Decision

1 The People Of The Philippine Islands v. Unjieng

G.R. No. 41200 · 1935-03-26 · DIAZ, J. · LawPhil

1 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee, vs. MARIANO CU UNJIENG, JOHN DOE, and MANUEL CARLOS, defendants. MARIANO CU UNJIENG, appellant. Gibbs, McDonough and Ozaeta, Duran and Lim, Feria and La O, Vicente del Rosario and Eusebio Orense for appellant. DeWitt, Perkins and Brady for…

DIAZ, J.:

This case was brought to this court by virtue of the appeal taken by Mariano Cu Unjieng from the judgment rendered therein by the lower court which sentenced him to an indeterminate penalty of from four years and two months of prision correccional to eight years of prision mayor , reserving to the Hong kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which was said to have been damaged in the sum of P1,411,312.80, the right to institute the proper separate civil action for the recovery of damages, with costs. The crime with which said appellant was charged jointly with John Doe, whose identity, as alleged in the corresponding information, could not be established, and Manuel Carlos, was estafa through falsification of commercial documents, it being alleged in the complaint that during the period between the month of November, 1930 and July 6, 1931, said appellant and his two co-accused, willfully, unlawfully and criminally, after conspiring together with Rafael Fernandez who was accused in a separate case, and aiding one another, forged and falsified, in the City of Manila, 128 warehouse receipts covering a total of 179,572 piculs of sugar, and 50 sugar crop loan contracts involving 140,000 piculs; that they later made it appear, by using said documents, that they had a deposit, to their credit and at their disposal, of 179,572 piculs of sugar in the warehouses of the Pampanga Sugar Development Company, Inc., a corporation engaged in the sugar business and domiciled in the municipality of San Fernando, Province of Pampanga; and that they also had, by virtue of said 50 sugar crop loan contracts, a credit covering 140,000 piculs of sugar, knowing positively that they had neither deposit of sugar in said warehouses of the Pampanga Sugar Development Company, Inc., in the amounts set forth in the 128 forged and falsified warehouse receipts, nor any credit by reason of the sugar crop loan contracts, of the amount and importance alleged in said contracts; that by means of this artifice and forgery, they induced the manager of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation to believe that they really had said goods, credit and imaginary transactions, and to grant them, because they so requested, an overdraft or disposable credit in the amount of P1,411,312.80, in excess of the money they had in said bank, under the security of the forged and falsified documents above stated; and after they had obtained said credit in the aforementioned deceitful manner, they began withdrawing from said bank, by means of checks, various sums in the total amount of P1,411,312.80, to the damage of the bank in question, as it did not recover any part of said amount.

The trial proceeded only with respect to the appellant because his co-accused Manuel Carlos was discharged in order to be used as witness for the Government and because the third accused, named John Doe, was not found nor could his identity be established before the trial. So extraordinarily voluminous is the record of the case and so numerous are the documents introduced in evidence during the trial both by the prosecution and the defense, particularly by the latter, that it would be a difficult and unnecessarily tedious, not to say impossible, task to consider and analyze one by one even the most insignificant facts and details mentioned and discussed in the three volumes of which the brief for the defense consists.

This is the longest case known in the annals of the judicial history of this country and the one that has taken the longest time to try. The brief for the appellant alone contains nearly two thousand pages, excluding the appendices thereof consisting two thousand pages, excluding the appendices thereof consisting of two volumes, and that for the appellee consists of a volume of 1,339 pages. The transcript of the stenographic notes is composed of 22,996 pages and the documentary evidence or exhibits, some of which contain many pages, amount to more than 46,000.

It being unnecessary, we shall not touch or mention in this decision those facts which, far from helping to clarify the points in controversy, rather serve to confuse them and to befog that which is in itself clear and which we so believe, after a conscientious study of the case. The entire evidence shows that Rafael Fernandez, who was charged in criminal case No. 42244 of the Court of First Instance of Manila, with a crime of the same nature as that with which the appellant Mariano Cu Unjieng and his two co-accused are charged in this case (estafa of P1,411,312.80 through falsification of several sugar warehouse receipts and stock certificates of the Pampanga Sugar Development Company Inc., wherein the alleged injured party is also the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), and with whom, according to the information, the three conspired in order to commit the complex crime of estafa and falsification described therein, had had long before June 16, 1931, several sugar transactions with Smith, Bell & Co., Ltd., a corporation doing business in this city.

Five days prior to said date, Rafael Fernandez approached the manager of said corporation to ask him whether they could sell in the United States the sugar which Fernandez then had here and whether they could further advance him funds to assist him in the sugar business in which amongst others, he was engaged. He was told that Smith, Bell & Co., Ltd., could take charge of selling his sugar provided he gave satisfactory securities, that he would faithfully comply with the contract which said company might enter into in his name; but at the same time he was told that the company was unable to advance him any money for his said business. It was suggested to him, however, that he might perhaps obtain the money from the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation of this city.

Rafael Fernandez accepted the suggestion and went with the manager of Smith, Bell & Co., Ltd., to said bank to explain his wishes. As a result he was allowed by said bank to open an account known as Account No. 1, and later on he opened another account designated as Account No. 2. The conditions for the opening of said two accounts were that the credit which was to be granted him, as overdraft, would be for an amount equivalent to the price of the sugar which he bound himself to sell in the United States, at the rate of a P6 a picul.

