Facts

• Between May 11 and June 8, 1971, in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, Hermogenes Mariano — appointed Liaison Officer by Municipal Mayor Constantino Nolasco and authorised to receive US excess property of USAID/NEC for the municipality — received three lots of electric cable worth $717.50 or P4,797.35. The Information alleged that instead of delivering them to the Mayor he "with grave abuse of confidence and with deceit" misappropriated, misapplied and converted them to his own use.
• On December 18, 1974 the Provincial Fiscal of Bulacan filed the Information for estafa§ in the CFI of Bulacan, Branch V, under Judge Ambrosio M. Geraldez (Crim. Case No. SM-649). This filing date decides the case: jurisdiction is fixed by the statute in force when the action is commenced.
• Before the motion to quash, Mayor Nolasco was indicted before a Military Commission§ for malversation of public property covering the same items, found guilty, and sentenced to ten years and one day to fourteen years and eight months, with perpetual disqualification and a P19,646.15 fine.
• On February 19, 1975 Mariano moved to quash on three grounds — no jurisdiction over the offence or his person; extinguishment of criminal liability; and averments constituting a legal excuse — arguing on the first that the Military Tribunal's decision on the same items had divested the CFI.
• On March 14, 1975 Judge Geraldez granted the motion for lack of jurisdiction: "Considering that the Military Commission had already taken cognizance of the malversation case … in its concurrent jurisdiction with this Court … this Court is without jurisdiction to pass upon anew the same subject matter." He did not rule on the other two grounds — so nothing about extinguishment or legal excuse was ever decided.
• The People sought review on the sole issue of jurisdiction; the Court gave due course on July 16, 1975, treating it as a special civil action. Mariano neither answered nor filed a memorandum. Decided June 30, 1976.

Issue

Ruling

"PREMISES CONSIDERED, the appealed Order dated March 14, 1975, is set aside and respondent Judge is directed to proceed with the trial of Criminal Case No. SM- 649 without further delay. SO ORDERED."

Ratio

• The Court began with the concept itself, because the case is decided out of the definition. "'Jurisdiction' is the basic foundation of judicial proceedings," derived from juris and dico — "I speak by the law§" — "which means fundamentally the power or capacity given by the law to a court or tribunal to entertain, hear, and determine certain controversies." Bouvier's definition is adopted: "the authority by which judicial officers take cognizance of and decide cases."
• Philippine authority is layered on: per Herrera vs. Barretto, jurisdiction is "simply … the authority to hear and determine a cause the right to act in a case," also described as "the right to put the wheels of justice in notion and to proceed to the final determination of a cause upon the pleadings and evidence."
• The operative sentence for this Topic: "'Criminal Jurisdiction' is necessarily the authority to hear and try a particular offense and impose the punishment for it." Note the two limbs — authority to try, and authority to punish. Buissan turns on the second.
• From the definition comes the source rule: "The conferment of jurisdiction upon courts or judicial tribunals is derived exclusively from the constitution and statutes of the forum." Applied: estafa of an amount over P200 but not over P6,000 carries arresto mayor maximum to prisión correccional minimum — "from four (4) months and one (1) day to two (2) years and four (4) months" — so "[b]y reason of the penalty imposed which exceeds six (6) months imprisonment," it "falls under the original jurisdiction of courts of first instance."
• The temporal rule from People vs. Fontanilla disposes of any suggestion that a Martial Law issuance changed the answer.
• The premise of the order below is destroyed rather than answered on its own terms: General Order No. 49, dated October 4, 1974, does not include estafa.
• The "first to take cognizance" rule is acknowledged (People vs. Fernando) but held inapplicable "for want of its own premise": "we do not have here a situation involving two tribunals vested with concurrent jurisdiction … hence, there is no concurrent jurisdiction between it and respondent court to speak of."
• Two independent grounds close the reasoning: "Estafa and malversation are two separate and distinct offenses and in the case now before Us the accused in one is different from the accused in the other."

Doctrine

• Definition of criminal jurisdiction: "'Criminal Jurisdiction' is necessarily the authority to hear and try a particular offense and impose the punishment for it." Generally, jurisdiction is "the power or capacity given by the law to a court or tribunal to entertain, hear, and determine certain controversies," or "the authority to hear and determine a cause the right to act in a case."
• Source of jurisdiction: "The conferment of jurisdiction upon courts or judicial tribunals is derived exclusively from the constitution and statutes of the forum."
• Time at which it is fixed: "the jurisdiction of a court is determined by the statute in force at the time of the commencement of the action."
• Concurrent jurisdiction and its precondition: where two tribunals are concurrently vested, the one that first takes cognizance acquires it exclusively — but the rule applies only where concurrence in fact exists; a tribunal not vested by law with authority over the offence creates no concurrence and cannot divest the court that has it.

