Plaintiff-Appellee Vs Vs Defendant-Appellant Carlos Perfecto Assistant Solicitor General Ruperto Kapunan, JR., Solicitor Manuel Tomacruz
Plaintiff-Appellee Vs Vs Defendant-Appellant Carlos Perfecto Assistant Solicitor General Ruperto Kapunan, JR., Solicitor Manuel Tomacruz
Plaintiff-Appellee Vs Vs Defendant-Appellant Carlos Perfecto Assistant Solicitor General Ruperto Kapunan, JR., Solicitor Manuel Tomacruz
SYLLABUS
DECISION
MONTEMAYOR , J : p
Florentino Abilong was charged in the Court of First Instance of Manila with
evasion of service of sentence under the following information:
"That on or about the 17th day of September, 1947, in the City of Manila,
Philippines, the said accused, being then a convict sentenced and ordered to serve
two (2) years, four (4) months and one (1) day of destierro during which he
should not enter any place within the radius of 100 kilometers from the City of
Manila, by virtue of nal judgment rendered by the municipal court on April 5,
1946, in criminal case No. B-4795 for attempted robbery, did then and there
wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously evade the service of said sentence by going
beyond the limits made against him and commit vagrancy.
"Contrary to law."
Upon arraignment he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two (2) years, four (4)
months and one (1) day of prision correccional, with the accessory penalties of the law
and to pay the costs. He is appealing from that decision with the following assignment
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of error:
1. The lower court erred in imposing a penalty on the accused under
article 157 of the Revised Penal Code, which does not cover evasion of service of
"destierro."
Counsel for the appellant contends that a person like the accused evading a
sentence of destierro is not criminally liable under the provisions of the Revised Penal
Code, particularly article 157 of the said Code for the reason that said article 157 refers
only to persons who are imprisoned in a penal institution and completely deprived of
their liberty. He bases his contention on the word "imprisonment" used in the English
text of said article which in part reads as follows:
"Evasion of service of sentence. — The penalty of prision correccional in its
medium and maximum periods shall be imposed upon any convict who shall
evade service of his sentence by escaping during the term of his imprisonment by
reason of final judgment."
The Solicitor General in his brief says that had the original text of the Revised
Penal Code been in the English language, then the theory of the appellant could be
upheld. However, it is the Spanish text that is controlling in case of doubt. The Spanish
text of article 157 in part reads thus:
"ART. 157. Quebrantamiento de sentencia. — Sera castigado con
prision correccional en sus grados medio maximo el sentenciado que quebrantare
su condena, fugandose mientras estuviere sufriendo privacion de libertad por
sentencia firme; . . .."
We agree with the Solicitor General that inasmuch as the Revised Penal Code
was originally approved and enacted in Spanish, the Spanish text governs (People vs.
Manaba, 58 Phil., 665, 668). It is clear that the word "imprisonment" used in the English
text is a wrong or erroneous translation of the phrase "sufriendo privacion de libertad"
used in the Spanish text. It is equally clear that although the Solicitor General impliedly
admits destierro as not constituting imprisonment, it is a deprivation of liberty, though
partial, in the sense that as in the present case, the appellant by his sentence of
destierro was deprived of the liberty to enter the City of Manila. This view has been
adopted in the case of People vs. Samonte, No. 36559 (July 26, 1932; 57 Phil, 968)
wherein this Court held, as quoted in the brief of the Solicitor General that "it is clear
that a person under sentence of destierro is suffering deprivation of his liberty and
escapes from the restrictions of the penalty when he enters the prohibited area." Said
ruling in that case was rati ed by this Court, though, indirectly in the case of People vs.
Jose de Jesus, (45 Off. Gaz. Supp. to No. 9, p. 370) 1 , where it was held that one
evades the service of his sentence of destierro when he enters the prohibited area
speci ed in the judgment of conviction, and he cannot invoke the provisions of the
Indeterminate Sentence Law which provides that its provisions do not apply to those
who shall have escaped from confinement or evaded sentence.
In conclusion we nd and hold that the appellant is guilty of evasion of service of
sentence under article 157 of the Revised Penal Code (Spanish text), in that during the
period of his sentence of destierro by virtue of nal judgment wherein he was
prohibited from entering the City of Manila, he entered said City.
Finding no reversible error in the decision appealed from, the same is hereby
affirmed with costs against the appellant. So ordered.
Moran, C.J., Paras, Feria, Pablo, Bengzon and Tuason, JJ., concur.
The legal question raised in this case is whether or not appellant, for having
violated his judgment of destierro rendered by the Municipal Court of Manila, can be
sentenced under article 157 of the Revised Penal Code which reads as follows:
"Evasion of service of sentence. — The penalty of prision correccional in its
medium and maximum periods shall be imposed upon any convict who shall
evade service of his sentence by escaping during the term of his imprisonment by
reason of nal judgment. However, if such evasion or escape shall have taken
place by means of unlawful entry, by breaking doors, windows, gates, walls, roofs,
or oors, or by using picklocks, false keys, disguise, deceit, violence or
intimidation, or through connivance with other convicts or employees of the penal
institution, the penalty shall be prision correccional in its maximum period."
Appellant invokes in his favor the negative opinion of author Guillermo Guevara
(Revised Penal Code, 1946, p. 322). This negative position is supported by another
author, Ambrosio Padilla (Revised Penal Code annotated, p. 474).
The prosecution invokes the decision of this Court in People vs. De Jesus, L-
1414, 2 promulgated April 16, 1948, but said decision has no application because in
said case the legal question involved in the case at bar was not raised. The Supreme
Court did not consider the question of interpretation of the wording of article 157.
