716 Phil. 416
VELASCO JR., J.:
That on or about May 28, 1998, in the City of Manila, Philippines, the said accused being then the authorized officer of SUPERMAX PHILIPPINES, INC., with office address at No. 11/F, Global Tower, Gen Mascardo corner M. Reyes St., Bangkal, Makati City, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously defraud the METROPOLITAN BANK AND TRUST COMPANY (METROBANK), a corporation duly organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the Republic of the Philippines, represented by its Officer in Charge, WINNIE M. VILLANUEVA, in the following manner, to wit: the said accused received in trust from the said Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company reinforcing bars valued at P1,062,918.84 specified in the undated Trust Receipt Agreement covered by Letter of Credit No. MG-LOC 216/98 for the purpose of holding said merchandise/goods in trust, with obligation on the part of the accused to turn over the proceeds of the sale thereof or if unsold, to return the goods to the said bank within the specified period agreed upon, but herein accused once in possession of the said merchandise/goods, far from complying with his aforesaid obligation, failed and refused and still fails and refuses to do so despite repeated demands made upon him to that effect and with intent to defraud and with grave abuse of confidence and trust, misappropriated, misapplied and converted the said merchandise/goods or the value thereof to his own personal use and benefit, to the damage and prejudice of said METROPOLITAN BANK AND TRUST COMPANY in the aforesaid amount of P1,062,918.84, Philippine Currency.Upon arraignment, petitioner pleaded “not guilty.” Thereafter, trial on the merits then ensued.
Contrary to law.[6]
His guilt having been proven and established beyond reasonable doubt, the Court hereby renders judgment CONVICTING accused HUR TIN YANG of the crime of estafa under Article 315 paragraph 1 (a) of the Revised Penal Code and hereby imposes upon him the indeterminate penalty of 4 years, 2 months and 1 day of prision correccional to 20 years of reclusion temporal and to pay Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company, Inc. the amount of Php13,156,256.51 as civil liability and to pay cost.Petitioner appealed to the CA. On July 28, 2010, the appellate court rendered a Decision, upholding the findings of the RTC that the prosecution has satisfactorily established the guilt of petitioner beyond reasonable doubt, including the following critical facts, to wit: (1) petitioner signing the trust receipts agreement; (2) Supermax failing to pay the loan; and (3) Supermax failing to turn over the proceeds of the sale or the goods to Metrobank upon demand. Curiously, but significantly, the CA also found that even before the execution of the trust receipts, Metrobank knew or should have known that the subject construction materials were never intended for resale or for the manufacture of items to be sold.[10]
SO ORDERED.[9]
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing premises, the appeal filed in this case is hereby DENIED and, consequently, DISMISSED. The assailed Decision dated October 6, 2006 of the Rregional Trial Court, Branch 20, in the City of Manila in Criminal Cases Nos. 04223911 to 223934 is hereby AFFIRMED.Petitioner filed a Motion for Reconsideration, but it was denied in a Resolution dated December 20, 2010. Not satisfied, petitioner filed a petition for review under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court. The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) filed its Comment dated November 28, 2011, stressing that the pieces of evidence adduced from the testimony and documents submitted before the trial court are sufficient to establish the guilt of petitioner.[11]
SO ORDERED.