In view of this understanding, Smith, Bell & Co., Ltd., who from that time had the assurance that the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation would advance money to Rafael Fernandez at the stipulated rate, and as said Fernandez, on the other hand, had obligated himself to pay said company a commission and to defray all the shipping, freight and insurance expenses, accepted Fernandez's proposal to sell his sugar in the United States and, without losing time, sent cablegram Exhibit 836 to Henry W. Peabody & Co. of Boston, requesting said company of offer for sale four thousand tons of centrifugal sugar which was precisely what Fernandez wanted to sell. It was on June 16, 1931, when Rafael Fernandez's No. 1 Account in the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was opened. He gave as security for the payment of the credit of P359,700 granted to him on said date, the warehouse receipts Exhibits A, A-1 to A-63 which called for a total of 63,967 piculs of sugar.

Three days later, or on June 19, 1931, at his request he was granted another credit of P302,614 on his said No. 1 Account, and on this occasion he gave the warehouse receipts Exhibits B, B-1 to B-26 which called for a total of 53,780 piculs of sugar, as security for the payment thereof; and a few days later, that is on June 24, of said year, he again asked for and was granted another credit of P350,468 on his same No. 1 Account, the secure the payment of which he gave the warehouse receipts referred to in this case as Exhibits C, C-1 to C-36 which called for a total of 61,726 piculs of sugar. (Exhibit V.) In the following month, and to be more accurate, on July 6, 1931, Rafael Fernandez opened another account in the same bank "The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation", which account was designated as Account No. 2. In this account Rafael Fernandez obtained a new credit of P464,750 (Exhibit V-2), and to secure the payment of said credit he assigned to said bank his rights as creditor stated in the 22 sugar crop loan contracts for the 1932 milling season which were issued in his name and apparently approved by the sugar central of the Pampanga Sugar Development Company, Inc., and in 28 other contracts of the same nature which were also issued in his name but guaranteed by said central, according to a footnote thereon.

(Exhibits D, D-1 to D-49.) All said documents call for a total of 140,000 piculs of sugar subject to the conditions therein stated. The understanding and conditions for the opening of said Account No. 2 for Rafael Fernandez were that the credit or overdraft to be granted him should not exceed 50 per cent of the value of the 1932 sugar crop loan contracts approved by the Pampanga Sugar Development Company, Inc., nor be more than 80 per cent of the value of the loans of the same nature, the payment of which was guaranteed by said central. In this manner was said account, in fact, opened, inasmuch as the amount of P464,750 in question represents 50 per cent of the value of the approved loans (Exhibits D, D-1 to D-15) and 80 per cent of the value of the guaranteed loans (Exhibits D-16 to D-49).

The total amount withdrawn by Rafael Fernandez from his said two accounts Nos. 1 and 2 from the opening thereof until shortly before the filing of this case was P1,749,263.47. The lower court declared it established, and the evidence supports its conclusion, that Rafael Fernandez disposed of the money which he had withdrawn from time to time from his said two accounts Nos. 1 and 2 in the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, as follows: He gave to GUILLERMO A. CU UNJIENG (Exhibits W-39, W-34, W-31 and W-29 . .

. . .

P325,000.00 Id. to GUILLERMO A. CU UNJIENG through THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK (Exhibits W-33, W-21 and W-6) . .

. . .

. . P350,000.00 Id.

to MARIANO CU UNJIENG (Exhibit W-41) . . .

. . .

10,000.00 Id. to THE YEK TONG LIN FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE CO., LTD. (Exhibit W-32) .

. . .

. 1,457.47 Id. to CU UNJIENG & FERNANDEZ INVESTMENT CO.

(Exhibits W-37 and W-7) . . .

. . .

11,000.00 Id. to EASTERN THEATRICAL ENTERPRISES (Exhibit W-13) . .

. 6,000.00 Id. to THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK (Exhibits W-36, W-26, W-22, W-17 and W-3) .

. . .

. . 480,000.00 Id.

to PEOPLE BANK AND TRUST COMPANY (Exhibits W-40, W-38, W-30, W-20, W-19, W-5 and W-4) . . .

. . .

. 227,882.30 Id. to PHILIPPINE NATIONAL BANK (Exhibits W-23, W-11 and W) .

. . .

. 70,687.70 Id. to CHINA BANKING CORPORATION (Exhibit W-1) .

. . .

. 150,000.00 Id.

to PHILIPPINE TRUST COMPANY (Exhibits W-16 and W-2). . .

90,000.00 Id. to NUEVA ECIJA SUGAR MILLS (Exhibit W-35) . .

. . .

5,000.00 Id. to MARIA LOPEZ MENA (Exhibit W-28) . .

. . .

. 708.33 Id. to MARCELINA JOVEN (Exhibit W-18) .

. . .

500.00 Id. to CRISANTO ELIZALDE (Exhibit W-8) . .

. . .

. 1,896.72 Id. to JOAQUIN GONZALEZ (Exhibit W-25) .

. . .

. 4,200.00 Id. to ESTEBAN MEDINA (Exhibit W-24) .

. . .

. 1,625.00 Id. to SMITH, BELL & CO., LTD.

(Exhibit W-15) . . .

. . .

. . 83.50 Id.

to JOSE SYQUIA (Exhibit W-14) . . .

. . .

5,000.00 Id. to E. PEÑAFIEL (Exhibit W-12) . .

. . .

. . 1,713.32 Id.

to ROBERTO LAPERA (Exhibit W-10) . . .

. . .

. 2,000.00 Id. to RAFAEL MORALES (Exhibit W-9) .

. . .

. 2,000.00 and he paid for interest and two checks books (Exhibits V, V-1 and W-27) . .

. . .

. 2,509.13 Total . .

. . .