PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. NATIVIDAD FRANKLIN, ACCUSED. ASIAN SURETY & INSURANCE COMPANY, INC., BONDSMAN-APPELLANT.

Appeal taken by the Asian Surety & Insurance Company, Inc.
from the decision of the Court of First Instance of Pampanga
dated April 17, 1963, forfeiting the bail bond posted by it for the provisional
release of Natividad Franklin, the accused in
Criminal Case No. 4300 of said court, as well as from the latter’s orders
denying the surety company’s motion for a reduction of
bail, and its motion for reconsideration thereof.

It appears that an information filed
with the Justice of the Peace Court of
Angeles, Pampanga, docketed as Criminal Case No.
5536, Natividad Franklin was charged with estafa.  Upon a bail bond posted by the Asian Surety
& Insurance Company, Inc. in the amount of P2,000.00,
she was released from custody.

After the preliminary investigation of the case, the Justice of
the Peace Court elevated it to the Court of First Instance of Pampanga where the Provincial Fiscal filed the
corresponding information against the accused. 
The Court of First Instance then set her arraignment on July 14, 1962, on which date she
failed to appear, but the court postponed the arraignment to July 28 of the
same year upon motion of counsel for the surety company.  The accused failed to appear again, for which reason the court ordered her
arrest and required the surety company to show cause
why the bail bond posted by it should not be
forfeited.

On September 25, 1962,
the court granted the surety company a period of thirty days within which to
produce and surrender the accused, with the warning that upon its failure to do
so the bail bond posted by it would be forfeited.  On October
25, 1962 the surety company filed a motion praying for an extension
of thirty days within which to produce the body of the accused and to show cause why its bail bond should not be forfeited.  As notwithstand­ing the extension granted the
surety company failed to produce the accused again, the court had no other
alternative but to render the judgment of forfeiture.

Subsequently, the surety company filed a motion for a reduction
of bail alleging that the reason for its inability to produce and surrender the
accused to the court was the fact that the Philippine Government had allowed
her to leave the country and proceed to the United
States on February 27, 1962. 
The reason thus given not being to the satisfaction of the court, the motion for reduction of
bail was denied.  The surety company’s
motion for reconsideration was also denied by the lower court on May 27, 1963,
although it stated in its order that it would consider the matter of reducing
the bail bond “upon production of the accused.” The surety company
never complied with this condition.

Appellant now contends that the lower court should have released
it from all liability under the bail bond posted by it because its failure to
produce and surrender the accused was due to the negligence of the Philippine
Government itself in issuing a passport to said accused, thereby enabling her
to leave the country.  In support of this
contention the provisions of Article
1266 of the New Civil Code are
invoked.

Appellant’s contention is untenable.  The above-mentioned legal provision does not
apply to its case, because the same speaks of the relation between a debtor and a creditor, which does not exist in the
case of a surety upon a bail bond, on the one hand, and the State,
on the other.

In U.S.
vs. Bonoan, et al., 22 Phil. p. 1, We
held that:

“The rights and liabilities of sureties on a recognizance or
bail bond are, in many respects, different from those of sureties on ordinary
bonds or commercial contracts.  The
former can discharge themselves from liability by
surrendering their principal; the latter, as a general rule, can only be
released by payment of the debt or perform­ance of the act stipulated.”

In the more recent case of Uy Tuising, 61 Phil. 404, We also
held that:

“By the mere fact that a person binds himself as surety for
the accused, he takes charge of, and absolutely becomes respons­ible for the
latter’s custody, and under such circumstances it is incumbent upon him, or
rather, it is his inevitable obligation, not merely a right, to keep the
accused at all times under his surveillance, inasmuch as the authority
emanating from his char­acter as surety is no more nor less than the
Government’s authority to hold the said accused under preventive
imprisonment.  In allowing the accused Eugenio Uy Tuising
to leave the jurisdiction of the Philippines,
the appellee necessarily ran the risk of violating
and in fact it clearly violated the terms of its bail-bonds because it failed
to produce the said accused when on January
15, 1932, it was required to do so. 
Undoubtedly, the result of the obligation assumed by the appellee to hold the accused amenable at all times to the
orders and processes of the lower court, was to pro­hibit said accused from
leaving the juris­diction of the Philippines because, otherwise, said orders
and processes would be nugatory; and inasmuch as the jurisdiction of the court
from which they issued does not extend beyond that of the Philippines, they
would have no binding force outside of said jurisdiction.”

It is clear, therefore, that in the eyes of the law a surety
becomes the legal custodian and jailer of the accused, thereby assuming the
obligation to keep the latter at all times under his surveillance, and to pro­duce
and surrender him to the court upon the latter’s demand.

That the accused in this case was able to secure a Philippine
passport which enabled her to go to the United States was, in fact, due to the
surety company’s fault because it was its duty to do everything and take all
steps necessary to prevent that departure. 
This could have been accomplished by seasonably informing the Department
of Foreign Affairs and other agencies of the government of the fact that the
accused for whose pro­visional liberty it had posted a bail bond was facing a
criminal charge in a particular court of the country.  Had the surety company done this, there can
be no doubt that no Philippine passport would have been issued to Natividad Franklin.

UPON ALL THE FOREGOING, the decision appealed from is
affirmed in all its parts with costs.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Makalintal, Zaldivar, Fernando, Teehankee, Barredo, Villamor, and Makasiar, JJ., concur.

Ruiz Castro, J., took no part.