People of the Philippines vs.

Napoleon Duque
G.R. No. 100285. August 13, 1992
FELICIANO, J.

Case Digested by: Saima B. Mamalo

Principle
A statute on prescription of crimes is an act of liberality on the part of the State in favor of the
offender.— A statute providing for prescription of defined criminal offenses is more than a statute
of repose and constitutes an act of grace by which the State, after the lapse of a certain period of
time, surrenders its sovereign power to prosecute the criminal act. A statute on prescription of
crimes is an act of liberality on the part of the State in favor of the offender. The applicable well-
known principles of statutory interpretation are that statutes must be construed in such a way as to
give effect to the intention of the legislative authority, and so as to give a sensible meaning to the
language of the statute and thus avoid nonsensical or absurd results, departing to the extent
unavoidable from the literal language of the statute.

Facts:

Appellant Napoleon Duque was charged with and convicted of violating Section 38 in relation to
Section 39 of P.D. No. 442, as amended, known as The Labor Code of the Philippines. The
charge of illegal recruitment was set out in the information in the following terms:
That on or about and/or sometime in January 1986, at Calamba, Laguna and within the jurisdiction
of this Honorable Court, the above named accused well knowing that he is not licensed nor
authorized by the proper government agency (POEA) to engage in recruitment of workers for
placement abroad, did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously recruit Glicerio Teodoro,
Agustin Ulat, Ernesto Maunahan, Norma Francisco, Elmo Alcaraz and Marcelino Desepida as
workers abroad exacted and actually received money from the above-named victims, to their
damage and prejudice.

During the trial, Duque denied the charges. He controverted the allegation that he had recruited
complainants for overseas employment. He also denied that he had received any monies in
consideration of promised employment. However, he acknowledged that his house had served as
a meeting place for a certain Delfin and one Engr. Acopado who allegedly were the persons who
had promised complainants work abroad.

On the basis of the positive identification by private complainants of appellant Duque as the person
they had talked to for placement abroad, the person who had collected fees from them and who
had received information from them needed for arranging their departure for abroad, the trial court
concluded that accused Duque was primarily responsible for promising placement and inducing
private complainants to part with their money.
The recruitment of persons for overseas employment without the necessary recruiting permit or
authority from the POEA constitutes a crime penalized, not by the Revised Penal Code, but rather
by a special law, i.e., Article 38 in relation to Article 290 of the Labor Code. Article 290 of the
Labor Code provides, in relevant part, that:

“Art. 290. Offenses penalized under this Code and the rules and regulations issued pursuant thereto
shall prescribe in three (3) years.

Appellant Duque contends that the prescriptive period in the case at bar commenced from the time
money in consideration of promises for overseas employment was parted with by complainants.
Duque thus contends that the prescriptive period began to run sometime in January 1986. The
information was, however, filed by the Assistant Provincial Prosecutor of Laguna on 22 May 1990,
i.e., more than four (4) years later. Duque concludes that the offense of illegal recruitment had
accordingly prescribed by May 1990.

Issue: WoN the case is barred by prescription

Held:

No. Duque’s lack of necessary permit or authority, while certainly known to appellant Duque back
in January 1986, was not known to private complainants at that time. Indeed, private complainants
discovered that appellant did not possess such authority or permit only when they went to the
offices of the POEA for the purpose of filing a claim for return of the money they had delivered to
appellant Duque.

Since good faith is always presumed, the complainants were entitled to assume that appellant
Duque was acting in good faith when he presented himself as a recruiter for overseas placement.
Even if it be assumed arguendo that ordinary prudence required that a person seeking overseas
employment ought to check the authority or status of persons pretending to be authorized or to
speak for a recruitment or placement agency, the offended parties’ failure to do so did not start the
running of the prescriptive period.

In the nature of things, acts made criminal by special laws are frequently not immoral or obviously
criminal in themselves; for this reason, the applicable statute requires that if the violation of the
special law is not known at the time, then prescription begins to run only from the discovery
thereof, i.e., discovery of the unlawful nature of the constitutive act or acts.

