[ Act No. 518, November 12, 1902 ]
AN ACT DEFINING HIGHWAY ROBBERY OR BRIGANDAGE, AND PROVIDING FOR THE PUNISHMENT THEREFOR.
By authority of the United States, be it enacted by the Philippine Commission, that:
Section 1. Whenever three or more persons, conspiring together, shall form a hand of robbers for the purpose of stealing carabao or other personal property, by means of force and violence, and shall go out upon the highway or roam over the country, armed with deadly weapons for this purpose, they shall be deemed highway robbers or brigands, and every person engaged in the original formation of the band, or joining it thereafter, shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by death or imprisonment for not less than twenty years, in the discretion of the court.
Section 2. To prove the crime described in the previous section, it shall not be necessary to adduce evidence that any member of the hand has in fact committed robbery or theft, but it shall be sufficient to justify conviction thereunder if, from the circumstances, it can be inferred beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was a member of such an armed band as that described in said section.
Section 3. Persons guilty of the crime defined in section one may be punished therefor in the Court of First Instance in any province; in which they may be taken or from which they may have fled.
Section 4. Every person knowingly aiding or abetting such a band of brigands as that described in section one by giving them information of the movement of the police or constabulary, or by securing stolen property from them, or by procuring supplies of food, clothing, arms, or ammunition and furnishing the same to thorn shall upon conviction, be punished by imprisonment for not loss than ten years and not more than twenty years.1aшphi1
Section 5. The public good requiring bill, the passage, of the same is hereby section two of "An Act prescribing the order of procedure by the Commission in the enactment of law," passed September twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred.
Section 6. This Act shall take effect on its passage.
Enacted, November 12, 1902.
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