THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, VS. CLAUDIA SAN JUAN AND SEVERO SAN JUAN, DEFENDANTS-APPELEES.

Before us for review, on appeal by the People of the Philippines,
is an order, dated April 17, 1964,
of the Court of First Instance of Leyte (Ormoc City)
quashing, motion of the defense, an indictment for violation of section 133 of
the Revised Election Code.

The information charges

“That on or about the 12th day of November, 1963 (election
day), at around 10:00 o’clock in the morning at the polling place at the City
Central School, Ormoc City, Philippines, and within
the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused CLAUDIA SAN
JUAN and SEVERO SAN JUAN, conspiring, cooperating, confabulating and helping
with one another, did then and there willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously with the use of force, prevent the complaining
witness GENEROSA PILAPIL from exercising her right to freely enter the polling
place of Precinct No. 1 in order to vote.”

Succinct to the point of curtness, the one-sentence order
appealed from decreed that “As the facts charged do not constitute an
offense, pursuant to the ruling of our Supreme Court in the case of U.S.
vs. Pompeya, 31 Phil. 245, this case is hereby
dismissed”.

The case having been allowed to go off summarily on a motion to
quash predicated upon the insufficiency of the information, it is to be
assumed that the defense – conformably to basic procedural tenants and for
purposes of its motion — admits all the material averments of the
information.   Ac­cordingly, the inquiry
in this appeal is limited to whether the indictment sufficiently avers all the
essential elements of the proscribed act.^[1]

Section 133 of the Revised Election Codes a violation of which is
denominated as a serious election offense by section 138 of the same Code,
provides:

“Order of Voting.-
The voters shall have the right to vote in order of their entrance into the
polling place.  The voters shall have the
right to freely enter the polling place as soon as they arrive unless there are
were than forty voters waiting inside, in which case they have the right to
enter in the order of their arrival as those who are inside go out, which the
latter shall im­mediately do after having cast their votes.”

Implicit in the averment that the complainant was at the
“polling place of Precinct No, 1 in order to vote” is the fact that
she was, at the time, a duly registered voter intent on exercising the right of
suffrage.  For that purpose and vis–a–vis other voters, the aforequoted legal precept guaranteed her the rights (1) to
vote in the order of her entrance into the polling place; (2) to freely enter
the polling place as soon as she arrived unless there were then more than forty
voters waiting inside; and (3) in the latter eventuality, to enter in the order
of her arrival as those inside went out.

We are here concerned more particularly the success of these
rights.  For the gravamen
of the information is that the accused Claudia San Juan and Severo
San Juan “willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously with the use of force
prevention the complaining witness Generosa Pilapil from exercising the right to freely enter the
polling place of Precinct No. 1 in order to vote”.  However, the right thus allegedly in find
upon is qualified by the clause: 
“unless there are more than forty voters waiting inside”.  This, in effect, defines an exception by
virtue of which the right is not tended to be immediately operative.  As formulated, the in formation does not
negative this exception.  So that the key
to the problem at hand lies in the determination of whether, to sufficiently
charge a violation of that right, the indictment, should explicitly negate the
exception.

Well delineated in our jurisprudence are the pertinent guiding
principles.  U.S. vs. Chan Toco, 12 Phil. 268, teaches that –

“ * * * As a rule, an exception in a sta­tute by which certain
particulars are withdrawn from or excepted out of the operation of the enacting
clause thereof defining a crime concerning a class or species, constitutes no
part of the definition of such crime, whether placed close to or remote from
such enacting clause.  And, whenever a
person accused of the commis­sion of such a crime claims to be within such
exception, it is more logical and convenient that he should aver and prove the
fact than that the prosecutor should anticipate such defense, and deny
it”.

Adherence to this rule has been
unswerving, for instance, in prosecutions under the Opium Law^[2]
which punishes the use of prohibited drugs “save upon the prescription of
a duly licensed and practicing physician”.

The rule — that for an information to be sufficient, it need not
allege that the accused is outside the periphe­ry of the saving clause — was
echoed in People vs. Cadabis, 97 Phil., 829, a
prosecution for violation of section 53 of the Revised Election Code, which
statutory provision prohibited the carrying of deadly weapons in a polling
place but exempts from the prohibition public officers enforcing the law or
preserving peace in the premises.  On the
contention therein that the faces charged in the information do not constitute an
offense because “there is no statement denying that the accused had been
authorized to supervise the elections and/or car­ried the firearm on the
occasion of tumultuous affray or disorder”, this Court held that

“* * * It was not incumbent on the prosecu­tion to make the
allegation, because the matter was something for the accused to assert and es­tablish
in his defense.  The law prohibits the
carrying of deadly weapons in the polling place.  An exception made for peace or public
officers enforcing the law or preserving peace in the pre­mises.  * * * The exception is for the defendant to
prove — not for the prosecution to disprove.”

To our mind, the case at bar stands on the same
footing.  The limitation — when
there are more than forty voters waiting inside — on the right of a voter to
freely enter the polling place does not constitute an essential part of the
definition of the crime contemplated in section 133 of the Revised Election
Code.  Instead, it is but a matter which
the accused must assert and establish as a defense, and not for the prosecution
to anticipate, allege, and disprove.

True it is that U.S. v. Pompeya,
31 Phil. 245, 255, 256, 257, is authority for the rule that where a statute
exempts, certain persons or classes of persons from liability, the indictment,
to be sufficient, must show that the person charge does not fall within the
exemptions his is so because in that case, the ordinance alleged to have been
violated applied only to specific classes of persons and to special
conditions.  Thus —

“With reference to the first question presented by the appeal,
relating to the sufficiency of the complaint, it will be noted that Act No.
1309 authorized the municipal governments to establish ordinances requiring (a)
all able-bodied male residents, between the ages of 18 and 55 [50], and (b) all
householders, under certain conditions, to do certain things.