Undoubtedly, there was occasion for considering the question, but the Court
nevertheless failed to do so. This failure to see the question, at the time, is only an
evidence that the tribunal is composed of human beings for whom infallibility is beyond
reach.
The prosecution maintains that appellant's contention, supported by two authors
who have considered the question, although tenable under the English text of article
157, is not so under the Spanish text, which is the one controlling because the Revised
Penal Code was originally enacted by the Legislature in Spanish.
There is no quarrel, therefore, that under the abovequoted English text, the
appellant is entitled to acquittal. The question now is whether or not the Spanish text
conveys a thing different from that which can be read in the English text. The Spanish
text reads as follows:
"ART. 157. Quebrantamiento de sentencia. — Sera castigado con
prision correccional en sus grados medio y maximo el sentenciado que
quebrantare su condena, fugandose mientras estuviere sufriendo privacion de
libertad por sentencia rme; pero si la evasion o fuga se hubiere llevado a efecto
con escalamiento, fractura de puertas, ventanas, verjas, paredes, techos o suelos,
o empleando ganzuas, llaves falsas, disfraz, engaño, violencia o intimidacon, o
poniendose de acuerdo con otros sentenciados o dependientes del
establecimiento donde a hallare recluido la pena sera prision correccional en su
grado maximo."
The question boils down to the words "fugandose mientras estuviere sufriendo
privacion de libertad por sentencia rme," which are translated into English "by
escaping during the term of his imprisonment by reason of nal judgment." The
prosecution contends that the words "privacion de libertad" in the Spanish text is not
the same as the word "imprisonment" in the English text, and that while "imprisonment"
cannot include destierro, "privacion de libertad" may include it.
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The reason is, however, the result of a partial point of view, because it obliterates
the grammatical, logical, ideological function of the words "fugandose" and "by
escaping" in the Spanish and English texts, respectively. There should not be any
question that, whatever meaning we may want to give to the words "privacion de
libertad," it has to be conditioned by the verb "fugandose," (by escaping). "Privacion de
libertad" cannot be considered independently of "fugandose."
There seems to be no question that the Spanish "fugandose" is correctly
translated into the English "by escaping." Now, is there any sense in escaping from
destierro or banishment, where there is no enclosure binding the hypothetical fugitive?
"Fugandose" is one of the forms of the Spanish verb "fugar," to escape. The speci c
idea of "evasion" or "escape" is reiterated by the use of said words after the semi-colon
in the Spanish text and after the rst period in the English text. Either the verb "to
escape" or the substantive noun "escape" essentially presupposes some kind of
imprisonment or con nement, except guratively, and Article 157 does not talk in
metaphors or parables.
"To escape" means "to get away, as by ight or other conscious effort; to
break away, get free, or get clear, from or out of detention, danger, discomfort, or
the like; as to escape from prison. To issue from con nement or enclosure of any
sort; as gas escapes from the mains." (Webster's New International Dictionary.)
"Escape" means "act of escaping, or fact or having escaped; evasion of or
deliverance from injury or any evil; also the means of escape. The unlawful
departure of a prisoner from the limits of his custody. When the prisoner gets out
of prison and unlawfully regains his liberty, it is an actual escape." (Webster's
New International Dictionary.) "Evasion" means "escape." (Webster's New
International Dictionary.)
The "destierro" imposed on appellant banished him from Manila alone, and he
was free to stay in all the remaining parts of the country, and to go and stay in any part
of the globe outside the country. With freedom to move all over the world, it is
farfetched to allege that he is in any confinement from which he could escape.
The words "privacion de libertad" have been correctly translated into the English
"imprisonment," which gives the idea exactly conveyed by "privacion de libertad" in the
Spanish text. Undoubtedly, the drafters of the latter could have had used a more precise
Spanish word, but the literary error cannot be taken as a pretext to give to the less
precise words a broader meaning than is usually given to them.
"Privacion de libertad," literally meaning "deprivation of liberty or freedom," has
always been used by jurist using the Spanish language to mean "imprisonment." They
have never given them the unbounded philosophical scope that would lead to
irretrievable absurdities.
Under that unlimited scope, no single individual in the more than two billion
inhabitants of the world can be considered free, as the freest citizen of the freest
country is subject to many limitations or deprivations of liberty. Under the prosecution's
theory, should an accused, sentenced to pay a ne of one peso, evade the payment of it,
because the ne deprives him of liberty to dispose of his one peso, he will be liable to
be punished under article 157 of the Revised Penal Code to imprisonment of from more
than two years to six years. The iniquity and cruelty of such situation are too glaring and
violent to be entertained for a moment under our constitutional framework.
There is no gainsaying the proposition that to allow the violation of a sentence of
destierro without punishment is undesirable, but even without applying article 157 of
the Revised Penal Code, the act of the appellant cannot remain unpunished, because his
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violation of the sentence of destierro may be punished as contempt of court, for which
imprisonment up to six months is provided.
It is deplorable that article 157 should not provide for a situation presented in
this case, but the gap cannot be lled by this Court without encroaching upon the
legislative powers of Congress.
Perhaps it is better that evasions of sentence be punished, as provided by the old
Penal Code, by an increase in the evaded penalty. This will be more reasonable than the
penalties provided by article 157, which appear to be disproportionate and arbitrary,
because they place on equal footing the evader of a sentence of one day of
imprisonment and a life-termer, one who commits an insigni cant offense and one who
perpetrates the most heinous crime. At any rate, this is a problem for Congress to
solve. The appealed decision should be set aside.
Briones, J., concurs.
Footnotes
1. 80 Phil., 746.
2. 80 Phil., 746.