Supreme Court affirms estafa conviction of Emilio Aguinaldo namesake

The Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a descendant and namesake of the late president Emilio Aguinaldo for estafa in connection with the sale of a property in Tagaytay in 2000.

The Second Division denied Emilio Aguinaldo IV's petition assailing the 2016 Court of Appeals decision that affirmed, with modification, his conviction before a Makati court in 2013, according to an October 10 resolution released Friday.

Aguinaldo was accused of fraudulently representing that he had authority to sell a property in the estate of Emilio Aguinaldo and Maria Agoncillo to ACROL Holdings, Inc. on the basis of special powers of attorney.

ACROL bought the property for P1.75 million. However, Aguinaldo allegedly failed to repurchase it within the six months agreed upon and even after at least three extensions and an additional P300,000.

The company then proceeded to transfer the property title to its name, but learned that a complaint by a representative of the estate denied Aguinaldo's authority to deal for the property. It was also discovered that the title was fake.

In 2013, the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 147 convicted Aguinaldo of estafa and ordered him to pay P2.05 million in damages.

This decision was upheld by the CA in 2015. Months later, ACROL said Aguinaldo had paid the amount and that it would no longer pursue the case. In August 2016, the CA affirmed its earlier decision but deleted the portion on award of damages and interests.

Ruling on Aguinaldo's petition for certiorari, the SC found "no reversible error" on the part of the appellate court, finding, as the lower courts did, that the prosecution had proven all the elements of estafa.

"If not for the deceit employed by the petitioner or falsely pretending to possess qualification and property, ACROL would have not parted with its money," the SC said.

Reimbursement or compromise as to the misappropriated amount, it explained, affects only the civil, and not the criminal, liability of the perpetrator.

"A compromise or settlement entered into by the parties after the commission of the crime will not and does not extinguish petitioner's liability for estafa," the High Court ruled.

"Therefore, the parties entering into an agreement with the private complainant expressing its unwillingness to participate in further proceedings after it receives monetary retribution, does not remove from the State the imprimatur of imposing the proper penalty for the commission of the said offense." —LDF, GMA News