“It will also be noted that the law autho­rizing the president
of the municipality to call upon persons, imposes certain conditions as pre­requisites:  (1) The person called upon to render such
services east be an able-bodied male resi­dent of the municipality; (2) he must
be between the ages of 18 and 55 [50], and (3) certain conditions must exist
requiring the services of sue persons.

“It will not be contended that a nonresident of the
municipality would be liable for his refusal to obey the call of too president;
neither can it be logically contended that one under this age of 18 or over the
age of 55 [50] would incur the penalty of the law by his refusal to obey the
command and of the president.  Moreover,
the persons liable for the service mentioned in the law cannot be called upon
at the mere whim or caprice of the president. 
The conditions mentioned in the law must exist.  There must be some just and reasonable
ground, at least sufficient in the mind of a reasonable man, before the president
can call upon the persons for the service mentioned in the law.  The law does not apply to all persons.  The law does not apply to every
condition.  The law applies to special
persons and special conditions.

“A complaint based upon such a law, in Border to be free from
objection under a demur­rer, must show that the person charged belongs to the
class of persons to which the law is, applicable.

*                    *                       *                       *

“The complaint must show, on its face that, if the facts
alleged are true, an offense has been committed.  It must state explicitly and directly every
fact and circumstance necessary to constitute an offense.  If the statute exempts certain persons, or
classes of persons, from liability then the complaint should show that the
person charged does not belong to that class.

“Even admitting all of the facts stated in the complaint in the
present case, the court would be unable to impose the punishment pro vided for
by law, because it does not show (a) that the defendant was a male citizen of
the municipality; (b) that he was an able-bodied ci­tizen; (c) that he was not
under 18 years of age nor over 55 [50]; nor (d) that conditions existed which
justified the president of the municipality in calling upon him for the serv­ices
mentioned in the law.”

In the case at bar, however, like in Chan Toco and Cabadis,
the legal provisions involved prohibit and penalize generally the acts therein
defined, and are intended to apply to all persons indiscriminately.  Besides, in Pampeya,
the exemptions are so incorporated in the language defining the crime that the
ingredients of the offense cannot be accurately and clearly set forth if the exemption are omitted. 
This is not so in the present case where the complete definition of the
offense is entirely separable exception and can be made without any reference
to the latter.

This view, which thus far is purely from the persuasive of legal
technology, finds affirmation it was realize that we are here dealing with the
exercises of the right of suffrage which, in the consensus of political
philosophers of consequence, is the bedrock of all republican
institutions.  The unadorned statement in
Article V of the Constitution is a simple but sacred avowal of failed in the efficacy
and durability of the democratic process. 
It is a recognition that the people in their
sovereign character are the fountainhead of governmental authority and that
their right to participate in the power process is indispensable for democratic
government to constitute an effective instrument of social control.  In the phrase of Mr. Justice Jose Laurel –

“As long as popular government is an end to be achieved and
safeguarded, suffrage, whatever b the modality and form devised,
must continue to be the means which the great reservoir of power must be emptied
into the receptacular agencies wrought by the people
through their Constitution in the inte­rest of good government and the common
weal.  Republicanism, in so far as it
implies the adoption of a representative type of government, necessarily points
to the enfranchised citizen as a particle of popular sovereignty and as pie
ultimate source of the established authority.”^[3]

Indeed, each time the enfranchised citizen goes to the polls to
assert this sovereign will, that abiding credo of
republicanism is translated into living reality.  If that will must remain undefiled at the
starting level of its expression and application, every assumption must be
indulged in ad every guarantee adopted to assure the unmolested exercise of the
citizen’s free choice.  For to impede,
without authority valid in law, the free and orderly exercise of the right of
suffrage, is to inflict the ultimate indignity or the democratic process.  As numerous as they are insidious are long-standing
techniques of terror and intimidation that have been conceived by man in
derogation of the right of suffrage–which we have repeatedly and unqualifiedly
condemned.  When the legislature provided
in section 133 of the Revised Election Code an explicit and unequivocal
guarantee of a voter’s free access to the polling place, it could have intended
no purpose other than to maintain inviolate the right to vote by safeguarding
the voter against all manner of unauthorized interference and travesty that survey’s
of fear can devise.  Every unlawful
obstacle, by whatever means or method, inter posed to the free entry of a voter
into the polling place to cast his vote, strikes at the very heart of the right
of suffrage.

That the transgressor is outside the compass of the excepted
situation cannot be regarded as an essential ingre­dient of the offense.  Let him prove his disclaimer who pleads that
he comes within the ambit of the exception.

Upon the foregoing disquisition, we hold that the information
here satisfies the requirements for the legal sufficiency of an indictment
lodged under section 133 of the Revised Election Code.

ACCORDINGLY, the order appealed from is set aside.  This court of case is hereby ordered remanded
to the court of origin for further proceedings in accordance with law.  No costs.

 Concepcion,
C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal,
Bengzon, J.P., Zaldivar,
Sanchez, Angeles, and Fernando, JJ., concur.

^[1]
People vs. Segovia, L-11748 May 28, 1958.

^[2] U.S.
vs. Gonzales, 10 Phil. 66; U.S. vs. Co-Pinco,
10 Phil. 69; U.S. vs. Chan Toco, supra;
U.S. vs. Yao Sim,31 Phil. 301.

^[3] Moya v. Del Fierro, 69
Phil. 204.