FACT-FINDING COMMITTEE ON BEHEST LOANS, VS. HON. ANIANO A.

Ruling

WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, it is respectfully recommended that the instant charges against herein respondents be dismissed on the ground of prescription. "SO RESOLVED. "Manila, Philippines, May 29, 1997." [10] Hence, this petition. [11] On October 28, 1999, the Ombudsman manifested to the Court his willingness to have the case remanded to his Office for preliminary investigation. Thus - "In view of the fact that the case involves an alleged behest loan which Public Respondent dismissed on the sole ground of prescription, Public Respondent manifests its willingness to have the case remanded to the Office of the Ombudsman for preliminary investigation. Prayer "Wherefore, it is respectively prayed of this Honorable Court that this Manifestation be NOTED. [12] The Court's Ruling The subject loans were given in 1968, 1978, 1979 and 1982. On March 24, 1997, petitioner filed a complaint with the Ombudsman for violation of R. A. No. 3019. [13] Respondents contend that the action is barred by prescription inasmuch as petitioner filed the complaint twenty nine (29) years after the crime was committed, well beyond the 15-year prescriptive period provided by law. In resolving the issue of prescription of the offense charged, the following shall be considered: ( 1) the period of prescription for the offense charged; (2) the time the period of prescription started to run; and (3) the time the prescriptive period was interrupted. [14] Looking closely at the provisions of R. A. No. 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act), the law provides for its own prescriptive period. "Section 11. Prescription of offenses. - All offenses punishable under this Act shall prescribe in fifteen years ." (Underscoring supplied) However, since R.A. No. 3019, as amended, is a special law, the applicable rule in the computation of the prescriptive period is provided in Act No. 3326, Section 2 [15] as amended, which provides: "Section 2. Prescription shall begin to run from the day of the commission of the violation of the law, and if the same be not known at the time, from the discovery thereof and the institution of judicial proceedings for its investigation and punishment. "The prescription shall be interrupted when proceedings are instituted against the guilty person, and shall begin to run again if the proceedings are dismissed for reasons not constituting jeopardy." This implies that if the commission of the crime were known, the prescriptive period shall commence to run on the day the crime was committed. However, if the violation of the special law was not known at the time of its commission, the prescription begins to run only from the discovery thereof, i.e., discovery of the unlawful nature of the constitutive act or acts. [16] In cases involving violations of R. A. No.3019 committed prior to the February 1986 Edsa Revolution that ousted President Ferdinand E. Marcos, we ruled that the government as the aggrieved party could not have known of the violations at