View full case

LUIS MARCOS P. LAUREL v. ZEUS C. ABROGAR

FACTS:

The petitioner in this case is one of the accused in Criminal Case No. 99-2425, which charged the accused with theft of international long distance calls belonging to the Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT). The trial court denied the petitioner's motion to quash the Amended Information, and the Court of Appeals dismissed the petitioner's special civil action for certiorari. The petitioner filed a petition for review with the Supreme Court.

In the decision rendered by the Court, it held that the Amended Information does not contain material allegations charging the petitioner with theft of personal property, as international long distance calls and the business of providing telecommunication services are not considered personal properties under Article 308 of the Revised Penal Code.

PLDT filed a motion for reconsideration and argued that international calls and the business of providing telecommunication services are personal properties capable of appropriation and can be objects of theft. They argued that the element of "taking" in relation to theft does not require "asportation" and that the term "personal properties" under Article 308 of the Revised Penal Code is not limited to personal properties that can be severed and transported. PLDT further claimed that international telephone calls are personal properties because they are electric currents or sets of electric impulses transmitted through a medium and carry a pattern representing the human voice, falling under the definition of personal property as provided in Article 416(3) of the Civil Code.

In response, the petitioner argued that a telephone call is a communication carried out using the telephone and cannot be considered personal property. According to the petitioner, PLDT only provides the facilities or services for the transmission and switching of the calls, but does not produce or generate them.

The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), however, asserts that international phone calls and the business or service of providing them fall under the definition of personal property under the Civil Code and can be subject to theft. The OSG also argues that prosecution under other specific laws related to access devices and electronic commerce does not preclude prosecution under the Revised Penal Code for theft. The case was referred to the Banc due to the gravity and complexity of the legal questions involved.

ISSUES:

  1. Whether international long distance calls and the business of providing telecommunication services can be considered "personal property" under Article 308 of the Revised Penal Code, and thus subject to theft.

RULING:

  1. The Supreme Court ruled that the business of providing telecommunication and the telephone service are "personal property" under Article 308 of the Revised Penal Code, and that the act of engaging in ISR is an act of "subtraction" penalized under said article. However, the Amended Information inaccurately described the property subject of the theft as "international long distance calls". Therefore, the case is remanded to the trial court and the Public Prosecutor of Makati City is directed to amend the Amended Information to clearly state that the property subject of the theft were the services and business of PLDT.

PRINCIPLES:

  1. Personal Property under Article 308 of the Revised Penal Code: The ruling affirms that personal property subject to theft under Article 308 includes any movable property caught under the definition of the Civil Code Article 416(3) which includes forces of nature brought under control by science such as electricity.

  2. "Taking" in Theft: The act of "taking" in theft does not require "asportation" or carrying away, but any act intended to transfer possession and deprive the lawful owner of the thing.

  3. Ownership and Possession: The ruling clarifies that telephone calls, in the sense of electrical energy they represent, cannot be owned by telecommunication companies; rather, it is the telecommunication services rendered by the company that constitutes the personal property subject to theft.

  4. Legal Interpretation of Property: The court emphasized that interpretation of "personal property" in criminal law should be extensive and should include properties capable of appropriation, as understood in civil law and various jurisprudence before the codification of the Revised Penal Code.

  5. Amended Information: It is necessary for the charge in the information to accurately describe the nature of the property appropriated to sufficiently apprise the accused of the nature and cause of the accusation against him.