TABUK CITY, Kalinga – A local court recently granted the petition for plea bargaining filed by a former radioman who was earlier convinced for qualified theft and violation of the pertinent provisions of Presidential Decree (PD) 706 or the Forestry Reform code and sentenced to be imprisoned for more than six years.
In a 3-page order, Judge Gerson E. Angog of the Regional Trial court Branch 25 in granting the petition for plea bargaining of Jerome Tabanganay found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of simple theft defined under Article 308 and penalized under Article 309 of the Revised Penal code as amended.
Further, the court sentenced Tabanganay to suffer the indeterminate penalty of imprisonment ranging from six months of arresto menor in its maximum period to two years of prision correctional in its minimum and medium periods.
The court also ordered the convicted former radioman to pay P10,000 as damages.
At the same time, the court allowed provisional liberty of the convicted former radio personality on the strength of the bail bond he earlier posted.
Earlier, the court found Tabanganay guilty of qualified theft and violation of PD 706 for alleged involvement in the illegal tree cutting of three trees without the necessary permit from the environment department which were within a private property and ordered him to be imprisoned for more than six years.
However, he filed a motion for reconsideration that assailed the court’s decision alleging among others his shallow alibi that he used during the trial of the case that was disproved by the court.
During the scheduled hearing of his motion for reconsideration, Tabanganay’s counsel, instead of pursuing the motion for reconsideration, manifested to the court that the accused is willing to plead guilty to a lesser offense of simple theft defined under Article 308 and penalized under Article 309 of the Revised Penal code as amended.
The court claimed that the elements of theft is included in the crime of qualified theft to which Tabanganay was initially found guilty.
The prosecution interposed no objection to the motion of the convicted suspect’s counsel that paved the way for the court to render a decision on the same.
Moreover, the court noted that as part of the plea bargaining, Tabanganay shall pay P10,000 as actual damages and that the plea-bargaining agreement reached by the prosecution and the defense was in accordance with law.
When re-arraigned in the English language which he speaks and understands with the assistance of his counsel, Tabanganay pleaded guilty for the crime of simple theft as defined.
The order pointed out that since the accused pleaded guilty to the crime of simple theft, he already admitted criminal liability and furnished the court sufficient evidence to sustain his guilt beyond reasonable doubt for the said crime to which he pleaded guilty thereby discharging the prosecution of its duty to prove his guilt.
Article 309, paragraph 3 of the Revised Penal code, provides a penalty of prision correctional in its minimum and medium periods when the value of the property stolen is not less than P20,000 but not more than P600,000. The range of penalty of prision correctional in its minimum and medium is six months and one day to four years and two months imprisonment. The medium period of the prescribed penalty is one year, eight months and twenty one days to two years, eleven months and ten days in the absence of any mitigating or aggravating circumstances and in the said case, there is none.
Pursuant to the pertinent provisions of the indeterminate sentence law, the court stipulated that the imposable penalty shall be taken from the range of the prescribed penalty, which in this case should be taken from the medium period, which has a range of one year, eight months and twenty one days to two years, eleven months and ten days. The minimum imposable penalty shall be taken from the penalty one degree lower from that prescribed by law. The penalty one degree lower from prision correctional in its minimum and medium periods is arresto mayor in its medium and maximum periods which has a range of two months and one day to six months. By Dexter A. See