How does this rule on duplicitous informations affect the rules on continuing

offenses (delito continuados)?

First let’s take a look at the various views on continuing offenses.

Delito Continuado or Continuing offense exists if there is a plurality of acts

performed during a period of time, unity of penal provision violated, and unity of
criminal intent or purpose which means that two or more violations of the same
penal provisions are united in one and the same intent or resolution leading to the
perpetration of the same criminal purpose or aim.

Delito Continuado or continuing offense consists of several crimes but in reality,

there is only one crime in the mind of the perpetrator.

Delito Continuado or continuing offense consists of a series of acts arising from

one criminal intent or resolution.

In the above views, since there is only a single criminal intent, even though there
is a series of criminal acts, only one information should be filed against the
offender.

Example:
The taking of the accused of several things, whether belonging to the same or
different owners, at the same time and place constitutes but one larceny.

In American jurisprudence, the applicable principle is the “Single Larceny”

Doctrine which looks at the commission of the different criminal acts as but one
continuous act involving the same “transaction” or as done on the same “occasion”.

The above doctrine, which we adopted, abandoned the “Separate Larceny” Doctrine
which views that there is as many larceny as there are properties taken from the
victim or victims. Also abandoned was the doctrine that the government has the
discretion to prosecute the accused for one offense or for as many distinct
offenses as there are victims.

To stick with the abandoned rules would violate
against putting a man in jeopardy twice for the
observed that the doctrine of Single Larceny is
could be filed for each act, the accused may be
for the rest of his life.
the constitutional guarantee
same offense. It has also been
humane since if a separate charge
sentenced to jail in perpetuity or

The law requires however that where the offense charged in the information is a
complex crime as defined by law, every essential element of each of the crimes
constituting the complex felony must be stated in the information.

NOTE: The single larceny rule is commonly applied by our courts to malversation and
falsification cases but not so in estafa cases.