The amount defrauded, as stated above, is P34,000.00. Hence, the penalty should be imposed in the maximum period (6 years, 8 months
and 21 days to 8 years) plus one year, there being only oneP10,000.00 in excess of P22,000.00. Applying the Indeterminate Sentence
Law, the maximum penalty should be taken from the aforementioned maximum period, while the minimum term shall be within the range of
the penalty next lower in degree, i.e., prision correccional in its minimum and medium period which has a duration of 6 months and 1 day to
4 years and 2 months. Accordingly, the correct penalty should be 4 years and 2 months of prision correccional, as minimum, to 9 years
of prision mayor as maximum.
An appeal in a criminal case opens the entire case for review.15 The typographical error in the dispositive portion of the decision rendered by the RTC
regarding the penalty to be imposed on appellant in Criminal Cases Nos. 92-113706 to 92-113708 should be corrected from "one (1) year and eight (8)
months of prision correccional minimum as minimum to five (5) months and eleven (11) days of prision correccional maximum as maximum" to "one (1)
year and eight (8) months of prision correccional as minimum to five (5) years and eleven (11) days of prision correccional as maximum."
WHEREFORE, the Decision of the Court of Appeals dated July 28, 1997 in CA-G.R. CR No. 17228 is AFFIRMED with MODIFICATION only as to
Criminal Cases Nos. 92-113706 to 92-113708 where appellant is hereby sentenced in each case, to suffer the indeterminate penalty of one (1) year
and eight (8) months of prision correccional as minimum to five (5) years and eleven (11) days of prision correccional as maximum.
SO ORDERED.
Puno, (Chairman), Callejo, Sr., Tinga, and Chico-Nazario, JJ., concur.
Footnotes
1
Penned by then Court of Appeals Associate Justice, now Supreme Court Associate Justice Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, concurred in by
Court of Appeals Associate Justices Fidel P. Purisima and Bernardo Ll. Salas.
2
TSN of July 19, 1993, pp. 3-11.
3
TSN, July 21, 1993, pp. 2-8.
4
TSN, July 29, 1993, pp- 4-7.
5
TSN, August 11, 1993, pp. 2-10.
6
TSN, January 10, 1994, pp. 2-4.
7
TSN, February 21, 1994, pp. 3-11.
8
TSN, February 28, 1994, pp. 4-12; TSN, March 7, 1994, pp. 2-5.
9
TSN, April 21, 1994, pp. 3-8.
10
Penned by Judge Rebecca G. Salvador.
11
CA Rollo, pp. 26-27.
12
People vs. Olermo, 406 SCRA 412, 425-426 (2003).
13
Id. at p. 426.
14
RTC Decision, CA Rollo, p. 22.
15
People vs. Feliciano, 365 SCRA 613, 629 (2001).