THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. SAGLALA MACATANDA, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

Charged with and convicted on a plea of guilty, in the Court of First
Instance of Lanao del Norte, Branch IV in Iligan
City, for the crime of cattle
rustling, Saglala Macatanda was sentenced as follows:

“WHEREFORE, and in view of all the foregoing, this Court finds
the accused Saglala Macatanda guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of
Cattle Rustling penal­ized under PD No. 533 and as described in the information
filed against him.  Crediting in his
favor the mitigating circumstances of plea of guilty and extreme poverty
without any attendant aggravating circumstances, and after applying the
Indeterminate Sentence Law, the said accused is hereby sentenced to suffer the
indeterminate penalty of impri­sonment of six (6) years and one (1) day of
prision mayor as minimum, to eight (8) years of prision mayor, as maximum.

“The period of his preventive imprison­ment shall be credited
in his favor in accordance with the terms and conditions provided by Article 29
of the Revised Penal Code, as amended.

“The amount of One Hundred Fifty (P150.00) Pesos is hereby
ordered paid to Atty. Reynaldo Echavez for his services as counsel de oficio in
this case in accordance with the provisions of the Rules of Court, the amount
to be taken from the funds appro­priated by the Government for the purpose.

“With costs against the accused.”
(Appellee’s Brief, pp. 1-2)

From the judgment of conviction, Saglala Macatanda (hereinafter
referred to as appellant) appealed direct to this Court, raising purely legal
questions, to wit:  whether the
mitigating circumstances of (1) lack of instruction, and (2) being a member of
a cultural minority, being a Moslem, should be appreciated in his favor, which
the court a quo refused to consider in the imposition of the
penalty, and also disputing the correctness of the trial court’s computation of
the proper penalty.

Before going into a discussion of the legal questions, the facts
may be recited, quoting from the People’s Brief, the following:

“In the evening of December
25, 1976, complainant left his two carabaos near his house in
Salug, Sapad, Lanao del Norte.  The following morning, however, he noticed
they were missing.  He immediately
reported the loss to Welfredo Bucol, who was the team leader of the
constabulary home defense unit. 
Complainant joined the posse composed of the members of the unit, and
the barangay captain to search for the missing carabaos.  When they reached Pawak, Salvador,
Lanao del Norte, they saw Macabaas, Mangigya,
Makaonggos, and appellant in possession of the two carabaos.  These four, surprised at being discovered
engaged the posse in a gun battle, as a result of which, appellant was
wounded.  Appellant’s companions fled,
leaving him and the carabaos behind.  (Rec. pp. 3-7).

“Appellant was taken into custody and was charged with cattle
rustling.  He pleaded guilty and was
sentenced accordingly.” (People’s Brief, pp. 2-3)

Citing the case of U.S.
vs. Maqui,^[1]
appellant contends that his lack of instruction and education and his being a
Moslem belonging to a cultural minority should mitigate his liability, and the
penalty imposed by the trial court should be reduced accordingly.  He also cites the fact that the pro­secution
did not object to his being credited with the afore­said mitigating
circumstances.

Under the circumstances of the present case, the Maqui
case may not be invoked as a precedent. 
In the first place, in that case, the Supreme Court found indication in
the record which tends to show that Maqui was an uncivilized Igorot.  In the present case, owing to appellant’s
plea of guilty, the records discloses no evidence presented to prove the
mitigating circumstances of lack of instruction, which needs to be proven, as
all circumstances modifying criminal liability should be proved directly and
positively.^[2]

Likewise, nowhere in the Maqui case was it disclosed that
his being a member of a cultural minority, being an Igorot, sufficed to
mitigate his liability on that circum­stance alone.  What the Court considered mitigating was his
being an uncivilized Igorot which amounted to more than just lack of
instruction.  Again, there is no proof on
record that appellant herein may be similarly described.  In any case, mere membership in a cultural
minority is not expressly mentioned by the Revised Penal Code among the
mitigating circum­stances,^[3]
nor would it come under paragraph 10, Art. 3 of said Code, which speaks of
“any other circumstances of a similar nature and analogous to those above
mentioned.”

Appellant, however, prays for a lenient approach in con­sideration
of his being an ignorant and semi-uncivilized offender, belonging to a cultural
minority, the two separate circumstances to be joined together to constitute
the alter­native circumstance of lack of instruction to mitigate his liability,^[4]
relying on the Maqui case from which he quotes the following:

“We conclude, therefore, that under the provisions of article
11 as amended by Act No. 2142, (now Article 15 of the Revised Penal Code) the
courts may and should, even in cases of theft and robbery, take into
consideration the lack of instruction and education of the offender where it appears
that under all the circumstances attending, he should not be held to the strict
degree of responsibility pre­scribed in the code for the ordinary
offender.” (Appellant’s Brief, p. 5)

Some later cases which categorically held that the miti­gating
circumstance of lack of instruction does not apply to crimes of theft and
robbery^[5]
leave us with no choice but to reject the plea of appellant.  Membership in a cultural minority does not per
se imply being an uncivilized or semi-uncivilized state of the offender,
which is the circumstance that induced the Supreme Court in the Maqui
case, to apply lack of instruc­tion to the appellant therein who was charged
also with theft of large cattle. 
Incidentally, the Maqui case is the only case where lack of
instruction was considered to mitigate liability for theft, for even long
before it, in U.S.
vs. Pascual,^[6]
a 1908 case, lack of instruction was already held not appli­cable to crimes of theft or robbery.  The Maqui case was decided in 1914, when the
state of civilization of the Igorots has not advanced as it had in reaching its
present state since recent years, when it certainly can no longer be said of
any member of a cultural minority in the country that he is uncivilized or
semi-uncivilized.