A statute providing for prescription of defined criminal offenses is more than a statute of repose
and constitutes an act of grace by which the State, after the lapse of a certain period of time,
surrenders its sovereign power to prosecute the criminal act. A statute on prescription of crimes is
an act of liberality on the part of the State in favor of the offender. The applicable well-known
principles of statutory interpretation are that statutes must be construed in such a way as to give
effect to the intention of the legislative authority, and so as to give a sensible meaning to the
language of the statute and thus avoid nonsensical or absurd results, departing to the extent
unavoidable from the literal language of the statute. Appellant’s literal reading would make
nonsense of Section 2 of Act No. 3326.

In our view, the phrase “institution of judicial proceedings for its investigation and punishment”
may be either disregarded as surplusage or should be deemed preceded by the word “until.” Thus,
Section 2 may be read as:

“Prescription shall begin to run from the day of the commission of the violation of the law; and if
the same be not known at the time, from the discovery thereof;”

or as:

“Prescription shall begin to run from the day of the commission of the violation of the law, and if
the same be not known at the time, from the discovery thereof and until institution of judicial
proceedings for its investigation and punishment.” (Emphasis supplied)

Under Article 91 of the Revised Penal Code, the prescriptive period in respect of the offense of
illegal recruitment began to run on the date of discovery thereof by the private complainants and
the authorities concerned (POEA) sometime in December 1989 and was interrupted on 16 April
1990 when the affidavit-sworn complaint was filed before the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor,9
and certainly by May 1990 when the criminal information was filed in court by the Assistant
Provincial Prosecutor of Laguna. Once more, the appellant’s defense of prescription must fail.

WHEREFORE, the judgment of conviction rendered by the trial court is hereby AFFIRMED, with
the sole modification that the penalty properly imposable and hereby imposed is life imprisonment
and not reclusion perpetua. Costs against appellant.
 Arabay, Inc. vs. Court of First Instance of Zamboanga
G.R. No. L-37684. September 10, 1975
Castro, J.

Case Digested by: Saima B. Mamalo

Principle:
Provision in the Local Autonomy Act that municipalities “shall, in no case, impose any
percentage tax on sales or other taxes on articles subject to specific tax, except gasoline,” when
given a reasonable and practical interpretation means that Congress intentionally meant to put it
within the power of municipalities to impose whatever form or type of taxes on gasoline, including
a sales tax or one in that form. Gasoline is of no practical use to its producer unless sold — In our
opinion, a reasonable and practical interpretation of the terms of the proviso in question results in
the conclusion that Congress, in excluding gasoline from the general disability imposed on
municipalities and municipal districts to exact any kind of taxes on articles subject to specific tax
under the Tax Code, deliberately and intentionally meant to put it within the power of such local
governments to impose whatever type or form of taxes the latter may deem proper to levy on
gasoline, including a sales tax or one in that form. There is after all no clearly demonstrable and
convincing reason why the law would allow municipal imposition of taxes on gasoline and yet
withhold such power if the imposition is in the form of a sales tax, when it was a known fact at the
time of the enactment of the Local Autonomy Act in 1959—and this is still true to this day—that
gasoline is of no profitable use to the companies which own it unless turned over to the consuming
public which, perforce, must pay for the right to obtain that commodity.

Facts:
On June 21, 1969 Republic Act No. 5520 was approved. It provided for the creation of the
City of Dipolog from the then existing territorial jurisdiction of the Municipality of Dipolog, to
take effect on January 1, 1970.
On July 28, 1971 the Arabay, Inc., a distributor of gas, oil and other petroleum products,
filed with the Court of First Instance of Zamboanga del Norte a complaint against the City of
Dipolog contesting the validity of the above-mentioned Section 1 of Ordinance No. 53 on the
ground that the same imposed a sales tax which is beyond the power of a municipality to levy
under Section 2 of Republic Act No. 2264, otherwise known as the Local Autonomy Act of 1959.
On August 30, 1972 the Arabay, Inc. filed a supplemental complaint which prayed, among
others, for a refund of the taxes it had paid under the ordinance in question.
On October 30, 1972 the parties entered into a stipulation of facts which states the paid
sales taxes of petroleum products of the plaintiff to the City of Dipolog from December 1969 to
July 1972. It also stated that the payments from April to July 1972 have been refunded by the City
of Dipolog to the plaintiff.
On January 16, 1973 the court a quo rendered judgment upholding the validity of the
questioned provision of Ordinance No. 53, as amended, essentially on the grounds that the Arabay,
Inc. failed to present evidence that the tax provision in question imposed a sales tax, and the tax
prescribed therein was, moreover, not a specific tax on the products themselves but on the privilege
of selling them. Arabay, Inc. vs. Court of First Instance of Zamboanga.

