Ricarze vs.

CA
G.R. 160451, February 9, 2007

Facts:
Ricarze was a collector-messenger of CSP, a corporation engaged in
messengerial services. He was assigned to collect checks payable to Caltex and
deliver them to the cashier. It was discovered that he then opened a bank account
in the name of Dante Gutierrez, a regular customer of Caltex. Ricarze forged the
checks he collected and deposited it in that bank account.
Caltex charged Ricarze of estafa thru falsification of commercial documents.
In the information, Caltex was stated as the offended party because the
prosecutor was not informed that PCI Bank credited the checks to Caltex.
After the prosecution rested its case, Caltex moved to amend the information to
substitute PCI Bank as the offended party. Ricarze argued that the information
can no longer be amended because he had already been arraigned under the
original information and that doing so would place him in double jeopardy.
PCI Bank argued that it had re-credited the amount to Caltex to the extent
of the indemnity; hence, the PCIB had been subrogated to the rights and interests
of Caltex as private complainant.
The RTC granted the motion. Ricarze assailed the Order. He alleged that the
charges against him should be dismissed because the allegations in the
Informations failed to name PCIB as true offended party.

Issue:
In case of offenses against property, is the designation of the name of the
offended party indispensable?

Held:
When an offense shall have been described in the complaint with sufficient
certainty as to identify the act, an erroneous allegation as to the person injured
shall be deemed immaterial as the same is a mere formal defect which did not
tend to prejudice any substantial right of the defendant. In the instant suit for
estafa which is a crime against property under the Revised Penal Code, since the
check, which was the subject-matter of the offense, was described with such
particularity as to properly identify the offense charged, it becomes immaterial, for
purposes of convicting the accused, that it was established during the trial that
the offended party was actually PCIB and not Caltex as alleged in the information.