"x x x.
As to the main issue, petitioner maintains that, although the charge against respondents was for violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, its prosecution relates to its efforts to recover the ill-gotten wealth of former President Ferdinand Marcos and of his family and cronies. Section 15, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution provides that the right of the State to recover properties unlawfully acquired by public officials or employees is not barred by prescription, laches, or estoppel.
But the Court has already settled in Presidential Ad Hoc Fact-Finding Committee on Behest Loans v. Desierto[14] that Section 15, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution applies only to civil actions for recovery of ill-gotten wealth, not to criminal cases such as the complaint against respondents in OMB-0-90-2810. Thus, the prosecution of offenses arising from, relating or incident to, or involving ill-gotten wealth contemplated in Section 15, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution may be barred by prescription.[15]
Notably, Section 11 of R.A. 3019 now provides that the offenses committed under that law prescribes in 15 years. Prior to its amendment by Batas Pambansa (B.P.) Blg. 195 on March 16, 1982, however, the prescriptive period for offenses punishable under R.A. 3019 was only 10 years.[16] Since the acts complained of were committed before the enactment of B.P. 195, the prescriptive period for such acts is 10 years as provided in Section 11 of R.A. 3019, as originally enacted.[17]
Now R.A. 3019 being a special law, the 10-year prescriptive period should be computed in accordance with Section 2 of Act 3326,[18] which provides:
Section 2. Prescription shall begin to run from the day of the commission of the violation of the law, and if the same be not known at the time, from the discovery thereof and the institution of judicial proceedings for its investigation and punishment.
The above-mentioned section provides two rules for determining when the prescriptive period shall begin to run: first, from the day of the commission of the violation of the law, if such commission is known; and second, from its discovery, if not then known, and the institution of judicial proceedings for its investigation and punishment.[19]
Petitioner points out that, assuming the offense charged is subject to prescription, the same began to run only from the date it was discovered, namely, after the 1986 EDSA Revolution. Thus, the charge could be filed as late as 1996.
In the prosecution of cases of behest loans, the Court reckoned the prescriptive period from the discovery of such loans. The reason for this is that the government, as aggrieved party, could not have known that those loans existed when they were made. Both parties to such loans supposedly conspired to perpetrate fraud against the government. They could only have been discovered after the 1986 EDSA Revolution when the people ousted President Marcos from office. And, prior to that date, no person would have dared question the legality or propriety of the loans.[20]
Those circumstances do not obtain in this case. For one thing, what is questioned here is not the grant of behest loans that, by their nature, could be concealed from the public eye by the simple expedient of suppressing their documentations. What is rather involved here is UCPB’s investment in UNICOM, which corporation is allegedly owned by respondent Cojuangco, supposedly a Marcos crony. That investment does not, however, appear to have been withheld from the curious or from those who were minded to know like banks or competing businesses. Indeed, the OSG made no allegation that respondent members of the board of directors of UCPB connived with UNICOM to suppress public knowledge of the investment.
Besides, the transaction left the confines of the UCPB and UNICOM board rooms when UNICOM applied with the SEC, the publicly-accessible government clearing house for increases in corporate capitalization, to accommodate UCPB’s investment. Changes in shareholdings are reflected in the General Information Sheets that corporations have been mandated to submit annually to the SEC. These are available to anyone upon request.
The OSG makes no allegation that the SEC denied public access to UCPB’s investment in UNICOM during martial law at the President’s or anyone else’s instance. Indeed, no accusation of this kind has ever been hurled at the SEC with reference to corporate transactions of whatever kind during martial law since even that regime had a stake in keeping intact the integrity of the SEC as an instrumentality of investments in the Philippines
And, granted that the feint-hearted might not have the courage to question the UCPB investment into UNICOM during martial law, the second element—that the action could not have been instituted during the 10-year period because of martial law—does not apply to this case. The last day for filing the action was, at the latest, on February 8, 1990, about four years after martial law ended. Petitioner had known of the investment it now questions for a sufficiently long time yet it let those four years of the remaining period of prescription run its course before bringing the proper action.
Prescription of actions is a valued rule in all civilized states from the beginning of organized society. It is a rule of fairness since, without it, the plaintiff can postpone the filing of his action to the point of depriving the defendant, through the passage of time, of access to defense witnesses who would have died or left to live elsewhere, or to documents that would have been discarded or could no longer be located. Moreover, the memories of witnesses are eroded by time. There is an absolute need in the interest of fairness to bar actions that have taken the plaintiffs too long to file in court.
Respondents claim that, in any event, the complaint against them failed to show probable cause. They point out that, prior to the third amendment of UNICOM’s capitalization, the stated value of the one million shares without par value, which belonged to its incorporators, was P5 million. When these shares were converted to 5 million shares with par value, the total par value of such shares remained at P5 million. But, the action having prescribed, there is no point in discussing the existence of probable cause against the respondents for violation of Section 3(e) of R.A. 3019.
x x x."