Issue:

(1) Whether or not the questioned tax provision imposes a sales tax; and (2) if it imposes a
sales tax, whether the Arabay, Inc. is entitled to a tax refund, considering that Dipolog is
now a city.
Held:
1. In our view, the questioned section of Ordinance No. 53 of the Municipal Council of
Dipolog levies a sales tax, not only because the character of the ordinance as a sales tax
ordinance was admitted by the parties below, but as well because the phraseology of the
said provision reveals in clear terms the intention to impose a tax on the sale of oil, gasoline
and other petroleum products. Thus, the ordinance provides: “There shall be charged for
the selling and distribution of refined and manufactured oils . . . based on the monthly
allocation actually delivered and distributed and intended for sale. . .by the Company or
supplier to any person . . . whether as dealer . . . or as operator of any station . . . the
following tax payable monthly: x x x”

It is quite evident from these terms that the amount of the tax that may be collected is
directly dependent upon or bears a direct relationship to the volume of sales which the
owner or supplier of the itemized products generates every month. The ordinance in
question therefore exacts a tax based on sales; it follows that the Municipality of Dipolog
was not authorized to enact such an ordinance under the local Autonomy Act.

2. The obligation of the City of Dipolog to refund the sum collected under the void provisions
of an ordinance enacted while it was still a municipality, is not open to doubt. In San
Miguel Corporation vs. The Municipal Council of Mandaue, Cebu, the Court ordered the
return to the taxpayer of the sums paid under an ordinance enacted under circumstances
similar to the case at bar, and rejected the argument that the municipality of Mandaue had
in the meantime been converted into a city. The right of the Arabay, Inc. to a refund of the
local sales taxes it had paid under the questioned ordinance may not, however, include
those levied on its gasoline sales.
 The two prohibitions in Sec. 2 of R.A. 2264 overlap in the sense that while the first clause
of the said proviso forbids the levying of sales taxes of whatever form or guise, the second clause
of the same proviso forbids the levying of “taxes” without any distinction as to the kind of tax,
i.e.’ whether percentage tax, sales tax, specific tax or license tax, although this latter prohibition
applies only to a limited class of articles, viz., those subject to the specific tax under the Tax Code.
Such an overlap would probably carry or connote no legal significance but for the exclusion
of gasoline from the prohibition contained in the second clause of the mentioned proviso.
In our opinion, a reasonable and practical interpretation of the terms of the proviso in
question results in the conclusion that Congress, in excluding gasoline from the general disability
imposed on municipalities and municipal districts to exact any kind of taxes on articles subject to
specific tax under the Tax Code, deliberately and intentionally meant to put it within the power of
such local governments to impose whatever type or form of taxes the latter may deem proper to
levy on gasoline, including a sales tax or one in that form.
There is after all no clearly demonstrable and convincing reason why the law would allow
municipal imposition of taxes on gasoline and yet withhold such power if the imposition is in the
form of a sales tax, when it was a known fact at the time of the enactment of the Local Autonomy
Act in 1959—and this still is true to this day—that gasoline is of no profitable use to the companies
which own it unless turned over to the consuming public which, perforce, must pay for the right
to obtain that commodity.
ACCORDINGLY, the judgment a quo is set aside. The City of Dipolog is hereby ordered
to refund to the Arabay, Inc. the taxes the latter has paid under Section 1 of Ordinance No. 53,
series of 1964, as amended, deducting therefrom the amount representing the taxes paid by the
Abaray, Inc. on its gasoline sales. No costs.
 MARCELINO B. FLORENTINO and LOURDES T. ZANDUETA
vs. PHILIPPINE NATIONAL BANK
G.R. No. L-8782 – April 28, 1956
JUGO, J.

Case Digested by: Saima B. Mamalo

Principle:

An argument based upon a punctuation alone is not persuasive, and the courts will not hesitate to
change the punctuation when necessary, to give the statue the effect intended by the legislature,
disregarding superfluous or incorrect punctuation marks and inserting others when necessary.

