CASES DIGESTs -

GR NO. 82512

1. AMADO C. ARIAS, petitioner,

FACTS

The facts of this case are stated in the dissenting opinion of Justice Carolina C. Griño-Aquino which follows
this majority opinion. The dissent substantially reiterates the draft report prepared by Justice Griño-Aquino
as a working basis for the Court's deliberations when the case was being discussed and for the subsequent
votes of concurrence or dissent on the action proposed by the report.

There is no dispute over the events which transpired. The division of the Court is on the conclusions to be
drawn from those events and the facts insofar as the two petitioners are concerned. The majority is of the
view that Messrs. Arias and Data should be acquitted on grounds of reasonable doubt. The Court feels that
the quantum of evidence needed to convict petitioners Arias and Data beyond reasonable doubt, as co-
conspirators in the conspiracy to cause undue injury to the Government through the irregular disbursement
and expenditure of public funds, has not been satisfied.

In acquitting the petitioners, the Court agrees with the Solicitor-General 1 who, in 80 pages of his
consolidated manifestation and motion, recommended that Messrs. Arias and Data be acquitted of the
crime charged, with costs de oficio. Earlier, Tanodbayan Special Prosecutor Eleuterio F. Guerrero had also
recommended the dropping of Arias from the information before it was filed.

The records show that the six accused persons were convicted in connection with the overpricing of land
purchased by the Bureau of Public Works for the Mangahan Floodway Project. The project was intended to
ease the perennial floods in Marikina and Pasig, Metro Manila.

The accused were prosecuted because 19,004 square meters of "riceland" in Rosario, Pasig which had been
assessed at P5.00 a square meter in 1973 were sold as residential land" in 1978 for P80.00 a square meter.
The land for the floodway was acquired through negotiated purchase,

We agree with the Solicitor-General that the assessor's tax valuation of P5.00 per square meter of land in
Rosario, Pasig, Metro Manila is completely unrealistic and arbitrary as the basis for conviction.

Herein lies the first error of the trial court.

ISSUES

It must be stressed that the petitioners are not charged with conspiracy in the falsification of public
documents or preparation of spurious supporting papers. The charge is causing undue injury to the
Government and giving a private party unwarranted benefits through manifest partiality, evident bad faith,
or inexcusable negligence.

The alleged undue injury in a nutshell is the Government purchase of land in Pasig, Rizal for P80.00 a square
meter instead of the P5.00 value per square meter appearing in the tax declarations and fixed by the
municipal assessor, not by the landowner.

The Sandiganbayan, without any clear factual basis for doing so has assumed that the P5.00 per square
meter value fixed by the assessor in the tax declarations was the correct market value of the Mangahan
property and if the Government purchased the land for P80.00 a square meter, it follows that it must have
suffered undue injury.

RULINGS

The Solicitor General explains why this conclusion is erroneous:

1. No undue injury was caused to the Government

a. The P80.00 per square meter acquisition cost is just fair and reasonable.

It bears stress that the Agleham property was acquired through negotiated purchase. It was,
therefor, nothing more than an ordinary contract of sale where the purchase price had to be
arrived at by agreement between the parties and could never be left to the discretion of one of
the contracting parties (Article 1473, New Civil Code). For it is the essence of a contract of sale
that there must be a meeting of the minds between the seller and the buyer upon the thing
which is the object of the contract and upon the price (Article 1475, New Civil Code).
 Necessarily, the parties have to negotiate the reasonableness of the price, taking into
consideration such other factors as location, potentials, surroundings and capabilities. After
taking the foregoing premises into consideration, the parties have, thus, arrived at the amount of
P80.00 per square meter as the fair and reasonable price for the Agleham property.

