CRIMINAT tAW II

'URISPRUDENCE
FAI-SI FICATION & MARVERSATION :

People v. Sendaydiego, G.R. Nos. L-33252-54

panuory 20,79781,777 PHIL 714-747

PERSON IN POSSESSION OF FALSIFIED DOCUMENT IS PRESUMED TO BE THE AUTHOR OF

THE FALSIFICATION: The rule is that if a person had in his possession a falsified
document and he made use of it (uttered it), taking advantage of it and profiting
thereby, the presumption is that he is the material author of the falsification. This is
especially true if the use of uttering of the forged documents was so closely connected
in time with the forgery that the user of possessor may be proven to have the capacity
of committing the forgery, or to have close connection with the gorgers, and therefore,
had complicity in the forgery.

FALSIFICATION; USE OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF SIGNATURES. The deviousness of

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falsification perpetrated by the accused is shown by the fact that he uses one form of
signature for his crooked transactions with the provincial government and another form
of signature for his valid transactions or papers.

SEPARATE MALVERSATIONS AND FALSIFICATIONS. lf the falsification is resorted to for

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the purpose of hiding the malversation, the falsification and malversation are separate
offenses. Thus, where the provincial treasurer, as the custodian of the money forming
part of the road and bridge fund, effected payments to his co-accused for construction
materials supposedly delivered to the province for various projects when in fact no such
materials were delivered, and to camouflage or conceal the defraudation, the accused
used six vouchers which had genuine features and which appear to be extrinsically
authentic but which were intrinsically fake, the crimes committed are not complex but
separate crimes of falsification and malversation. The falsifications cannot be regarded
as constituting one continuing offense impelled by a single criminal impulse. Each
falsification of a voucher constitutes one crime. The falsification of six couchers
constitutes six separate or distinct offenses; and each misappropriation as evidenced by
a provincial voucher constitutes a separate offense.

MALVERSATION; CRIM!NAL LIABILITY; PRIVATE PERSON CONSPIRING WITH PUBLIC

A private person conspiring with an accountable officer in committing
OFFICER.
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malversation is also guitty of malversation. A different rule prevails with respect to a
stranger taking part in the commission of parricide or qualified theft. ln such cases, the
stranger is not guilty of parricide or qualified theft but only of murder or homicide, as
the case may be, and simple theft.
FALSIFICATION

Loyug v. Sondiganbayan, G.R. Nos. 727047-57

[August 76,2000], 392 PHIL 697-770)

FALSIFICATION OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS; ELEMENTS OF THE CRIME. To convict an

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accused of the crime of falsification of public or official document under that provision
of law, the following requisites must be established: (1)the offender makes in a
document untruthful stotements in o norration of focts; (21he has a legol obligotion lo
disclose the truth of the facts narrated by him; and (3) the facts narrated by him
are obsolutely folse. There is authority to the effect that a fourth requisite, i.e., that the