Facts:

(1) That the petitioners are indebted to the respondent bank in the amount of P6,800 plus
interest, the same having been incurred on January 2, 1953, which is due on January 2,
1954;
(2) That the said loan is secured by a mortgage of real properties;
(3) That the petitioner Marcelino B. Florentino is a holder of Backpay Acknowledgment No.
1721 dated October 6, 1954, in the amount of P22,896.33 by virtue of Republic Act No. 897
approved on June 20, 1953; and
(4) That on December 27, 1953, petitioners offered to pay their loan with the respondent bank
with their backpay certificate, but the respondent bank, on December 29, 1953, refused to
accept petitioners’ offer to pay the said indebtedness with the latter’s backpay certificate.

Issue:

WoN, PNB should be compelled to accept the backpay certificate of petitioner issued to him by
virtue of RA 897 to pay his debt to the said bank.

Held:

In Sec. 2 of RA 304 as amended by RA 897, the qualifying clause refers only to the last antecedent;
that is, “any citizen of the Philippines or any association or corporation organized under the laws
of the Philippines.” It should be noted that there is a comma before the words “or to any citizen,
etc.," which separates said phrase from the preceding ones.

Grammatically, the qualifying clause refers only to the last antecedent; that is, "any citizen of the
Philippines or any association or corporation organized under the laws of the Philippines." It
should be noted that there is a comma before the words "or to any citizen, etc.," which separates
said phrase from the preceding ones. But even disregarding the grammatical construction, as done
by the appellee, still there are cogent and powerful reasons why the qualifying clause should be
limited to the last antecedent.

The intent of the lawmakers as found in congressional records show that:

Mr. TIBLE: The purpose of the amendment is to clarify the provision of section 2. I
believe, gentleman from Cebu, that section 2, as amended in this amendatory bill permits
the use of backpay certificates as payment for obligations and indebtedness in favor of the
government”.

As there would have been no need to permit by law the use of backpay certificates in payment of
debts to private persons, if they are willing to accept them, the permission necessarily refers to the
Government of the Philippines, its agencies or other instrumentalities, etc.

In the present case, Marcelino B. Florentino incurred his debt to the Philippine National Bank on
January 2, 1953; hence, the obligation was subsisting when the Amendatory Act No. 897 was
approved. Consequently, the present case falls squarely under the provisions of section 2 of the
Amendatory Act No. 897.

In view of the foregoing, the decision appealed from is reversed, and the appellee is ordered to
accept the backpay certificate above mentioned of the appellant, Marcelino B. Florentino, in
payment of his above cited debt to the appellee, without interest from December 27, 1953, the date
when he offered said backpay certificate in payment. Without pronouncement as to costs. It is
ordered.
 WILMER GREGO vs. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS and HUMBERTO BASCO
G.R. No. 125955 June 19, 1997
Romero, J.

Case Digested by: Saima B. Mamalo

Principle:

A statute, despite the generality in its language, must not be so construed as to overreach acts,
events or matters which transpired before its passage—the law looks forward, not backward.—
That the provision of the Code in question does not qualify the date of a candidate’s removal from
office and that it is couched in the past tense should not deter us from applying the law
prospectively. The basic tenet in legal hermeneutics that laws operate only prospectively and not
retroactively provides the qualification sought by petitioner. A statute, despite the generality in its
language, must not be so construed as to overreach acts, events or matters which transpired before
its passage. Lex prospicit, non respicit. The law looks forward, not backward.

Administrative rules and regulations are intended to carry out, not supplant or modify, the law;
Where the law employs the word “may,” it becomes improper and highly irregular for an
administrative agency to use the word “shall” in its implementing rules.

Facts:

In 1981, Basco was removed from his position as Deputy Sheriff for serious misconduct.
Subsequently, he ran as a candidate for councilor in the Second District of the City of Manila
during the 1988, local elections. He won and assumed office. After his term, Basco sought re-
election. Again, he won. However, he found himself facing lawsuits filed by his opponents who
wanted to dislodge him from his position.

Petitioner argues that Basco should be disqualified from running for any elective position since he
had been “removed from office as a result of an administrative case” pursuant to Section 40 (b) of
Republic Act No. 7160.