Section 4. What constitutes a trust receipts transaction.—A trust receipt transaction, within the meaning of this Decree, is any transaction by and between a person referred to in this Decree as the entruster, and another person referred to in this Decree as entrustee, whereby the entruster, who owns or holds absolute title or security interests over certain specified goods, documents or instruments, releases the same to the possession of the entrustee upon the latter’s execution and delivery to the entruster of a signed document called a “trust receipt” wherein the entrustee binds himself to hold the designated goods, documents or instruments in trust for the entruster and to sell or otherwise dispose of the goods, documents or instruments with the obligation to turn over to the entruster the proceeds thereof to the extent of the amount owing to the entruster or as appears in the trust receipt or the goods, documents or instruments themselves if they are unsold or not otherwise disposed of, in accordance with the terms and conditions specified in the trust receipt, or for other purposes substantially equivalent to any of the following:Simply stated, a trust receipt transaction is one where the entrustee has the obligation to deliver to the entruster the price of the sale, or if the merchandise is not sold, to return the merchandise to the entruster. There are, therefore, two obligations in a trust receipt transaction: the first refers to money received under the obligation involving the duty to turn it over (entregarla) to the owner of the merchandise sold, while the second refers to the merchandise received under the obligation to “return” it (devolvera) to the owner.[16] A violation of any of these undertakings constitutes Estafa defined under Art. 315, par. 1(b) of the RPC, as provided in Sec. 13 of PD 115, viz:
1. In the case of goods or documents: (a) to sell the goods or procure their sale; or (b) to manufacture or process the goods with the purpose of ultimate sale: Provided, That, in the case of goods delivered under trust receipt for the purpose of manufacturing or processing before its ultimate sale, the entruster shall retain its title over the goods whether in its original or processed form until the entrustee has complied full with his obligation under the trust receipt; or (c) to load, unload, ship or transship or otherwise deal with them in a manner preliminary or necessary to their sale; or
2. In the case of instruments: (a) to sell or procure their sale or exchange; or (b) to deliver them to a principal; or (c) to effect the consummation of some transactions involving delivery to a depository or register; or (d) to effect their presentation, collection or renewal.
Section 13. Penalty Clause.—The failure of an entrustee to turn over the proceeds of the sale of the goods, documents or instruments covered by a trust receipt to the extent of the amount owing to the entruster or as appears in the trust receipt or to return said goods, documents or instruments if they were not sold or disposed of in accordance with the terms of the trust receipt shall constitute the crime of estafa, punishable under the provisions of Article Three hundred fifteen, paragraph one (b) of Act Numbered Three thousand eight hundred and fifteen, as amended, otherwise known as the Revised Penal Code. x x x (Emphasis supplied.)Nonetheless, when both parties enter into an agreement knowing fully well that the return of the goods subject of the trust receipt is not possible even without any fault on the part of the trustee, it is not a trust receipt transaction penalized under Sec. 13 of PD 115 in relation to Art. 315, par. 1(b) of the RPC, as the only obligation actually agreed upon by the parties would be the return of the proceeds of the sale transaction. This transaction becomes a mere loan, where the borrower is obligated to pay the bank the amount spent for the purchase of the goods.[17]
The true nature of a trust receipt transaction can be found in the “whereas” clause of PD 115 which states that a trust receipt is to be utilized “as a convenient business device to assist importers and merchants solve their financing problems.” Obviously, the State, in enacting the law, sought to find a way to assist importers and merchants in their financing in order to encourage commerce in the Philippines.Further, in Land Bank of the Philippines v. Perez, the respondents were officers of Asian Construction and Development Corporation (ACDC), a corporation engaged in the construction business. On several occasions, respondents executed in favor of Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) trust receipts to secure the purchase of construction materials that they will need in their construction projects. When the trust receipts matured, ACDC failed to return to LBP the proceeds of the construction projects or the construction materials subject of the trust receipts. After several demands went unheeded, LBP filed a complaint for Estafa or violation of Art. 315, par. 1(b) of the RPC, in relation to PD 115, against the respondent officers of ACDC. This Court, like in Ng, acquitted all the respondents on the postulate that the parties really intended a simple contract of loan and not a trust receipts transaction, viz:
[A] trust receipt is considered a security transaction intended to aid in financing importers and retail dealers who do not have sufficient funds or resources to finance the importation or purchase of merchandise, and who may not be able to acquire credit except through utilization, as collateral, of the merchandise imported or purchased. Similarly, American Jurisprudence demonstrates that trust receipt transactions always refer to a method of “financing importations or financing sales.” The principle is of course not limited in its application to financing importations, since the principle is equally applicable to domestic transactions. Regardless of whether the transaction is foreign or domestic, it is important to note that the transactions discussed in relation to trust receipts mainly involved sales.