• The holding is statute-specific and time-specific, resting on General Order No. 49 as it stood at filing. The Court's own footnote records that it "was amended by General Order No. 54 dated October 22, 1975, to include … estafa as among those cognizable by the military tribunals but only when the crime is committed in large scale or by a syndicate" — the temporal rule is what keeps that amendment out of this case.
• The Court did not hold that a prior military-tribunal judgment can never affect a civil prosecution: it held that this one could not, for two independent reasons — no concurrence over estafa, and, separately, estafa and malversation are distinct offences charged against different accused — so the ruling is not authority on double jeopardy or res judicata between the two fora even where jurisdiction does overlap.
• Only the jurisdictional ground was decided; extinguishment and legal excuse remain open on remand. The penalty bracket also matters — the alleged P4,797.35 sits inside the over-P200-not-over-P6,000 bracket, and a different bracket could change the answer. And the case concerns jurisdiction over the subject matter, not the person.

Full Digest — Recitation Format

Gist

Facts

1. On or about and during the period from May 11 to June 8, 1971, in the municipality of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, Hermogenes Mariano — appointed Liaison Officer by the then incumbent Municipal Mayor Constantino Nolasco, acting for and in behalf of the municipality, and authorised to receive and be receipted for US excess property of USAID/NEC for the municipality's use and benefit — received from USAID/NEC three lots of electric cable: 150 ft. of electric cable valued at $15 or P100.50; 525 ft. of cable power valued at $577.50 or P3,859.35; and 250 ft. of electric cable at $125.00 or P837.50 — a total of $717.50 or P4,797.35. The Information alleged that his duty was to deliver these items to the Municipal Mayor, and that instead, "with grave abuse of confidence and with deceit," he misappropriated, misapplied and converted them to his own personal use and benefit, to the damage and prejudice of USAID/NEC in that sum.
2. On December 18, 1974, the office of the Provincial Fiscal of Bulacan filed the Information accusing Mariano of estafa, docketed as Criminal Case No. SM-649 in the Court of First Instance of Bulacan, Branch V, presided over by Judge Ambrosio M. Geraldez. The filing date is the fact that decides the case: jurisdiction is fixed by the statute in force when the action is commenced.
3. At some point before the motion to quash, Mayor Constantino A. Nolasco was indicted before a Military Commission for malversation of public property covering the same items, was found guilty, and was sentenced to imprisonment at hard labour for ten (10) years and one (1) day to fourteen (14) years and eight (8) months, with perpetual disqualification, plus a fine of P19,646.15.
4. On February 19, 1975, Mariano, through counsel Eustaquio Evangelista, filed a motion to quash the Information on three grounds: (1) that the court trying the cause has no jurisdiction of the offense charged or of the person of the defendant; (2) that the criminal action or liability has been extinguished; and (3) that it contains averments which, if true, would constitute a legal excuse or justification. In support of the first ground he argued that because the case against Mayor Nolasco covering the same items had already been decided by the Military Tribunal, the Court of First Instance of Bulacan had lost jurisdiction over the case against him.
5. On March 14, 1975, Judge Geraldez issued an Order granting the motion to quash on the ground of lack of jurisdiction, reasoning: "Considering that the Military Commission had already taken cognizance of the malversation case against Mayor Nolasco involving the same subject matter in its concurrent jurisdiction with this Court, the case involving the subject properties had already been heard and decided by a competent tribunal, the Military Commission, and as such this Court is without jurisdiction to pass upon anew the same subject matter." Respondent Judge did not rule on the other two grounds invoked in the motion to quash — so nothing about extinguishment or legal excuse was ever decided below, and neither reached the Supreme Court.
6. The People, through Assistant Provincial Fiscal Clemente G. Perfecto of Bulacan, sought review of that Order, presenting the sole issue of the jurisdiction of the respondent court over the estafa case.
7. On July 16, 1975, the Supreme Court resolved to give due course to the Petition and to treat it as a special civil action, granting the parties time to file memoranda.
8. Respondent Mariano neither answered the Petition nor filed any memorandum. On May 28, 1976, the Solicitor General filed his memorandum supporting the Petition.
9. On June 30, 1976, the First Division promulgated this Decision through Justice Muñoz Palma, setting aside the Order of March 14, 1975.

Arguments of the Parties

Issue

Ruling

"PREMISES CONSIDERED, the appealed Order dated March 14, 1975, is set aside and respondent Judge is directed to proceed with the trial of Criminal Case No. SM- 649 without further delay.

SO ORDERED."

