Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-10759 January 25, 1916
THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
PEDRO VERZOLA, defendant-appellant.
Moreno and Guevara for appellant.
Attorney-General Avanceña for appellee.
CARSON, J.:
The facts in this case are substantially analogous with those in the case of the United States vs. Tubban (29 Phil. Rep., 434.) Upon the authority of that decision, and in accord with the prayer of counsel for the accused and of the recommendation of the Attorney-General the sentence impose in the lower court should be modified by substituting the penalty of six years and one day of prision mayor for so much thereof as imposes twelve years and one day of reclusion temporal. Thus, modified, the sentence imposed in the court below should be, and is hereby affirmed with the costs of this instance against the appellant. So ordered.
Arellano, C.J. Torres, and Trent, JJ., concur.
Johnson, J., dissents.
Separate Opinions
MORELAND, J., dissenting:
The decision in this case and in that of the United States vs. Tubban (29 Phil. Rep., 434), together affect in an extra-ordinary way the children of the wild or non-Christian tribes of the Philippine Islands. They make every child belonging to those tribes illegitimate and the relations of their fathers and mothers immoral. These tow decisions deprive those children not only of their legitimacy but affect their standing in regard to their property rights also. Being illegitimate, or at least natural, they suffer all the disabilities which the Civil Code places on such children. This result is accomplished, so far as I have been able to discover, not only against the doctrine laid down by the courts of nearly all countries but also, in my judgment, against the provisions of a statute of the Philippine Islands designed and enacted to prevent the very result produced by these decisions. (Sec. 9, General Orders No. 68.)
The question in the two cases referred to is the same; and springs out of the refusal of the court to apply article 423 of the Penal Code in favor of the accused who was charged in one case with the murder of the wife's paramour, and in the other with grave physical injuries inflicted upon the wife's seducer, both crimes being committed on the occasion of the husband suddenly returning home and surprising the wife and her paramour in flagrante. The crime having been committed under such circumstances article 423 of the Penal Code relieves the husband from all punishment except that of destierro. One of the essential requisites for the application of the article is that there shall have been a legal marriage between the husband and the wife; in other words, that, in the eye of the law, the two shall have been man and wife.
In both of the cases referred to there was no question about the facts. The wife and the paramour were caught in the act and the punishment was inflicted by the husband on the instant. The only question raised on the trial or here was the legality of the marriage between the accused and the woman whom he called his wife. It is admitted by the court and by all the parties that, if there was a legal marriage, the article is applicable. In the Tubban case a marriage according to the customs of the tribe was found by the court, the decision saying:
Giving the accused the benefit of any reasonable doubt raised by the record, we are of opinion that the evidence discloses that on June 22, 1913, he was a youth less than 18 years of age and a member of an uncivilized tribe of Kalingas settled on a rancheria within the territorial jurisdiction of the Province of Cagayan; that prior to that date he had been living with the family of a young girl named Dengon, about 15 years of age, with whom he sustained relations which were recognized by the member of his tribe as that of man and wife; that some sort of tribal wedding had taken place upon which these relations were based, but that he was not married to the girl in accordance with the law of the Philippine Islands (note that no reference is made to section 9 of G.O. No. 68 which provides the exact contrary); that on the date above indicated he discovered the girl, in flagrante, in the arms of another member of the tribe named Dumog; that he there and then struck Dumog with a head ax; inflicting a wound in the right shoulder as a result of which Dumog died on the 3rd of the following July.
Counsel for appellant contends that the convict should have been given the benefits of the provisions of article 423 of the Penal Code, which are as follows:
"Any husband who, having surprised his wife in the act of adultery, shall kill her or her paramour in the act, or shall inflict any serious physical injuries upon either, shall suffer the penalty of destierro.
"If he shall inflict physical injuries of any other kind, he shall be exempt from punishment."
xxx xxx xxx
It is evident, however, that the provisions of this article are intended to apply only in cases where the husband is lawful and married to the offending wife. There is no authority in law for their extension to include cases wherein the relations between the parties are other than those contemplated by the legislator (note the exclusion made by the legislative authority which passed section 9, G.O. No. 68). It appears from the record that the accused in this case was living on a rancheria in the municipality of Mauanan in the duly organized Province of Cagayan, and we are not advised of any provision of law which recognizes as legal a tribal marriage of so-called non-Christians or members of uncivilized tribes, celebrated within that province without compliance with the requisites prescribed by General Orders, No. 68. (Note the omission of section 9 of said order.)
We see from this quotation that, in that case, there was a marriage according to the customs of the tribe to which the accused belong and that such marriage was consummated by the marital act and that the accused and his wife were living together in marital relations sanctioned and accepted by his tribe at the time the events transpired which were the cause of his conviction and sentence, and they were thus living with the honest belief that they were legally married.
In the Verzola case the defendant and Sixta Layoc, his wife, were married twenty years ago, that is during the Spanish domination, by lieutenant of the guardia civil. While they knew that they had not been married according to the requirements of the church, they believed that they had been legally married, and, in that belief, lived together for more than 20 years as man and wife, having one child, Julian Verzola, as the result of such cohabitation. They were thus living together at the time the event occurred which led to this prosecution.
