THE UNITED STATES v.

ADRIANO PANLILIO
G.R. No. L-9876, December 8, 1914

TOPIC: Art. VI, Sec. 1

The orders (rules and regulations) of an administrative officer or body issued pursuant to a statute have the
force of law but are not penal in nature and a violation of such orders is not an offense punishable by law
unless the statute expressly penalizes such violation.

FACTS:
● On February 1913, all of the carabaos belonging to accused, Panlilio having been exposed to the
dangerous and contagious disease known as rinderpest, were, in accordance with an order of duly-
authorized agent of the Director of Agriculture, duly quarantined in a corral in the barrio of Masamat,
Pampanga.
● On said place, Panlilio, illegally and voluntarily and without being authorized so to do, and while the
quarantine against said carabaos was still in force, permitted and ordered said carabaos to be taken
from the corral in which they were then quarantined and conducted from one place to another; that by
virtue of said orders of the accused, his servants and agents took the said carabaos from the said
corral and drove them from one place to another for the purpose of working them.
● The accused was convicted of violation of Act 1760 relating to the quarantining of animals suffering
from dangerous communicable or contagious diseases and sentencing him to pay a fine of P40 with
subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency and to pay the costs of trial.
● It is alleged that the accused illegally and without being authorized to do so, and while quarantine
against the said carabaos exposed to rinderpest was still in effect, permitted and ordered said carabaos
to be taken from the corral in which they were quarantined and drove them from one place to another.
● The accused contends that the facts alleged in the information and proved on the trial do not constitute
a violation of Act No. 1760.

ISSUE: WON accused can be penalized for violation of the order of the Bureau of Agriculture.

RULING: The Court ruled in the negative.

Nowhere in the law is the violation of the orders of the Bureau of Agriculture prohibited or made unlawful, nor is
there provided any punishment for violation of such orders. Section 8 of Act No. 1760 provides that any person
violating any of the provisions of the Act shall, upon conviction, be punished. However, the only sections of the
Act which prohibited acts and pronounced them as unlawful are Sections 3, 4 and 5, but the OSG suggests
that Section 6 is applicable to the place at bar.

This case does not fall within any of them. A violation of the orders of the Bureau of Agriculture, as authorized
by the given paragraph, is not a violation of the provision of the Act. The orders of the Bureau of Agriculture,
while they may possibly be said to have the force of law, are statutes and particularly not penal statutes, and a
violation of such orders is not a penal offense unless the statute itself somewhere makes a violation thereof
unlawful and penalizes it.

Nowhere in Act No. 1760 is a violation of the orders of the Bureau of Agriculture made a penal offense, nor is
such violation punished in any way therein. However, the accused did violate Art. 581 Par. 2 of the Penal Code
which punishes any person who violates regulations or ordinances with reference to epidemic disease among
animals.