For a third time, Basco was elected councilor in 1995. Expectedly, his right to office was again
contested. In 1995, petitioner Grego filed with the COMELEC a petition for disqualification. The
COMELEC conducted a hearing and ordered the parties to submit their respective memoranda.

However, the Manila City BOC proclaimed Basco in May 1995, as a duly elected councilor for
the Second District of Manila, placing sixth among several candidates who vied for the seats.
Basco immediately took his oath of office.
COMELEC resolved to dismiss the petition for disqualification. Petitioner’s motion for
reconsideration of said resolution was later denied by the COMELEC,, hence, this petition.

Issue:

Whether or not COMELEC acted in with grave abuse of discretion in dismissing the petition for
disqualification.

Held:

No. The Supreme Court found no grave abuse of discretion on the part of COMELEC in dismissing
the petition for disqualification, however, the Court noted that they do not agree with its
conclusions and reasons in the assailed resolution.

The Court reiterated that being merely an implementing rule, Sec 25 of the COMELEC Rules of
Procedure must not override, but instead remain consistent with and in harmony with the law it
seeks to apply and implement. Administrative rules and regulations are intended to carry out,
neither to supplant nor to modify, the law. The law itself cannot be extended to amending or
expanding the statutory requirements or to embrace matters not covered by the statute. An
administrative agency cannot amend an act of Congress.

In case of discrepancy between the basic law and a rule or regulation issued to implement said law,
the basic law prevails because said rule or regulations cannot go beyond the terms and provisions
of the basic law. Since Section 6 of Rep. Act 6646, the law which Section 5 of Rule 25 of the
COMELEC Rules of Procedure seeks to implement, employed the word “may,” it is, therefore,
improper and highly irregular for the COMELEC to have used instead the word “shall” in its rules.

The Court dismissed the petition for lack of merit.

 THE UNITED STATES v. JOSE S. SERAPIO
G.R. No. 7557 December 7, 1912
Arellano, C.J.,

Case Digested by: Saima B. Mamalo

Principle

The doctrine of prescription or the limitation of time within which an action may be brought, is of
purely statutory origin. Both under the common and the civil law a right of action never died by
mere lapse of time. The court, in the absence of express law, has no authority to fix a period of
prescription or limitation.

Facts

On or about the month of December, 1907, in the municipality of Santa Maria, Province of
Bulacan, the said accused, Jose S. Serapio, did willfully and criminally, with the intentions of
attacking, reviling, and exposing to public hatred and scorn the good name, virtue, and reputation
of Bonifacio Morales, write, publish, and send by mail addressed to the Executive Secretary, an
anonymous communication, the pertinent portion whereof is as follows:

"II. Bonifacio Morales is the murderer of 12 peaceful and honest men, who are: Mariano Ramirez,
municipal president of Bocaue; the teacher of the primary school of Mariano, Emigdio Perez,
Candido del Rosario, Juan de Vera, Manuel Valderrama, a boy 13 years old of the barrio of
Alangalang, one Budio, musician, Mariano Mendoza, all of Santa Maria, an old man of the barrio
of Sapang-palay of San Jose and two brothers, sons of Francisco Pascual of Norzagaray. He has
committed various assaults and robberies, which are: The robbery of Captain Ciano Caluloa of
Meycauayan, the robbery of Simeona of Angat, whereby a girl 12 or 13 years old was killed, the
robbery of P420 from Juana Reyes of Bocaue, all in the year 1899.’

"‘12. Bonifacio Morales is known in the Secret Service Department of Manila as a criminal, whose
crimes the detective Manuel Arbona discovered in the year 1903 . . .’

"‘15. Bonifacio Morales is an inveterate gambler and to get money he uses diabolical methods, as
in the case of the General Santa Ana in 1903, who surrendered voluntarily in order to get within
the pale of the law, but Morales tried to demonstrate to the Government that he was caught by him
in order to secure the reward offered by the Government.”

The defendant contended that the facts alleged in the complaint do not constitute a crime. It
appears from the allegation in the complaint that if there were a crime it has prescribed. After
hearing the arguments of the respective parties, the Honorable Alberto Barretto, judge, in a very
interesting opinion, decided that the first ground of said demurrer was not well founded, but
sustained the second, and ordered the prosecuting attorney of the province to present a new
complaint.
After carefully considering the case, the courts finds that while the crime of libel differs from that
of calumny, defined and penalized in article 452, it is not so with respect to the crimes of insults
provided for and penalized in articles 456 et seq. of the Penal Code.

