THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. ELISEO REYES, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Eliseo Reyes was charged, in the information presented for the purpose, with
having, on or about the 10th day of October, 1913, in the city of Manila,
abducted willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously and with unchaste designs, with
her own consent, Apolonia Enriquez, a virgin 17 years of age. After a trial of
the case in all its proceedings, judgment was rendered by the Court of First
Instance of this city, on December 6,1913, whereby the defendant was found
guilty of the said crime and sentenced to the penalty of one year eight months
and twenty-one days of prision correccional, to endow the offended
party in the sum of P250, to maintain the offspring, should there be any, to
suffer in case of insolvency the corresponding subsidiary imprisonment, and to
pay the costs. The defendant appealed from this judgment.

The sole question raised in this court by defendant’s counsel, through the
appeal submitted and by means of the assignments of error set forth in the two
briefs presented by him, is whether Apolonia Enriquez was seduced or induced by
the defendant to leave the house of her parents and join the defendant—an
indispensable requisite, as defendant’s counsel himself correctly says, for the
existence of the crime of abduction with consent, provided for and punished by
article 446 of the Penal Code.

The defense, in raising this question, admits the existence of the other two
requisites which must concur in order that the said crime may be held to have
been committed, to wit, that the said girl was under 18 years of age and a
virgin when the crime under prosecution was committed.

It was proven that Apolonia Enriquez left the house of her parents, with whom
she was living in Calle Singalong, on the morning of October 10, 1913, and went
to another house on the same street; that the same day the defendant joined her
and they afterwards went together to another house in Calle Sandejas, where they
stayed several days; and that they then removed to another house in Calle
Alvarez, Sampaloc, in which they remained five days, until the girl was found by
her godfather, Nestorio Medel. It was also proved, by the explicit statements of
the defendant and of the girl herself, that during all the time they were living
together in the houses above mentioned they repeatedly had carnal intercourse.
The evidence likewise discloses that for six months prior to October 10, 1913,
the defendant maintained amorous relations with Apolonia Enriquez, although he
was a married man—a fact of which she was not aware— and that those relations
were so intimate and the girl’s inclination toward the defendant was such that
he had complete control over her will, as clearly appears from the letters which
the defense endeavored at the trial to utilize in his behalf and which turned
out to be the best and most convincing proof that the girl was subjugated and
dominated by the passion which the defendant awakened in her and to such an
extent that she left the house of her parents on the day aforementioned in
obedience to an agreement previously made between them. In spite of the
defendant’s denial, it is clearly concluded from one of the letters presented at
the trial by the defense that on the day preceding the abduction he had an
interview with the girl outside of her house, and what occurred the next day was
nothing more than the result of that meeting.

Furthermore, even admitting it to be true that the girl called up the
defendant by telephone from the house where she was in Singalong, as he
testified that she did, and informed him that she was now outside her house and
waiting for him there, this could not constitute proof that there had previously
been no inducement or seduction on the part of the defendant to make her leave
the house of her parents on the morning referred to. But that fact does plainly
show that there was a previous agreement between them to go from there to
another house, as in fact they did, and consummate the act which constituted the
crime of abduction prosecuted in this case; and this is perfectly plain and
obvious, for, if after the defendant had had that interview with the girl it had
not been his intention to take her away from her parents’ home for the purpose
of satisfying his carnal appetite upon her, but only to come, as he said, in
answer to her summons by telephone, he could have refrained from taking her with
him and living with her two days in one house and afterwards five days in
another distant from that of her parents, for it is situated in the district of
Sampaloc in an opposite part of the city from Malate, where Calle Singalong is,
and he could have refrained, during all that time in both of these houses and
before the girl had been found by her godmother’s husband, Nestorio Medel, from
carrying out the unchaste designs which it is evident he entertained toward her,
as it is also evident that his relations with the girl were for no other purpose
from the beginning than to seduce her and deceive her in order to accomplish
those designs, inasmuch as, being a married man, he knew that he could not marry
her.