It bears stress that the prosecution failed to adduce evidence to prove that the true and fair
market value in 1978 of the Agleham property was indeed P5.00 per square meter only as stated
by the assessor in the tax declaration (Exhibit W). On the contrary, the prosecution's principal
witness Pedro Ocol, the Assistant Municipal Assessor of Pasig, admitted that the purchase price
of P80.00 per square meter paid for the Agleham property as stated in the Deed of Sale (Exhibit
G) is reasonable (tsn, August 19,1983, p. 20) and fair (Ibid, p. 76); that 'the value of lands within
the town of Pasig ranges from P80.00 to P500.00' (Ibid, p. 21); that the Agleham property is
"around 300 meters" from Ortigas Avenue, "adjacent to the existing Leongson [Liamson]
Subdivision ... and near Eastland Garment Building" (Ibid, pp. 12-13); that said property is
surrounded by factories, commercial establishments and residential subdivisions (Ibid, pp. 73-
74); that the P5.00 per square meter assessed valuation of the Agleham property appearing on
the tax declaration (Exhibit W) was based on actual use only (lbid, pp. 26-27), it being the
uniform rate for all ricefields in Pasig irrespective of their locations (Ibid, pp. 72-74) and did not
take into account the existence of many factories and subdivisions in the area (Ibid., pp. 25-27,
72-74), and that the assessed value is different from and always lower than the actual market
value (Ibid, pp. 22-23). (At pp. 256-259, Rollo)

A negotiated purchase may usually entail a higher buying price than one arrived at in the course of
expropriation proceedings.

In Export Processing Zone Authority v. Dulay (149 SCRA 305, 310 [1987]) we struck down the martial law
decree that pegged just compensation in eminent domain cases to the assessed value stated by a
landowner in his tax declaration or fixed by the municipal assessor, whichever is lower. Other factors must
be considered. These factors must be determined by a court of justice and not by municipal employees.

In the instant case, the assessor's low evaluation, in the fixing of which the landowner had no participation,
was used for a purpose infinitely more weighty than mere expropriation of land. It forms the basis for a
criminal conviction.

The Court is not prepared to say that P80.00 to P500.00 a square meter for land in Pasig in 1978 would be a
fair evaluation. The value must be determined in eminent domain proceedings by a competent court. We
are certain, however, that it cannot be P5.00 a square meter. Hence, the decision, insofar as it says that the
"correct" valuation is P5.00 per square meter and on that basis convicted that petitioners of causing undue
injury, damage, and prejudice to the Government because of gross overpricing, is grounded on shaky
foundations.

There can be no overpricing for purposes of a criminal conviction where no proof adduced during orderly
proceedings has been presented and accepted.

The Court's decision, however, is based on a more basic reason. Herein lies the principal error of the
respondent court.

We would be setting a bad precedent if a head of office plagued by all too common problems-dishonest or
negligent subordinates, overwork, multiple assignments or positions, or plain incompetence is suddenly
swept into a conspiracy conviction simply because he did not personally examine every single detail,
painstakingly trace every step from inception, and investigate the motives of every person involved in a
transaction before affixing, his signature as the final approving authority.

There appears to be no question from the records that documents used in the negotiated sale were
falsified. A key tax declaration had a typewritten number instead of being machine-numbered. The
registration stamp mark was antedated and the land reclassified as residential instead of rice field. But were
the petitioners guilty of conspiracy in the falsification and the subsequent charge of causing undue in injury
and damage to the Government?

There should be other grounds than the mere signature or approval appearing on a voucher to sustain a
conspiracy charge and conviction.

Was petitioner Arias part of the planning, preparation, and perpetration of the alleged conspiracy to
defraud the government?

Arias joined the Pasig office on July 19, 1978. The negotiations for the purchase of the property started in
1977. The deed of sale was executed on April 20, 1978. Title was transferred to the Republic on June 8,
1978. In other words, the transaction had already been consummated before his arrival. The pre-audit,
incident to payment of the purchase, was conducted in the first week of October, 1978. Arias points out
that apart from his signature linking him to the signature on the voucher, there is no evidence transaction.
On the contrary, the other co-accused testified they did not know him personally and none approached him
to follow up the payment.

The main reason for the judgment of conviction, for the finding of undue injury and damage to the
Government is the alleged gross overprice for the land purchased for the floodway project.