Following the precept of the law, such transactions affect situations wherein the entruster, who owns or holds absolute title or security interests over specified goods, documents or instruments, releases the subject goods to the possession of the entrustee. The release of such goods to the entrustee is conditioned upon his execution and delivery to the entruster of a trust receipt wherein the former binds himself to hold the specific goods, documents or instruments in trust for the entruster and to sell or otherwise dispose of the goods, documents or instruments with the obligation to turn over to the entruster the proceeds to the extent of the amount owing to the entruster or the goods, documents or instruments themselves if they are unsold. x x x [T]he entruster is entitled “only to the proceeds derived from the sale of goods released under a trust receipt to the entrustee.”
Considering that the goods in this case were never intended for sale but for use in the fabrication of steel communication towers, the trial court erred in ruling that the agreement is a trust receipt transaction.
x x x x
To emphasize, the Trust Receipts Law was created to “to aid in financing importers and retail dealers who do not have sufficient funds or resources to finance the importation or purchase of merchandise, and who may not be able to acquire credit except through utilization, as collateral, of the merchandise imported or purchased.” Since Asiatrust knew that petitioner was neither an importer nor retail dealer, it should have known that the said agreement could not possibly apply to petitioner.[18]
When both parties enter into an agreement knowing that the return of the goods subject of the trust receipt is not possible even without any fault on the part of the trustee, it is not a trust receipt transaction penalized under Section 13 of P.D. 115; the only obligation actually agreed upon by the parties would be the return of the proceeds of the sale transaction. This transaction becomes a mere loan, where the borrower is obligated to pay the bank the amount spent for the purchase of the goods.Since the factual milieu of Ng and Land Bank of the Philippines are in all four corners similar to the instant case, it behooves this Court, following the principle of stare decisis,[20] to rule that the transactions in the instant case are not trust receipts transactions but contracts of simple loan. The fact that the entruster bank, Metrobank in this case, knew even before the execution of the alleged trust receipt agreements that the covered construction materials were never intended by the entrustee (petitioner) for resale or for the manufacture of items to be sold would take the transaction between petitioner and Metrobank outside the ambit of the Trust Receipts Law.x x x x
Thus, in concluding that the transaction was a loan and not a trust receipt, we noted in Colinares that the industry or line of work that the borrowers were engaged in was construction. We pointed out that the borrowers were not importers acquiring goods for resale. Indeed, goods sold in retail are often within the custody or control of the trustee until they are purchased. In the case of materials used in the manufacture of finished products, these finished products – if not the raw materials or their components – similarly remain in the possession of the trustee until they are sold. But the goods and the materials that are used for a construction project are often placed under the control and custody of the clients employing the contractor, who can only be compelled to return the materials if they fail to pay the contractor and often only after the requisite legal proceedings. The contractor’s difficulty and uncertainty in claiming these materials (or the buildings and structures which they become part of), as soon as the bank demands them, disqualify them from being covered by trust receipt agreements.[19]
The practice of banks of making borrowers sign trust receipts to facilitate collection of loans and place them under the threats of criminal prosecution should they be unable to pay it may be unjust and inequitable. if not reprehensible. Such agreements are contracts of adhesion which borrowers have no option but to sign lest their loan be disapproved. The resort to this scheme leaves poor and hapless borrowers at the mercy of banks and is prone to misinterpretation x x x.Unfortunately, what happened in Colinares is exactly the situation in the instant case. This reprehensible bank practice described in Colinares should be stopped and discouraged. For this Court to give life to the constitutional provision of non-imprisonment for nonpayment of debts,[22] it is imperative that petitioner be acquitted of the crime of Estafa under Art. 315, par. 1 (b) ofthe RPC, in relation to PD 115.