Ratio

1. The Court began with the concept itself, because the case is decided out of the definition. "'Jurisdiction' is the basic foundation of judicial proceedings." The word derives from two Latin words, juris and dico — "I speak by the law" — "which means fundamentally the power or capacity given by the law to a court or tribunal to entertain, hear, and determine certain controversies." Bouvier's definition is adopted as having "found judicial acceptance": jurisdiction is "the right of a Judge to pronounce a sentence of the law in a case or issue before him, acquired through due process of law"; it is "the authority by which judicial officers take cognizance of and decide cases."
2. Philippine authority is then layered on. In Herrera vs. Barretto (September 10, 1913, 25 Phil. 245, 251), the Court, through Justice Moreland and invoking American jurisprudence, defined jurisdiction "simply as the authority to hear and determine a cause the right to act in a case." It has also been described as "the right to put the wheels of justice in notion and to proceed to the final determination of a cause upon the pleadings and evidence."
3. The operative sentence for this Topic is the specialisation of that definition to criminal cases: "'Criminal Jurisdiction' is necessarily the authority to hear and try a particular offense and impose the punishment for it." Note the two limbs — authority to try, and authority to punish. Buissan turns on the second limb, holding that a court which cannot impose all the legal consequences the offense carries does not have jurisdiction over it.
4. From the definition the Court derives the source rule. "The conferment of jurisdiction upon courts or judicial tribunals is derived exclusively from the constitution and statutes of the forum. Thus, the question of jurisdiction of respondent Court of First Instance over the case filed before it is to be resolved on the basis of the law or statute providing for or defining its jurisdiction." The Court then reads Section 44(f) of the Judiciary Act of 1948 and applies it: estafa of an amount over P200 but not exceeding P6,000 is penalised under Article 315, par. 3rd with arresto mayor maximum to prisión correccional minimum, "or imprisonment from four (4) months and one (1) day to two (2) years and four (4) months." "By reason of the penalty imposed which exceeds six (6) months imprisonment, the offense alleged to have been committed by the accused, now respondent, Mariano, falls under the original jurisdiction of courts of first instance."
5. The temporal rule disposes of any suggestion that a Martial Law issuance had changed the answer. Citing People vs. Fontanilla (L-25354, June 28, 1968, 23 SCRA 1227), through then Justice, later Chief Justice, Fred Ruiz Castro, the Court "categorically reiterated the settled rule that the jurisdiction of a court is determined by the statute in force at the time of the commencement of the action." At the filing on December 18, 1974, that statute was the Judiciary Act of 1948, whose relevant provision was untouched by Presidential issuances under Martial Law.
6. The premise of the order below is then destroyed rather than answered on its own terms. General Order No. 49, dated October 4, 1974 — which repealed General Order No. 12 and its amendments and related General Orders inconsistent with it — "redefines the jurisdiction of military tribunals over certain offense, and estafa and malversation are not among those enumerated therein." Therefore "the Military Commission is not vested with jurisdiction over the crime of estafa."
7. The "first to take cognizance" rule is held inapplicable for want of its own premise. The Court accepts that where two tribunals hold concurrent jurisdiction, the one that first takes cognizance acquires it "exclusive of the other" (People vs. Fernando, L-25942, May 28, 1968, 21 SCRA 867). But "more fundamental is the fact that We do not have here a situation involving two tribunals vested with concurrent jurisdiction over a particular crime so as to apply the rule." Since the Military Commission "is without power or authority to hear and determine the particular offense charged against respondent Mariano, hence, there is no concurrent jurisdiction between it and respondent court to speak of."
8. Two independent grounds close the reasoning. Beyond the absence of concurrence, "Estafa and malversation are two separate and distinct offenses and in the case now before Us the accused in one is different from the accused in the other" — Mariano was charged with estafa, Nolasco convicted of malversation. The conclusion: "Estafa as described in the Information filed in Criminal Case No. SM-649 falls within the sole exclusive jurisdiction of civil courts."

Doctrine

• The holding is statute-specific and time-specific. It rests on General Order No. 49 as it stood when the Information was filed. The Court's own footnote 9* records that General Order No. 49 "was amended by General Order No. 54 dated October 22, 1975, to include to estafa as among those cognizable by the military tribunals but only when the crime is committed in large scale or by a syndicate." Had Mariano's estafa been filed after that amendment and been of that character, the concurrence question would have been live. The temporal rule in paragraph 5 is what keeps the 1975 amendment out of this case.
• The Court did not hold that a prior military-tribunal judgment can never affect a civil prosecution. It held that this one could not, for two independent reasons: no concurrent jurisdiction over estafa, and — separately — estafa and malversation are distinct offenses charged against different accused. The second ground means the ruling is not authority on double jeopardy or res judicata between the two fora even where jurisdiction does overlap.
• Only the jurisdictional ground was decided. The motion to quash's grounds of extinguishment of criminal liability and averments constituting a legal excuse or justification remained undecided below and remain open on remand.
• The penalty figure the Court uses is that for estafa where the amount is over P200 but not over P6,000 (Art. 315, par. 3rd). The alleged amount, P4,797.35, sits inside that bracket; a different bracket would carry a different penalty and could change the jurisdictional answer.
• The case concerns jurisdiction over the subject matter, not over the person. Although Mariano's motion invoked both, the Court's analysis is entirely about competence over the offense.

Separate Opinions