceeding concerns the execution of the Sandiganbayan's judgment of conviction after it had become final.

Mayor Jose V. Torralba of Tagbilaran City designated his secretary, petitioner Panfilo D. Bongcac, as the Mayor's representative to the City Market Committee, Consultant and Coordinator on market matters, and adviser to the Acting Market Administrator. In January 1991, respondents Engr. Fortunato Lim and Toribio Bon applied for stalls or tiendas in the Cogon Public Market in Tagbilaran City and were referred to petitioner. Petitioner showed them the Minutes of the City Market Committee meeting held on 9 January 1991, which included their names as among the awardees of the market stalls. Petitioner informed Lim and Bon that the city government could not afford to construct a new market and that, if they were interested, they should give him more money for the construction of the stalls or tiendas they were applying for.

Accordingly, Lim issued and delivered to petitioner a BPI check, pay to cash, in the amount of ₱62,000. Bon issued and delivered to petitioner two Metrobank checks, pay to cash, in the amounts of ₱30,000 and ₱10,000. Petitioner issued handwritten receipts to Lim and Bon. Petitioner assured Lim that his stalls would be finished on or before 30 June 1991 and promised Bon that his stall would be finished before the fiesta in Tagbilaran City. The checks were subsequently encashed.

Thereafter, Lim and Bon read in the 30 June 1991 issue of a local newspaper that petitioner was "sacked" as market body consultant and was terminated as secretary to the Mayor. They looked for him and demanded that he either make an accounting of the money he received or deliver the stalls or tiendas already constructed. Petitioner failed to do so.

Thus, petitioner was charged with two counts of Estafa defined and penalized under Article 315, paragraph 1(b), of the Revised Penal Code before the Sandiganbayan. The cases were docketed as Criminal Case Nos. 18005 and 18006. Upon arraignment, petitioner pleaded not guilty. Trial ensued and the cases were tried jointly.

• Suspension of Execution: Petitioner sought to set aside the Sandiganbayan Resolution dated 10 January 2003 and to suspend the final execution of the 28 March 2001 Sandiganbayan Decision until after the final resolution of his Very Urgent Petition for Extraordinary Relief filed in G.R. Nos. 149711-12.
• Recall of Bench Warrant and Bail Cancellation: Petitioner prayed that the bench warrant of arrest and the order cancelling his bail bond pending resolution of the Very Urgent Petition for Extraordinary Relief be recalled.

• Finality and Jurisdiction: The People asserted that the Court had no more jurisdiction to entertain the Very Urgent Petition for Extraordinary Relief because the Resolution of 20 February 2002 in G.R. Nos. 149711-12 had already become final and executory, and that petitioner's bail bond was deemed automatically cancelled upon execution of the judgment of conviction.
• Procedural Bars: Lim argued that the present petition should be dismissed outright because it was filed beyond the reglementary period of 60 days and because the Very Urgent Petition for Extraordinary Relief was not sanctioned by the Rules of Civil Procedure and was barred by res judicata.
• Dilatory Tactics: Lim further argued that the Very Urgent Petition for Extraordinary Relief and the present petition were dilatory tactics to delay the execution of judgment in the criminal cases.

• Grave Abuse of Discretion: Whether the Sandiganbayan acted with grave abuse of discretion, amounting to lack of jurisdiction, in denying petitioner's motion to hold in abeyance the execution of judgment.
• Cancellation of Bail: Whether the Sandiganbayan correctly cancelled petitioner's cash bailbond upon execution of the final judgment of conviction.

• Grave Abuse of Discretion: No. The Sandiganbayan did not act with grave abuse of discretion; the 28 March 2001 judgment of conviction had become final and executory, and execution is the fruit and end of the suit. The denial of the motion to hold execution in abeyance was proper.
• Cancellation of Bail: No. Under Section 22, Rule 114 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, bail is deemed automatically cancelled upon execution of the judgment of conviction; the Sandiganbayan did not err in cancelling the cash bailbond.

• Grave Abuse of Discretion: The 28 March 2001 Sandiganbayan Decision was appealed to the Supreme Court through a petition for review on certiorari docketed as G.R. Nos. 149711-12. The Supreme Court denied the petition in its Resolution of 20 February 2002 for failure to sufficiently show reversible error and for failure to show extraordinary circumstance justifying departure from the doctrine that findings of fact of the Sandiganbayan are well-nigh conclusive on the Court. No motion for reconsideration was filed, so the Resolution became final and executory on 2 April 2002; consequently, the 28 March 2001 Decision also became final and executory. Petitioner could no longer seek reversal of the conviction. His Very Urgent Petition for Extraordinary Relief, though not sanctioned by the rules, was denied on 3 March 2003. The Very Urgent Petition and the present petition were merely dilatory tactics to delay execution. Execution of a final judgment is the fruit and end of the suit; once a case is adjudicated by a competent court in a valid final judgment, a party should not be permitted to initiate similar suits in the hope of securing a favorable ruling. Upon finality, the court loses jurisdiction to amend, modify, or alter the judgment, except for correction of clerical errors, nunc pro tunc entries causing no prejudice, or where the judgment is void. This is the principle of immutability of final judgment. The Court quoted Lim vs. Jabalde on the necessity of ending litigation and not depriving the winning party of the fruits of the verdict. The winning party has the correlative right to enjoy finality through execution and satisfaction of judgment, which is the "life of the law." Frustrating this by dilatory schemes frustrates the efforts, time, and expenditure of the courts. Thus, no grave abuse of discretion attended the Sandiganbayan's denial of the motion to hold execution in abeyance.
• Cancellation of Bail: Section 22, Rule 114 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure provides that bail shall be deemed automatically cancelled upon acquittal of the accused, dismissal of the case, or execution of the judgment of conviction. The cancellation is automatic upon execution of the judgment of conviction. Since the judgment of conviction had become final and executory and its execution had become ministerial, the Sandiganbayan did not err in cancelling petitioner's cash bailbond.

