G.R. No. 12644. December 22, 1917
THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEES, VS. LEON MORALES ET AL., DEFENDANTS. PEDRO RIGOR, MARIANO GORUSTPE, AND CIPRIANO DE LOS REYES, APPELLANTS.
TORRES, J.:
December 7, 1915, charging the above-mentioned fourteen defendants with the
crime defined and punished by article 223 of the Penal Code, and, on August 25,
1916, judgment was undered therein whereby Pedro Rigor, Cipriano de los Reyes,
and Mariano Goruspe were each sentenced to the penalty of ten days’
arresto in the municipal jail of Tarlac and to pay a fine of 125
pesetas, together with one-fourteenth of the costs, or, in case of
insolvency in respect to the fine, to subsidiary imprisonment, not to exceed
three days, at the rate of one day for each P2.50 they should fail to pay. With
respect to Raymundo Capiral, Dalmacio Capiral, and Hermenegildo Tejada, the case
was dismisses; and Leon Morales, Pedro Gallardo, Pedro Mendoza, Pedro Muega,
Aniceto Gonzales, Juan Vasquez, Geronimo Gusto, and Guillermo Damian were
absolved from the complaint, with the remaindet of the costs de
officio. From this judgment the defendants Rigor, Goruspe and Reyes
appealed.
Upon a careful examination of the record of the proceedings in the present
cause, the following facts are found to have been proven: That shortly after 8
o’clock of the evening of July 15, 1915, about thirty residents of the barrio of
Moriones, of the municipality of Tarlac, accompanied by a number of women and
children, all of whom belonged to the Catholic creed started out in a procession
form the Catholic church of said municipality intending to pass through some of
the streets of the town, as they had already done on previous evenings. As they
went along in the procession they said prayers and carried the image of the
Virgin of the Immaculate Conception; but on arriving in front of the Aglipayan
church on Calle San Agustin, several men, among whom were Pedro Rigor, who is an
Aglipayan priest, and the residents Mariano Goruspe and Cipriano de los Reyes,
there posted with others and provided with clubs and sticks, prevented the
Catholic procession from proceeding further and compelled its members to take
another route, which was not a street and was dirty, and the priest, Rigor, said
to them that he had previously warned them not to say prayers during the
novenary; thereupon Maximo Cayetano, a resident who on that occasion was
conducting the procession and leading those in it who were saying prayers in
novena, replied to the priest, Rigor, that the latter ought not to prohibit them
form doing a good deed, and after this reply, gave the order for the procession
to continue its march; but at this moment Rigor, goruspe, Reyes, and others of
their companions attacked said maximo cayetano, some of them with sticks and
clubs while a majority of the others engaged in pushing back the people in the
procession, as a result of which aggression they started to run, the image of
the Virgin fell to the ground and was abandoned, and the procession was
disbanded. During the disturbance the crown of the image disappeared and one of
its hands was broken. The foregoing facts were brought out by the testimony of
the said Cayetano and the eyewitnesses Hilario de los Santos, Roman Yamson, and
Bartolome Licu, who testified that the defendants Reyes, Rigor and Goruspe, with
others, met the members of the procession, prevented them form proceeding and
passing in front of the Aglipayan church, and maltreated Maximo Cayetano and
others in the procession, and that the priest Rigor also said to them that he
had previously warned them that they should not in the future perform the novena
by a procession through the streets.
According to the medical certificate, Exhibit A, issued by Dr. Juan
Nepomuceno, who examined Maximo Cayetano’s body, the latter bore slight wounds
as a result of the maltreatment he had received.
The defendants, Pedro Rigor, Mariano Goruspe, and Cipriano de los Reyes,
pleaded not guilty and denied the charge filed against them. Pedro Rigor stated
that at the time of the occurrence he was praying in the Aglipayan church, and
that, on noticing the commotion and hearing the shouts in the adjacent street,
he ordered a mandatory of his to make an investigation and inform him of what
was going on, whereby he learned that Mariano Goruspe and Maximo Cayetano had
raised a disturbance. This exculpatory statement appears to have been refuted by
the witnesses for the prosecution, and specially by the very witness for the
defense, Teodoro Lacsamana, a policeman, who, on hearing the tumult, went to the
place of the occurrence. his testimoney corroborated that given by the
aforementioned witnesses for the prosecution. He also testified that he found
the priest, Pedro Rigor, Cipriano de los Reyes, Maximo Cayetano, and several
others in the place of the disturbance.
The other defendant, Goruspe, likewise denied the acts charged against him,
and in exculpation testified that on the arrival of the procession of the Roman
Catholics in front of the Aglipayan church, he warned Maximo Cayetano not to
halt in the street the procession he was conducting, so that the Aglipayans
might have room and a passage way, and that, if they should halt there in the
afternoon of the following day, perhaps something might happen; but that
Cayetano, without repying, went forward with the procession until the latter,
still in formation, entered the Catholic church; that afterwards Cayetano
returned to the place where witness was, to ascertain what the latter had said,
and forthwith assaulted witness, with the aid of the witnesses Santos, Yamson,
and Licu, who accompaned Cayetano; and that, in response to witness’ cries for
help, Clemente Basilio, Valeriano Sembrano, and others came to the scene.