The particular point in this case with which I am so strongly impressed is the ground on which the court refused to apply article 423 of the Penal Code quoted above. It is that not a marriage which was has taken place among the wild tribes in the Philippine Islands in accordance with their laws, customs, and ceremonies is valid or of any force or effect whatever under the laws of the Islands. In other words, that such marriages are beyond the pale of the law. This doctrine is so far-reaching in its consequences that nothing need be said as to its soundness on general principles; but when we take into consideration the fact that there is a statute which was designed and enacted for the purpose of preventing the very result which the decision of the court produces in this case the impossibility of sustaining the decision is evident. Section 9 of General Orders No. 68 provides:
No marriage heretofore solemnized before any person professing to have authority shall be invalid for want of such authority or on account of any informality irregularity, or omission, if it was celebrated with the belief of the parties or either of them, that he had authority and that they have been unlawfully married.
No comment is necessary to show that the purpose of this article is thwarted by the decision in this case. If a case could be imagined where the article ought to be applied it is the one before us. If a man who has been married, although informally, for more than twenty years and has, during all that time, maintained with the person whom he honestly believed to be his lawful wife full marital relations, and who has a family spring from that relation, can receive no protection from section 9 of General Orders No. 68, what was the purpose of enacting it and of what avail can it be to anyone?
For convenience the Tubban case is published in the footnote to this case.1
Footnotes
1 CARSON, J.:
The appellant was convicted in the court below of the crime of asesinato (murder), and sentenced to seventeen years four months and one day of cadena temporal, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the sum of P500, and to pay the costs of the trial.
Giving the accused the benefit of any reasonable doubt raised by the record, we are of opinion that the evidence disclosed that on June 22, 1913, he was a youth less than 18 years of age and a member of an uncivilized tribe of Kalingas settled on a rancheria within the territorial jurisdiction of the Province of Cagayan; that that prior to that date he had been living with the family of a young girl named Dengon, about 15 years of age, with whom he sustained relations which were recognized by the member of his tribe as that of man and wife; that some sort of tribal wedding had taken place upon which these relations were based, but that he was not married to the girl in accordance with the law of the Philippine Islands; that on the date above indicated he discovered the girl, in flagrante, in the arms of another member of the tribe named Dumog; that he there and then struck Dumog with a head ax; inflicting a wound in the right shoulder as a result of which Dumog died on the 3rd of the following July.
Counsel for appellant contends that the convict should have been given the benefits of the provisions of article 423 of the Penal Code, which are as follows:
"Any husband who, having surprised his wife in the act of adultery, shall kill her or her paramour in the act, or shall inflict any serious physical injuries upon either, shall suffer the penalty of destierro.
"If he shall inflict physical injuries of any other kind, he shall be exempt from punishment.
"These rules shall be applicable under similar circumstances to parents with respect to any daughter under twenty-three years of age and her seducer while the daughter is living with the parents.
"Any person who shall promote or facilitate the prostitution of his wife or daughter shall not be entitled to the benefits of this article."
It is evident, however, that the provisions of this article are intended to apply only in cases where the husband is lawful and married to the offending wife. There is no authority in law for their extension to include cases wherein the relations between the parties are other than those contemplated by the legislator. It appears from the record that the accused in this case was living on a rancheria in the municipality of Mauanan in the duly organized Province of Cagayan, and we are not advised of any provision of law which recognizes as legal a tribal marriage of so-called non-Christians or members of uncivilized tribes, celebrated within that province without compliance with the requisites prescribed by General Orders No. 68.
We are of opinion, nevertheless, that under provisions of subsection 8 of article 9 of the Penal Code the fact that the accused the girl Dengon were living together as husband and wife, and were recognized as such by the other members of the tribe, should be taken into consideration as a marked extenuating circumstance.
We hold also that the fact that the accused is shown to be a member of an uncivilized tribe, of a low order of intelligence, uncultured, and uneducated, should be taken into consideration as a second marked extenuating circumstance. (Art. 11 of the Penal Code as amended.)
The accused having been a youth of less than 18 years of age at the time when the crime was committed, the penalty to be imposed upon his conviction of the crime charged in the information is the next lower in degree than that prescribed by law for that offense when committed by one of full age.
Under all the circumstances of this case we think we should give the accused the benefit of article of the Code as amended by Act No. 2298, which authorizes the courts, in their discretion, to impose a penalty one degree lower that prescribed in the Code where it appears that the commission of the offense was marked with two or more marked extenuating circumstances and no aggravating circumstances.
We conclude that the judgment of conviction and the sentence entered in the court below should be modified by substituting for so much thereof as imposes seventeen years four months and one day of cadena temporal, the penalty of six years and one day of presidio correccional, and thus modified the sentence imposed in the lower court should be affirmed, with the costs of this instance against the appellant. So ordered.
Arellano, C.J., Torres and Araullo, JJ., concur.
MORELAND, J., dissenting:
I cannot agree to the decision in this case. I believe article 423 of the Penal code should be applied. The refusal of the court to apply it and the grounds on which that refusal is based completely wipe out the marriage relations among the wild tribes as an institution and make the relations between those who have married according to their tribal custom adulterous and their children illegitimate.
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