No criminal intent

To constitute a crime, the act must, except in certain crimes made such by statutes, be accompanied by criminal intent. A crime is not committed if the mind of the person performing the act complained of being innocent. This is the principle applied in this case of Mila.

Mila was the president of a State College down south. Sometime in 1989, 34 secondary school teachers of the State College applied for conversion to Instructor I. Through Mila, their request was approved by the Department of Budget and Management. Consequent to the approval of said request, the DBM allotted the amount of P40,000 for the purpose of paying the salary differentials of said teachers sourced from the lump sum appropriation authorized by the General Appropriations Act of 1989 and from the current savings under personnel services of the school.

Out of the 34 teachers, 28 were already holding the position of Secondary School Teacher III receiving the salary of Instructor I. The remaining 6 were still holding Secondary Teacher II positions and therefore receiving salaries lower than Instructor I. So Mila paid the salary differentials of the remaining 6 teachers only amounting to P8,370. Thereafter, Mila used the amount of P31,516.16 taken from the remaining balance of the P40,000 allotment to pay the terminal leave benefits of 6 casuals who worked in the school.

In applying part of the P40,000 allotment for the salary differentials of secondary school teachers to the payment of the wages of the casuals, Mila as president of the school and her cashier and administrative officer were charged with technical malversation under the second paragraph of Article 220 of the Revised Penal Code.

After trial only Mila was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of P3,000. by the Sandiganbayan. Mila questioned this decision. She contended that the prosecution failed to adduce evidence to prove criminal intent on her part. But the Sandiganbayan still ruled that she was guilty invoking Section 5(b), Rule 131 of the Rules of Court setting forth the presumption that an unlawful act was done with an unlawful intent; that criminal intent may be inferred from the unlawful act done. If the act is criminal, then criminal intent is presumed, the Sandiganbayan ruled. Was the Sandiganbayan correct?

No. The presumption of criminal intent will not automatically apply to all charges of technical malversation because disbursement of public funds for public use is per se not an unlawful act. Here Mila cannot be said to have committed an unlawful act when she paid the obligation of the State College to its employees in the form of terminal leave benefits such employees were entitled to under existing civil service laws.

In the absence of any presumption of unlawful intent, the burden of proving by competent evidence that Mila’s act of paying the terminal benefits of the employees of the school was done with criminal intent rests with the prosecution. In this case, the prosecution definitely failed to prove unlawful intent on the part of Mila.

It is true that a presumption of criminal intent may arise from proof of the commission of a criminal act; and the general rule is that if it is proved that the accused committed the criminal act charged, it will be presumed that the act was done with criminal intention and it is for the accused to rebut this presumption. But it must be borne in mind that the act from which such presumption springs must be a criminal act. In the case at bar, the act is not criminal. Neither can it be categorized as malum prohibitum, the mere commission of which makes the doer criminally liable even if he acted without evil intent. Mila is therefore not guilty of the crime charged and should be acquitted (Abdulla vs. People. G.R. 150129, April 6, 2005. 455 SCRA 78).

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