THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. DOMINADOR CAMERINO, MANUEL PAKINGAN, CRISANTO SARATAN, BIENVENIDO OSTERIA, ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES.

Dominador Camerino and eighty-six others were accused before the
Court of First Instance of Cavite of the crime of sedition, said to
have been committed on or about and during the period comprised by and
between the months of October, 1953, to November 15, 1953 and for
sometime prior thereto; under an information charging conspiracy among
the said accused in having allegedly perpetrated for political and
social ends, insistent, repeated and continuous acts of hate, terrorism
and revenge against private persons, leaders, members and sympathizers
of the Nacionalista Party in the town of Bacoor, Cavite, and
frustrating by force, threats and violence, and intimidation the free
expression of the popular will in the elections held on November 10,
1953. The information described in detail the manner in which the
alleged seditious acts were performed, specifying the dates and the
places where they were committed/and the persons who were victims
thereof, under fourteen different overt acts of sedition. Before
arraignment, forty-eight of the eighty-seven accused, headed by
Dominador Camerino, filed a motion to quash the information on the
ground of double jeopardy, claiming in support thereof that they had
been previously convicted or been in jeopardy of being convicted and/or
acquitted of the offense charged in other cases of the same nature
before the court.

The Assistant Provincial Fiscal filed written opposition to the
motion, saying that although it was alleged in the information that the
accused had been charged with various crimes under different and
separate informations, that would not place them in double jeopardy,
because those previous charges were being specified in the information
only as a bill of particulars for the purpose of describing in detail
the offense of sedition, but not to hold the defendants liable for
punishment under said separate and different specifications; in other
words, the specifications describing separate crimes were alleged in
the information merely to complete the narration of facts which
constitute the crime of sedition.

Later, all the accused filed a supplemental motion to quash, raising
as additional grounds that more than one offense was charged, and that
the criminal action or liability of said defendants had been
extinguished.

On March 14, 1956, the trial court issued an order sustaining the
reasons of the motion to quash and dismissing the information on the
grounds: (1) that the information charged more than one offense, (2)
that it was vague, ambiguous and uncertain, (3) that it described
crimes for which some of the accused had either been convicted or
acquitted, and (4) some violation of the election law described in the
specification had already prescribed. A motion for reconsideration
filed by the Fiscal was denied. The Government is appealing from that
order of dismissal, as well as the order denying the motion for
reconsideration.

In determining the present appeal, we deem it necessary to discuss
only the first ground of the dismissal of the information by the trial
court, namely, multiplicity of offenses, that is to say, that the
information allegedly charged more than one offense. We agree with the
Provincial Fiscal and the Solicitor General representing the Government
that the accused herein were being charged only with one offense,
namely, that of sedition, defined in Article 139 of the Revised Penal
Code, as amended by Commonwealth Act No. 202, and penalized under
Article 140 of the same code. The fourteen different acts or
specifications charging some or all of the accused with having
committed the offenses charged therein, were included in the
information merely to describe and to narrate the different and
specific acts the sum total of which constitutes the crime of sedition.
Different and separate acts constituting different and separate
offenses may serve as a basis for prosecuting the accused to hold them
criminally liable for said different offenses. Yet, those different
acts of offenses may serve merely as a basis for the prosecution of one
single offense like that of sedition. For instance, one may be accused
of sedition, and at the same time be prosecuted under another
information for murder or homicide as the case may be, if the killing
was done in pursuance of and to carry out the acts constituting
sedition. In the case of People vs. Cabrera, 43 Phil., 64, this Tribunal said:

“The nearest analogy to the two crimes of murder and
sedition growing out of practically the same facts, which can be found
in the American authorities, relate to the crimes of assault and riot
or unlawful, assembly. A majority of the American courts have held that
the offense of unlawful assembly and riot and the offense of assault
and battery are distinct offense; and that conviction or an acquittal
for either does not bar a prosecution for the other offense, even
though based on the same acts. (Freeland vs. People (1855), 16 III,, 380; U. S. vs. Peaco (1835), 27 Fed. Cas., 477; People vs. Vasquez (1905), 9 Porto Rico, 488; contra, State vs. Lindsay (1868), 61 N. C, 458.)