The Solicitor General summarizes the participation of petitioner Data as follows:

As regards petitioner Data's alleged participation, the evidence on record shows that as the then District
Engineer of the Pasig Engineering District he created a committee, headed by Engr. Priscillo Fernando with
Ricardo Asuncion, Alfonso Mendoza, Ladislao Cruz, Pedro Hucom and Carlos Jose, all employees of the
district office, as members, specifically to handle the Mangahan Floodway Project, gather and verify
documents, conduct surveys, negotiate with the owners for the sale of their lots, process claims and
prepare the necessary documents; he did not take any direct and active part in the acquisition of land for
the Mangahan floodway; it was the committee which determined the authenticity of the documents
presented to them for processing and on the basis thereof prepared the corresponding deed of sale;
thereafter, the committee submitted the deed of sale together with the supporting documents to petitioner
Data for signing; on the basis of the supporting certified documents which appeared regular and complete
on their face, petitioner Data, as head of the office and the signing authority at that level, merely signed but
did not approve the deed of sale (Exhibit G) as the approval thereof was the prerogative of the Secretary of
Public Works; he thereafter transmitted the signed deed of sale with its supporting documents to Director
Anolin of the Bureau of Public Works who in turn recommended approval thereof by the Secretary of Public
Works; the deed of sale was approved by the Asst. Secretary of Public Works after a review and re-
examination thereof at that level; after the approval of the deed of sale by the higher authorities the
covering voucher for payment thereof was prepared which petitioner Data signed; petitioner Data did not
know Gutierrez and had never met her during the processing and payment of her claims (tsn, February 26,
1987, pp. 10-14, 16-24, 31-32). (At pp. 267-268, Rollo.)

On the alleged conspiracy, the Solicitor General argues:

It is respectfully submitted that the prosecution likewise has not shown any positive and convincing
evidence of conspiracy between the petitioners and their co-accused. There was no direct finding of
conspiracy. Respondent Court's inference on the alleged existence of conspiracy merely upon the purported
'pre-assigned roles (of the accused) in the commission of the (alleged) illegal acts in question is not
supported by any evidence on record. Nowhere in the seventy- eight (78) page Decision was there any
specific allusion to some or even one instance which would link either petitioner Arias or Data to their co-
accused in the planning, preparation and/or perpetration, if any, of the purported fraud and falsifications
alleged in the information That petitioners Data and Arias happened to be officials of the Pasig District
Engineering Office who signed the deed of sale and passed on pre-audit the general voucher covering the
subject sale, respectively, does hot raise any presumption or inference, that they were part of the alleged
plan to defraud the Government, as indeed there was none. It should be remembered that, as above-
shown, there was no undue injury caused to the Government as the negotiated purchase of the Agleham
property was made at the fair and reasonable price of P80.00 per square meter.

That there were erasures and superimpositions of the words and figures of the purchase price in the deed
of sale from P1,546,240.00 to P1,520,320.00 does not prove conspiracy. It may be noted that there was a
reduction in the affected area from the estimated 19,328 square meters to 19,004 square meters as
approved by the Land Registration Commission, which resulted in the corresponding reduction in the
purchase price from P1,546,240.00 to Pl,520,320.00. The erasures in the deed of sale were simple
corrections that even benefited the Government.

Moreover, contrary to the respondent Court's suspicion, there was nothing irregular in the use of the
unapproved survey plan/technical description in the deed of sale because the approval of the survey plan/
technical description was not a prerequisite to the approval of the deed of sale. What is important is that
before any payment is made by the Government under the deed of sale the title of the seller must have
already been cancelled and another one issued to the Government incorporating therein the technical
description as approved by the Land Registration Commission, as what obtained in the instant case. (At pp.
273-275, Rollo)

We agree with the counsel for the People. There is no adequate evidence to establish the guilt of the
petitioners, Amado C. Arias and Cresencio D. Data, beyond reasonable doubt. The inadequate evidence on
record is not sufficient to sustain a conviction.

WHEREFORE, the questioned decision of the Sandiganbayan insofar as it convicts and sentences petitioners
Amado C. Arias and Cresencio D. Data is hereby SET ASIDE. Petitioners Arias and Data are acquitted on
grounds of reasonable doubt. No costs.

SO ORDERED.