VALENZUELA V.

PEOPLE

Facts:

May 19, 1994 4:30 pm: Aristotel Valenzuela and Jovy Calderon were sighted outside the Super
Sale Club, a supermarket within the ShoeMart (SM) complex along North EDSA, by Lorenzo
Lago, a security guard who was then manning his post at the open parking area of the
supermarket. Lago saw Valenzuela, who was wearing an ID with the mark “Receiving
Dispatching Unit (RDU)” who hauled a push cart with cases of detergent of “Tide” brand and
unloaded them in an open parking space, where Calderon was waiting. He then returned inside
the supermarket and emerged 5 minutes after with more cartons of Tide Ultramatic and again
unloaded these boxes to the same area in the open parking space. Thereafter, he left the
parking area and haled a taxi. He boarded the cab and directed it towards the parking space
where Calderon was waiting. Calderon loaded the cartons of Tide Ultramatic inside the taxi,
then boarded the vehicle. As Lago watched, he proceeded to stop the taxi as it was leaving the
open parking area and asked Valenzuela for a receipt of the merchandise but Valenzuela and
Calderon reacted by fleeing on foot. Lago fired a warning shot to alert his fellow security
guards. Valenzuela and Calderon were apprehended at the scene and the stolen merchandise
recovered worth P12,090.

In arguing that he should only be convicted of frustrated theft , petitioner cites two decisions
rendered many years ago by the Court of Appeals: People vs. Diño and People vs. Flores. Both
decisions elicit the interest of the Court, as they modified trial court convictions from
consummated to frustrated theft and involve a factual milieu that bears similarity to the present
case.

Nature: Petitioner invoked the same rulings in his appeal to the Court of Appeals, yet the
appellate court did not expressly consider the import of the rulings when it affirmed the
conviction, thus this petition for review.

Issue: Whether or not petitioner’s conviction be modified from consummated theft to

frustrated theft only.

HELD: NO.
Article 6 defines those three stages, namely the consummated, frustrated and attempted
felonies. A felony is consummated “when all the elements necessary for its execution and
accomplishment are present.” It is frustrated “when the offender performs all the acts of
execution which would produce the felony as a consequence but which, nevertheless, do not
produce it by reason of causes independent of the will of the perpetrator.” Finally, it is attempted
“when the offender commences the commission of a felony directly by overt acts, and does not
perform all the acts of execution which should produce the felony by reason of some cause or
accident other than his own spontaneous desistance.”

Court has long recognized the following elements of theft as provided for in Article 308 of the
Revised Penal Code, namely: 1) that there be taking of personal property; 2) that said property
belongs to another; 3) that the taking be done with intent to gain; 4) that the taking be done
without the consent of the owner; and 5) that the taking be accomplished without the use of
violence against or intimidation of persons or force upon things.
As applied to the present case, the moment petitioner obtained physical possession of the
cases of detergent and loaded them in the pushcart, such seizure motivated by intent to gain,
completed without need to inflict violence or intimidation against persons nor force upon things,
and accomplished without the consent of the SM Super Sales Club, petitioner forfeited the
extenuating benefit a conviction for only attempted theft would have afforded him.

Now, in order to ascertain whether the theft is consummated or frustrated, it is necessary to

inquire as to how exactly is the felony of theft “produced .” Parsing through the statutory
definition of theft under Article 308, there is one apparent answer provided in the language of
the law — that theft is already “produced” upon the “taking of personal property of another
without the latter’s consent.”

For the purpose of ascertaining whether theft is susceptible of commission in the frustrated
stage, the question is again, when is the crime of theft produced? There would be all but certain
unanimity in the position that theft is produced when there is deprivation of personal property
due to its taking by one with intent to gain. Viewed from that perspective, it is immaterial to the
product of the felony that the offender, once having committed all the acts of execution for theft ,
is able or unable to freely dispose of the property stolen since the deprivation from the owner
alone has already ensued from such acts of execution. This conclusion is reflected in Chief
Justice Aquino’s commentaries, as earlier cited, that “in theft or robbery the crime is
consummated after the accused had material possession of the thing with intent to appropriate
the same , although his act of making use of the thing was frustrated.”

Under the RPC, there is no such thing as frustrated theft. As petitioner has latched the success of
his appeal on our acceptance of the Diño and Flores rulings, his petition must be denied, for we
decline to adopt said rulings in our jurisdiction. That it has taken all these years for us to recognize
that there can be no frustrated theft under the Revised Penal Code does not detract from the
correctness of this conclusion. It will take considerable amendments to our Revised Penal Code in
order that frustrated theft may be recognized.

Disposition: The petition is denied