But more than what has just been observed, a legal impe­diment
stands in the way to giving the lenient treatment appellant invokes in his
appeal.  It is that the records of the
case do not afford any basis on which to judge the degree of instruction of the
appellant, no evidence having been taken relative thereto because he entered a
plea of guilty.^[7]
And the stricter treatment provided by P.D. 533 for the crime charged with a
more severe penalty imposed thereon, hardly justifies the courts to apply said
law with leniency.

Appellant, finally, contends that in the computation of the
penalty the rules prescribed under Article 64, paragraph 5 should be
applied.  To this argument, the Solicitor
General comes up with a reply that Article 64 of the Revised Penal Code does
not apply to penalties prescribed by special laws.  He considers P.D. 533, otherwise known as
“Anti-Cattle Rustling Law of 1974” as a special law, and in
accordance with existing rulings,^[8]
the penalty should not be governed by the Revised Penal Code.  Accordingly, his recommendation as to the
proper penalty to be imposed and pursuant to the Indeterminate Sen­tence Law
which provides:

“x x x if the offense is punished by any other law, the court
shall sentence the accused to an indeterminate sentence, the maximum term of which
shall not exceed the maximum fixed by said law and the minimum shall not be
less than the minimum term prescribed by the same.  (As amend­ed by Act No.
4225.)” (Appellee’s Brief, p. 7)

is a minimum of
not less than 10 years and 1 day and the maximum, not more than 17 years and 4
months, the penalty imposed under P.D. 533.

We do not agree with the Solicitor General that P.D. 533 is a
special law, entirely distinct from and unrelated to the Revised Penal
Code.  From the nature of the penalty
imposed which is in terms of the classification and duration of penalties as
prescribed in the Revised Penal Code, which is not for penal­ties as are
ordinarily imposed in special laws, the intent seems clear that P.D. 533 shall
be deemed as an amendment of the Revised Penal Code, with respect to the
offense of theft of large cattle (Art. 310), or otherwise to be subject to
applicable provisions thereof such as Article 104 of the Revised Penal Code on
civil liability of the offender, a provision which is not found in the decree,
but which could not have been intended to be discarded or eliminated by the
decree.  Article 64 of the same Code
should, likewise, be applicable, under which the presence of two mitigating
circumstances, as found by the trial court, that of plea of guilty and extreme
poverty, without any aggravating circumstances to offset them, entitles
appellant to a lowering by one degree of the penalty for the offense, which
under P.D. No. 533 is prision mayor, maximum, to reclusion temporal,
medium.

Appellant’s computation would be to lower the afore­said penalty
to prision correccional, maximum, to prision mayor, medium
period, in view of the presence of the two mitigating circumstances as
appreciated by the court a quo, with no aggravating circumstance
attendant.  For the pur­pose of the
Indeterminate Sentence Law, the minimum of the penalty should be one degree
lower still, or arresto mayor in its maximum period, to prision
correccional in its medium period, or from 4 months and 1 day of arresto
mayor to 4 years and 2 months of prision correccional, as minimum,
and not less than 4 years, 2 months and 1 day of prision correccional
nor more than 10 years of prision mayor, as maximum.

The penalty imposed by the trial court is within the range, as to
its maximum period, but is beyond the range, as to its minimum period, which
should be not more than 4 years and 2 months of prision correccional.

WHEREFORE, the judgment appealed from is hereby modified
by reducing the minimum of the indeterminate sentence to 4 years of prision
correccional, and maintaining the maximum at 8 years of prision mayor
as imposed by the lower court.  With the
modification as indicated, the appealed decision is affirmed in all other
respects.

SO ORDERED.

Makasiar, Fernandez, and Guerrero,
JJ., concur.

Teehankee, (Chairman), J., no
part.

Melencio-Herrera, J., in the
result.

^[1]
27 Phil. 97.

^[2]
People vs. Melendrez, 59 Phil. 154.

^[3]
Article 13, Revised Penal Code.

^[4]
Appellant’s Brief, p. 6.

^[5]
People vs. Melendrez, 59 Phil. 154; People vs.
Condemena, 23 SCRA 910.

^[6]
9 Phil. 491.

^[7]
See People vs. Melendrez, supra.

^[8]
p. 7, Appellee’s Brief.