U.S. vs. Pablo

Articles 318–324 of the Penal Code, though previously superseded in application by Act No. 1697 through judicial interpretation, are deemed revived and in force upon the total repeal of Act No. 1697 by the Administrative Code, provided the repealing statute does not expressly repeal those articles. The principle rests on the necessity that perjury and false testimony must not go unpunished and on the rule that laws not expressly repealed remain in force.

Andres Pablo was a policeman of the municipality of Balanga, Bataan, tasked with enforcing local ordinances against gambling. The case arose in the context of a criminal prosecution for illegal gambling (jueteng) before the justice of the peace court, during which Pablo testified as a witness for the prosecution. The legal framework at the time included Act No. 1697, a statute on perjury that the Supreme Court had interpreted as having impliedly superseded Articles 318–324 of the Penal Code (the old Spanish Penal Code then in force in the Philippines) relating to false testimony. Act No. 2657, the Administrative Code, subsequently repealed Act No. 1697 in its entirety, but did not expressly state whether the Penal Code articles on false testimony were likewise repealed, creating a gap in the penal sanction for perjury and false testimony.

On October 21, 1915, Andres Pablo, a policeman of the municipality of Balanga, Bataan, was ordered by his chief to proceed to the barrio of Tuyo to raid a jueteng game reportedly being conducted there. Before Pablo and his companion, policeman Tomas de Leon, arrived at the scene, the players—apparently forewarned—fled. Upon reaching a vacant lot, Pablo found Francisco Dato, a low table, and, after a search, a tambiolo (receptacle) and 37 bolas (balls) used in jueteng. He had also seen Maximo Malicsi and Antonio Rodrigo leave the lot, though he initially refrained from arresting them for lack of material proof, arresting only Dato, who had remained.

Pablo reported to his chief, Jose D. Reyes, submitting a memorandum stating that he had raided a jueteng game, seized a tambiolo and bolas, and seen the cabecillas Maximo Malicsi and Antonio Rodrigo, who had escaped. On October 22, 1915, the chief of police filed a complaint in the justice of the peace court charging Rodrigo, Malicsi, and Dato with gambling at jueteng in violation of Municipal Ordinance No. 5. Dato pleaded guilty, while Rodrigo and Malicsi pleaded not guilty. At trial, Pablo testified under oath that he and de Leon had seen persons running toward the hills from afar, that upon arrival they found only Dato and a table, and that they discovered the tambiolo and bolas nearby; he further stated that he did not see Rodrigo and Malicsi at the lot, nor did he see them run, and that he only learned their identities as cabecillas afterward from an unknown informant. Based on this testimony and the other evidence, the justice of the peace court acquitted Rodrigo and Malicsi and convicted only Dato as a gambler.

Before the hearing, Pablo had met with Malicsi and Rodrigo at the house of Valentin Sioson, where he was instructed not to testify against them and received a sum of money through Gregorio Ganzon. Dato testified that he had pleaded guilty in fulfillment of an agreement with Malicsi and Rodrigo, who promised to support his family during his imprisonment, and that he had told the policemen who the fleeing gamblers were while being taken to the municipal building. Malicsi corroborated this account, stating that at the meeting in Sioson's house they agreed to give Pablo P20 to exclude him and Rodrigo from the charge, and that only P15 was delivered through Ganzon. Ganzon corroborated the delivery of money, though he did not specify the amount.

On December 1, 1915, the provincial fiscal filed an information in the Court of First Instance of Bataan charging Pablo with perjury under section 3 of Act No. 1697, alleging that on or about November 6, 1915, during the hearing in the justice of the peace court, Pablo willfully and feloniously swore falsely that he had not overtaken or seen Rodrigo and Malicsi run, a statement he knew to be false and material to the case. The Court of First Instance convicted him on December 28, 1915, sentencing him to two years' imprisonment, a fine of P100, subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, costs, and disqualification from public office and from testifying in court. Pablo appealed.

The legal complication arose because Act No. 1697, under which Pablo was charged and convicted, had been totally repealed by the Administrative Code (Act No. 2657). The Court's prior decisions had interpreted Act No. 1697 as having superseded Articles 318–324 of the Penal Code on false testimony, though without expressly repealing them. The Administrative Code's repealing clause did not state whether those Penal Code articles were likewise repealed, leaving no explicit penal sanction for perjury or false testimony.

• Applicable Penal Law: Whether the crime of perjury or false testimony may be punished under Articles 318–324 of the Penal Code after Act No. 1697 (the perjury statute) was repealed by the Administrative Code (Act No. 2657), given that Act No. 1697 had been judicially interpreted as having superseded those Penal Code articles without expressly repealing them.
• Aggravating Circumstance: Whether the aggravating circumstance of price or reward under Article 10, No. 3 of the Penal Code concurred in the commission of the crime.

• Applicable Penal Law: Yes. Articles 318–324 of the Penal Code, never expressly repealed, must be deemed revived and applicable upon the repeal of Act No. 1697 by the Administrative Code, so that false testimony does not go unpunished.
• Aggravating Circumstance: Yes. The aggravating circumstance of price or reward concurred, the accused having received P15 in exchange for his false testimony, with no mitigating circumstance to offset it.