Under said articles and the first paragraph of article 277, the court does not understand to exist the
same essential difference between the crime of insults in writing and that of libel. In both the object
of the perpetrator of the crime is to attack the honesty, virtue, or the reputation of a person,
exposing him to public hatred, scorn, or ridicule, characteristic elements that are likewise found in
the crime of insults in writing, defined and penalized in article 456 of the Penal Code, in connection
with 458 thereof.

It is certain that Act No. 277 has not in any way fixed the prescription for the penal action in the
crimes of libel. There is no provision in said Act that fixes the time within which the action arising
from a libelous imputation may prescribe, but it is not less certain that by applying the rule that a
criminal act is not prescriptible unless the law expressly fixes such prescription, the crime of libel
and others could be prosecuted at any time, which would naturally make the provisions of the Act
absurd, for a case might arise where a penal action might be exercised even after the person
concerned in the crime or responsible therefor had died.

Issue:

WoN the crime has prescribed in accordance with the third paragraph of article 131 of the Penal
Code of the Philippines.

Held:

The crime under consideration consists of the violation of a special law as referred to in article 7
of the Penal Code, and subsequently the provisions of said code and the clarification of the crimes
comprised therein are not applicable in the present case. The crime must be punished under the
provisions of the Act (No. 1761) which the sovereign power, by virtue of its authority, saw fit to
enact for the good of the country and its inhabitants. Wherefore, inasmuch as it is an act which the
lawmaker has declared to be invested with the attributed of a crime, the overruling of the demurrer
and the prosecution of the case are in accordance with the law.

This court has refused in many cases to apply some of the general provisions of the Penal Code to
the laws of the United States Commission, or to special decrees of the Kingdom of Spain applicable
to the Philippine Islands, thereby holding, in effect, that such laws, when they provided a penalty
for their violation, were "leyes especiales," as that phrase is used in the Penal Code.

This court has uniformly, through a long line of decisions refused to apply some of the provisions
of the Penal Code to leyes especiales, as that phrase is used in article 7; or, in other words, the
court has refused to apply some provisions of the Penal Code to any general law of the Philippine
Commission, which, within itself, defined the punishment of a crime.
The Honorable Alberto Barretto, judge, in his decision in the court below, very correctly says,
among other things: But it is no less certain that by applying the rule that a criminal act is not
prescriptible unless the law expressly fixes such prescription." In our opinion this is the correct
rule.

The doctrine of prescription or the limitation of time within which an action may be brought, is of
purely statutory origin. Both under the common and the civil law a right of action never died by
mere lapse of time. The court, in the absence of express law, has no authority to fix a period of
prescription or limitation.

These statutes (of prescription or limitation) did not destroy the right. They simply prescribed by
law, the defendant might object, if he desired, to being sued. If the defendant failed, in some proper
way, to object, or, in other words, interpose the statutory defense, the action could be maintained.
The statute provided a special defense simply.
Our conclusions, then, following the rule heretofore adopted by this court, are:

First. That by reason of article 7 of the Penal Code, some of the general provisions of said code
do not apply to the penal laws of the United States Commission, unless, by express provision of
law, they are made applicable.

Second. That there is no general or special provision of law making any of the provisions of the
Penal Code applicable to the Libel Law of the United States Commission (Act No. 277), except
the provision as to subsidiary imprisonment when a fine is imposed. (Act No. 1732.)

Third. That the period of prescription fixed by article 131 of the Penal Code for calumny and
insults, does not apply to the crime of libel as defined and published under Act No. 277 of the
United States Commission.

Fourth. That unless a period of prescription or limitation is fixed by law for a particular offense
or crime, the action for such offense or crime is not barred by lapse of time.

Fifth. That the law defining and punishing the crime of libel (Act No. 277) has not fixed a period
of prescription or limitation within which an action for such crime shall be instituted.

For all of the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the lower court, sustaining the second ground of
demurrer, is hereby reversed, and it is hereby ordered that the cause be remanded to the lower
court from which it came, with direction that the defendant Jose S. Serapio be ordered to appear
and plead to the complaint presented in this cause.