• Immutability of final judgments — Once a judgment becomes final and executory, it is immutable and may no longer be amended, modified, or reversed. The court loses jurisdiction over it, except for correction of clerical errors, nunc pro tunc entries causing no prejudice to any party, or where the judgment is void. In this case, the 28 March 2001 Sandiganbayan Decision became final after the Supreme Court denied petitioner's petition for review and the denial became final and executory; petitioner's subsequent Very Urgent Petition for Extraordinary Relief and present petition could not disturb it.
• Execution of final judgment as the fruit and end of the suit — A final judgment must be executed; the winning party has the right to enjoy the finality of the resolution by execution and satisfaction of the judgment, which is the "life of the law." Courts must guard against schemes to deprive the winning party of the fruits of the verdict. The Sandiganbayan's denial of petitioner's motion to hold execution in abeyance was proper because petitioner's filings were dilatory tactics.
• Automatic cancellation of bail upon execution of judgment of conviction — Under Section 22, Rule 114 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, bail is deemed automatically cancelled upon acquittal, dismissal of the case, or execution of the judgment of conviction. The Sandiganbayan correctly cancelled petitioner's cash bailbond after the judgment of conviction became final and executory and execution became ministerial.

• "Litigation must end and terminate sometime and somewhere and it is essential to an effective and efficient administration of justice that, once a judgment has become final, the winning party be not, through a mere subterfuge, deprived of the fruits of the verdict. Courts must therefore guard against any scheme calculated to bring about that result. Constituted as they are to put an end to controversies, courts should frown upon any attempt to prolong them." — This passage, quoted from Lim vs. Jabalde, states the rationale for the doctrine of immutability of final judgments and the policy against schemes that deprive the winning party of the fruits of the verdict.
• "Upon finality of the judgment, the Court loses its jurisdiction to amend, modify or alter the same. Except for correction of clerical errors or the making of nunc pro tunc entries which cause no prejudice to any party, or where the judgment is void, the judgment can neither be amended nor altered after it has become final and executory. This is the principle of immutability of final judgment." — This is the Court's canonical formulation of the immutability of final judgments, including the recognized exceptions.
• "Every litigation must come to an end once a judgment becomes final, executory and unappealable. For just as a losing party has the right to file an appeal within the prescribed period, the winning party also has the correlative right to enjoy the finality of the resolution of his case by the execution and satisfaction of the judgment, which is the "life of the law."" — This passage explains why execution must follow finality and why dilatory schemes by the losing party are disallowed.
• "The bail shall be deemed automatically cancelled upon acquittal of the accused, dismissal of the case, or execution of the judgment of conviction." — This is the controlling rule from Section 22, Rule 114 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, which the Court applied to uphold the cancellation of petitioner's cash bailbond.

• Lim vs. Jabalde, G.R. No. 36786, 17 April 1989, 172 SCRA 211, 224 — Cited and quoted for the necessity of adhering to the doctrine of immutability of final judgments and for the principle that litigation must end and the winning party must not be deprived of the fruits of the verdict through subterfuge.
• Yau vs. Silverio, Sr., G.R. Nos. 158848 and 171994, 4 February 2008, 543 SCRA 520 — Cited in footnote for the proposition that every litigation must come to an end once a judgment becomes final, executory, and unappealable, and that the winning party has the correlative right to execution and satisfaction of the judgment.

• Article 315, paragraph 1(b), Revised Penal Code — The offense for which petitioner was charged and convicted by the Sandiganbayan; the finality of that conviction was the subject of the execution proceedings.
• Section 22, Rule 114, Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure — Provides that bail shall be deemed automatically cancelled upon acquittal of the accused, dismissal of the case, or execution of the judgment of conviction. The Sandiganbayan applied this provision in cancelling petitioner's cash bailbond after the judgment of conviction became final and executory and execution became ministerial.

Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno (Chairperson), Justice Renato C. Corona, Justice Teresita J. Leonardo-De Castro, and Justice Lucas P. Bersamin concurred.