"Return of the amount owed to Del Rosario will not cancel Arriola's criminal liability for Estafa
Arriola insists that he manifested good faith when he returned Del Rosario's money, and that good faith is a defense against a charge for Estafa. Citing this Court's ruling in Salazar v. People,53 he also maintains that the transaction between Del Rosario and Candelaria was that of a sale, and his failure to deliver the title of the property in question only gave rise to a civil liability. We disagree.
The return by the accused of money belonging to the private complainant will not reverse a consummated act of Estafa. Quite the contrary, such action may even uphold a conviction. Section 27, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court states that in criminal cases, except those involving quasi-offenses or criminal negligence or those allowed by law to be compromised, an offer of compromise by the accused may be received in evidence as an implied admission of guilt. In this case, Arriola's initial attempts to reimburse Del Rosario through checks, coupled with the actual return of the latter's money after the RTC issued its judgment of conviction, may all be considered as unequivocal gestures to compromise and which can be measured against Arriola as his implied admission of guilt.
Moreover, Salazar v. People,54 which exonerated accused therein upon reconsideration and contemplated Estafa by misappropriation under Article 315, paragraph 1(b) of the RPC, finds no application here, as the present case involves Estafa by false pretenses under Article 315, paragraph 2(a) of the same law.
Even if so similarly situated, Salazar v. People55 declared that the transaction between the parties therein was simply that of sale, and a delay in the performance by a party to the contract entailed only a civil obligation to return the advance payment made by the other. No such sale of a piece of land transpired in this case due to Arriola's lack of authority to sell. There was no contract in the first place. Also, unlike in Salazar v. People, evidence of false pretenses and the resultant damage to Del Rosario clearly obtains against Arriola. This creates not just a civil obligation on Arriola to return Del Rosario's money, but also a correlative criminal liability for the perpetration of fraud on Del Rosario."
G.R. No. 199975, February 24, 2020
LUIS T. ARRIOLA, PETITIONER, V. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT.
https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2020/feb2020/gr_199975_2020.html