The defense, however, tried to prove by the document marked Exhibit 1,-that
the girl left the house of her parents voluntarily, through fear of being
maltreated by them, and was not taken away from her home by anybody; and also
that although she knew the defendant was married she went to live with him in
order that he might take care of her. Even though it be considered to have been
proved, as it is not sufficiently, that she did make the statements contained in
that document, since it is dated the 10th of October, the same day, as is seen,
that the defendant took possession of the person of the offended party and
materially made her his own, when the girl, conquered by passion, could not
refuse to accede to any request bf his, evidently it can have no value for the
purposes intended by the defense and only serves to prove that the defendant,
convinced of the responsibility he had incurred by his acts, endeavored thereby
to see whether he might free himself therefrom, should he be prosecuted, as has
occurred in this case. That document, moreover, in connection with the other
two, Exhibits B and C, which were presented by the prosecution and bear date of
the following day, October 11, and in which the defendant himself declares that
he will be faithful to Apolonia Enriquez all the time that they shall live
together and authorizes her, in case he fails to keep his promise or abandons
her, to do with him whatever she may please or to prosecute him, shows that the
defendant, recognizing his fault, endeavored to avoid prosecution by the
offended party or by her family, by making her believe, as she testified at the
trial that she did, that by presenting document Exhibit B in court he could get
married to her, and by assuring Nestorio Medel, when this latter went to see him
in order to find out the whereabouts of the offended party, that that document,
which the girl had in her possession, was the certificate of his marriage to
her. All these facts demonstrate that the defendant was deceiving the girl
during the whole time he had her in his company and until the last moment, by
making her believe that he was not married—an error which she perceived only
when in the office of the prosecuting attorney of this city the accused was
asked by the fiscal whether he wished to marry the girl and he replied that this
was impossible as he was married.

As this Supreme Court has already held in the case of the United States vs.
Reyes (20 Phil. Rep., 510), in order that the crime of abduction, with the
consent of the abducted, which is punished by article 446 of the Penal Code,
exist, it is not necessary that the abducted woman should have been materially
removed from the house of her parents or from that of persons charged with her
keeping or custody; it is sufficient that she should have left it and withdrawn
herself from their’ control and vigilance, yielding to the cajolery and promises
of her seducer, because, according to the principle laid down by the supreme
court of Spain in its decision of November 30, 1875, the law provides
punishment, in respect to this crime, not for the violence done, to the person
abducted, since it is assumed that she gave her consent, but for the disgrace to
her family and the alarm caused therein by the disappearance of one of its
members who, from her age and sex, is susceptible to cajolery and deceit. The
place where the abduction is committed is immaterial, for the law takes no
account of it. The same principle is laid down in the decisions of the same
court, of October 29, 1895, and March 31, 1896.

The defendant did not, in fact, materially remove Apolonia Enriquez, a maiden
17 years of age, from the house of her parents, but he did induce her to leave
it. In spite of his being married, he maintained amorous relations with her for
six months prior to the 10th of October, 1913, gaining her consent during all
that time and seducing her; and after the girl by agreement with him had left
the paternal roof on the day aforementioned and withdrawn herself from her
parents’ control and vigilance, he took her away with him and derived carnal
enjoyment from her during the time that he had her in his company. Those facts
evidently constitute the crime of abduction, provided for and punished by the
said article 446 of the Penal Code, as amended by Act No. 2298 of the Philippine
Legislature, and, the defendant being criminally liable for the said crime, as
the principal thereof by direct participation, its commission being unattended
by any circumstance that mitigates his responsibility, the penalty specified in
the said article should be imposed upon Mm in the medium degree, as was done in
the judgment appealed from, together with that of civil liability and the others
mentioned in the said judgment, which is in accordance with the law, though the
defendant should also have been sentenced to suspension of the right to hold
public office and the right of suffrage during the term of the sentence, which
penalties are accessory to the principal one imposed, as provided by article 61
of the Penal Code.

Therefore, with this addition, we affirm the judgment appealed from, with the
costs against the appellant.

Arellano, C. J., Torres, Carson, and Moreland, JJ.,
concur.