“It
is merely stating the obvious to say that sedition is not the same
offense as murder. Sedition is a crime against public order; murder is
a crime against persons. Sedition is a crime directed against the
existence of the State, the authority of the government, and the
general public tranquility; murder is a crime directed against the
lives of individuals. (U. S. vs. Abad [1902], 1 Phil. 437.)
Sedition in its more general sense is the raising of commotions or
disturbances in the state; murder at common law is where a person of
sound mind and discretion unlawfully kills any human being, in the
peace of the sovereign, with malice aforethought, express or implied.

“The
offenses charged in the two informations for sedition and murder are
perfectly distinct in point of law however nearly they may be connected
in point of fact. Not alone are the offenses eonomine
different, but the allegations in the body of the informations are
different. The gist of the information for sedition is the public and
tumultuous uprising of the constabulary in order to attain by force and
outside, of legal methods the object of inflicting an act of hate and
revenge upon the persons of the police force of the city of Manila by
firing at them in several places in the city of Manila; the gist of the
information in the murder case is that the Constabulary, conspiring
together, illegally and criminally killed eight persons and gravely
wounded three others. The crimes of murder and serious physical
injuries were not necessarily included in the information for sedition;
and the defendants could not have been convicted of these crimes under
the first information.”

In the case of U. S. vs. Cernias, 10 Phil., 682, this
Court held that while it is true that each of those acts charged
against the conspirators was itself a crime, the prosecutor in setting
them out in the information did no more than to furnish the defendants
with a bill of particulars of the facts which it intended to prove at
the trial, not only as a basis upon which to found an inference of
guilt of the crime of conspiracy but also as evidence of the extremely
dangerous and wicked nature of that conspiracy.

“The charge is not defective for duplicity when one
single crime is set forth in the different modes prescribed by law for
its commission, or the felony is set forth under different counts
specifying the way of its perpetuation, or the acts resulted from a
single criminal impulse. Neither is there duplicity when the other
offense described is but an ingredient or an essential element of the
real offense charged nor when several acts are related in describing
the offense.” (Padilla: Criminal Procedure Annotated, 1959 ed., p. 101).

In the case of People vs. Bacolod, 89 Phil., 621, the
defendant therein was convicted on a plea of guilty of physical
injuries through reckless imprudence. Based on the same facts, he was
also accused of having caused public disturbance. The plea of double
jeopardy interposed by the accused was rejected on the ground that the
two offenses were not the same, although they arose from the same act.

Following the reasoning of the trial court that more than one
offense was charged, the trial court should have ordered that the
information be amended, or if that was not possible, that a new
information be filed.

“Under section 2 of this Rule, the Court may deny
or sustain the motion to quash but may not defer it till the trial of
the case on the merits. In sustaining the motion, the court may order
the filing of a new information or may dismiss the case. In the new
information, the defects of the previous information may be cured. For
instance, if a motion to quash is sustained on the ground that more
than one offense is charged in the information, the court may order
that another information be filed charging only one offense. But the
court may or may not issue such order in the exercise of its
discretion. The order may be made if the defects found in the first
information may be cured in a new information. If the order is made,
the accused, if he is in custody, should not be discharged, unless
otherwise, admitted to bail. But if no such order is made, or, having
been made, the prosecuting attorney fails to file another information
within the time specified by the court, the accused, if in custody must
be discharged, unless he is also in custody for another charge, or if
he is out on bail, the bail must be exonerated. In such event, however,
the fiscal is free to institute another criminal proceeding since such
ground of objection is not a bar to another prosecution for the same
offense.” (Moran, Comments on the Rules of Court, 1957 ed., Vol. II,
pp. 778-7779).

In conclusion, we hold that the information filed in this case did
not charge more than one offense but only that of sedition; that in
specifying the separate and different criminal acts attributed to the
defendants, it was not the purpose or intention of the Government to
hold them criminally liable in the present proceedings, but merely to
complete the narration of facts, though specifying different offenses
which as a whole, supposedly constitute the crime of sedition.
Consequently, we believe that the information is valid.

We deem it unnecessary to discuss the other points raised in the appeal.

In view of the foregoing, the appealed orders are hereby set aside
and the case is hereby remanded to the trial court for further
proceedings, without pronouncement as to costs.

Paras, C. J., Bengzon, Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Labrador, Concepcion, Barrera, and Gutierrez David, JJ., concur.