• Applicable Penal Law: Act No. 1697, which penalized perjury, had been interpreted by the Court in prior decisions as having superseded Articles 318–324 of the Penal Code relating to false testimony, though it did not expressly repeal them. When the Administrative Code (Act No. 2657) totally repealed Act No. 1697, it did not explicitly provide that the Penal Code articles were likewise repealed. Because those articles were never expressly repealed—only rendered inoperative by judicial interpretation of Act No. 1697's effect—they must be deemed revived upon Act No. 1697's repeal. The Court grounded this conclusion in the imperative that perjury and false testimony must not go unpunished, as their unpunished commission would cause incalculable harm to social order and the administration of justice. The Court invoked Law 11, Title 2, Book 3 of the Novisima Recopilacion, which provides that all laws not expressly repealed by subsequent laws must be obeyed, and that the excuse that they are not in use cannot avail. Accordingly, Articles 318–324 of the Penal Code were held to be in force and applicable to the crime of false testimony committed by the accused.

• Aggravating Circumstance: The evidence established that Pablo received P15 through Gregorio Ganzon in exchange for agreeing to exclude Malicsi and Rodrigo from his testimony. This constituted the aggravating circumstance of price or reward under Article 10, No. 3 of the Penal Code. No mitigating circumstance was found to offset the aggravating one, warranting imposition of the maximum period of the penalty.

• Revival of Impliedly Superseded Laws Upon Repeal of the Superseding Statute — When a statute (Act No. 1697) has been interpreted as impliedly superseding prior penal provisions (Articles 318–324 of the Penal Code) without expressly repealing them, and the superseding statute is itself totally repealed by a later law (the Administrative Code) that does not expressly repeal the prior provisions, the prior provisions are deemed revived and in force. The rationale is twofold: first, the prior provisions were never expressly repealed; second, the necessity of maintaining penal sanctions for serious offenses demands that the law not tolerate a gap in punishment. The Court relied on the principle from Law 11, Title 2, Book 3 of the Novisima Recopilacion that laws not expressly repealed must be obeyed and that disuse is no excuse for non-enforcement.

• Necessity of Punishing Perjury — The power to punish crimes is an inherent attribute of sovereignty, and perjury or false testimony, which can cause the acquittal of the guilty and the conviction of the innocent, must not be left without penal sanction. The Court held that it cannot be conceived that such crimes should go unpunished or be freely committed without punishment of any kind.

• "May the truth be freely perverted in testimony given under oath and which, for the very reason that it may save a guilty person from punishment, may also result in the conviction and punishment of an innocent person?" — This rhetorical passage articulates the Court's rationale for refusing to allow a gap in the punishment of perjury, emphasizing the systemic harm that false testimony inflicts on the administration of justice.

• "All the laws of the kingdom, not expressly repealed by other subsequent laws, must be literally obeyed and the excuse that they are not in use cannot avail." — This quotation from Law 11, Title 2, Book 3 of the Novisima Recopilacion provides the textual authority for the doctrine that laws not expressly repealed remain in force, and that mere disuse does not abrogate them—a principle the Court applied to hold that Articles 318–324 of the Penal Code were revived.

• "[T]he needs of society have made it necessary that the said articles 318 to 324 should be deemed to be in force, inasmuch as the Administrative Code, in repealing the said Act relating to perjury, has not explicitly provided that the said articles of the Penal Code have likewise been repealed." — This passage states the ratio decidendi: the revival of the Penal Code articles is compelled both by the absence of an express repeal and by the imperative of social necessity.

• Section 3, Act No. 1697 — The perjury statute under which Pablo was originally charged and convicted by the Court of First Instance. The Supreme Court held that this provision had been repealed by the Administrative Code (Act No. 2657) and was no longer applicable, requiring resort to the Penal Code instead.
• Articles 318–324, Penal Code (old Spanish Penal Code) — Provisions penalizing false testimony, which had been superseded in application by Act No. 1697 through judicial interpretation but were never expressly repealed. The Court held them revived upon the repeal of Act No. 1697 and applied them to convict the accused.
• Article 10, No. 3, Penal Code — Lists the aggravating circumstance of price or reward (haberse cometido el delito mediante precio, recompensa o promesa). The Court found this circumstance present because the accused received P15 in exchange for his false testimony, and applied it to impose the maximum period of the penalty.
• Law 11, Title 2, Book 3, Novisima Recopilacion — Provides that all laws not expressly repealed by subsequent laws must be obeyed and that disuse is no excuse. The Court invoked this provision as authority for the doctrine that the Penal Code articles on false testimony remained in force despite their non-application during the period Act No. 1697 was in effect.
• Repealing clause, Administrative Code (Act No. 2657) — The provision that totally repealed Act No. 1697 but did not expressly repeal Articles 318–324 of the Penal Code, creating the legal gap that the Court resolved by holding those articles revived.

Johnson, Carson, Trent, and Araullo, JJ., concurred. Moreland, J., concurred in the result.