Criminal Procedure
Handout No. 1
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Atty. CS Catamco
MEMORIZE:
RULE 110 Prosecution of Offenses
Section 1. Institution of criminal actions. — Criminal actions shall be Section 6. Sufficiency of complaint or information. — A complaint or
instituted as follows: information is sufficient if it states the name of the accused; the designation of
the offense given by the statute; the acts or omissions complained of as
(a) For offenses where a preliminary investigation is required pursuant to
constituting the offense; the name of the offended party; the approximate date
section 1 of Rule 112, by filing the complaint with the proper officer for the
of the commission of the offense; and the place where the offense was
purpose of conducting the requisite preliminary investigation.
committed.
(b) For all other offenses, by filing the complaint or information directly with the
When an offense is committed by more than one person, all of them shall be
Municipal Trial Courts and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts, or the complaint with
included in the complaint or information.
the office of the prosecutor. In Manila and other chartered cities, the complaint
shall be filed with the office of the prosecutor unless otherwise provided in their
charters.
Section 15. Place where action is to be instituted. —
The institution of the criminal action shall interrupt the running period of
(a) Subject to existing laws, the criminal action shall be instituted and tried in
prescription of the offense charged unless otherwise provided in special laws.
the court of the municipality or territory where the offense was committed or
where any of its essential ingredients occurred.
Section 3. Complaint defined. — A complaint is a sworn written statement (d) Crimes committed outside the Philippines but punishable under Article 2 of
charging a person with an offense, subscribed by the offended party, any the Revised Penal Code shall be cognizable by the court where the criminal
peace officer, or other public officer charged with the enforcement of the law action is first filed.
violated.
RULE 112 Preliminary Investigation
Section 4. Information defined. — An information is an accusation in writing
Section 1. Preliminary investigation defined; when required. —
charging a person with an offense, subscribed by the prosecutor and filed with
Preliminary investigation is an inquiry or proceeding to determine whether
the court.
there is sufficient ground to engender a well-founded belief that a crime has
been committed and the respondent is probably guilty thereof, and should be
held for trial.
Section 5. Who must prosecute criminal actions. — All criminal actions
commenced by a complaint or information shall be prosecuted under the Except as provided in section 7 of this Rule, a preliminary investigation is
direction and control of the prosecutor. required to be conducted before the filing of a complaint or information for an
offense where the penalty prescribed by law is at least four (4) years, two (2)
months and one (1) day without regard to the fine.