Article 223 of the Penal Code provides:
“Art. 223. The penalty of prison correccional in its medium and
maximum degrees and a fine of not less than six hundred and twenty-five and not
more than six thousand two hundred and fifty pesetas shall be imposed
upon any person who, by mans of threats, violence, or other equivalent
compulsion, shall force some other person to perform an act of worship or
prevent him form performing such act.”
This article among the several others contained in section 3, chapter 2,
title 2, book 2, of said code, is the only one now applicable to crimes in the
matter of religion and worship which may be committed in this country, and
provides punishment for the delinquent who shall prevent some other person form
performing any act of worship.
The facts were fully proven that, on one of the occasions when the procession
passed through Calle San Agustin, where the Aglipayan church is situated, after
the priest, Pedro Rigor, had given Maximo Cayetano an unequivocal warning that
the procession should not go out to pray in novena through the streets, nor pass
in front of said Aglipayan church, on its doing so in the evening of July 15,
the said priest, Rigor and the other defenants Goruspe and Reyes, who, with
others were awaiting it there, went to meet those who formed said religious
procession, and while some maltreated Maximo Cayetano, who was conducting it,
others engaged in pushing back its members and preventing their going forward,
by which procedure they procedure they succeeded in disbanding it and dispersing
its members in such wise that, through fright, they abandoned the image of the
Virgin in the street. These facts appear to be corroborated by Maximo Cayetano
and the three aforementioned witnesses fo the prosecution, and also by the
witness for the defense. Clemente Basilio, who positively stated that the cause
of the disbandment of the procession was the fear that predominated in the minds
of those who composed it, as a result of the assault and of the tumult raised by
the defendants, preventing the residents who attended the procession and said
prayers of the Catholic ritual, from going forward and continuing the pious
exercise which they had a right to perform, for they were proceeding religously
and orderly through Calle San Agustin, giving no cause for any disturbance
whatever, and on arriving in front of the Aglipayan church were compelled to
suspend the religious acts they were performing. There is no evidence of record
that the local authority had forbidden the passage of the procession through the
streets of the town nor that said religious acts were contrary to law, morals,
or public order.
The defendants themselves were not authorized to hinder the passage of a
Catholic procession through the street in front of the Aglipayan church, to
which they belong, and by performing reprehensible acts of maltreatment and
violence against the persons of the parties attending the procession, they
produced as a result and by force the dissolution of said religious procession
and prevented those attending it from performing the religious acts in which
they were engaged. The defendants have therefore incurred the penalty prescribed
in said article, and, as the commission of the crime was unaccompanied by any
extenuating or aggravating circumstances, they should be punished with the
double penalty provided by law, in the medium period of the medium and maximum
degrees of the penalty of prision correccional, and each of the by a
fine of 1,000 pesetas.
In the judgment appealed form, the crime charged is classified as a mere
misdemeanor for the disturbance of a religious procession which a number of
Catholics were holding through the streets of the town of Tarlac, and, on this
ground, the trial court held that said crime was not comprised by the
aforementioned section 3 of chapter 2, title 2, book 2, of the Penal Code, but
by article 571 of the same Code.
The evidence adduced at the trial proves that the defendants, by means of
force and violence, succeeded in realizing their decided purpose of preventing
at any risk a religious procession of the Catholic Church of Tarlac from
continuing on its way through Calle San Agustin, where the Aglipayan church is
situated; that they opposed the exercise of the pious acts which, on the evening
of the occurrence in question, the Catholics were performing as they were
entitled to do; and that the defendants, impelled by the passion of intolerance,
perhaps in the belief that the Aglipayan religious faith to which they belonged
was the only one which ought to predominate in that town, devoted themselves to
preventing absolutely the performance of the religious rites which were then
being performed by the persons attending said procession, and with this purpose
in view, having provided themselves with sticks and clubs, they stationed
themselves near the church to which they belonged and, on the arrival there of
the Catholic procession, not merely disturbed it, but, by means of violent and
aggressive acts, dissolved it and dispersed the members thereof, who fled in
freight and abandoned the image of the Virgin which they were carrying.
It is seen that the defendants, by dissolving the procession and by main
force dispersing its members, proposed not only to interrupt and disturb a
religious procession, but also absolutely to prevent the person taking part
therein from being able to address their prayers to God in the manner
established by the Catholic church, to the community and confession of which
they belonged. This procedure was entirely unlawful and the acts committed by
them are punishable under the aforecited article of the Penal Code. In the
present case, the crime prosecuted is totally different form that concerned in
the case of the United States vs. Balcorta (25 Phil., Rep., 273), for
the reason that the herein defendants in dissolving the procession and putting
its members to flight by means of violence exercised upon their persons,
prevented them from being able to perform technically religious acts which they
were entitled freely to perform and under the protection of the authorities.
The facts involved in the case of the United States vs. Balcorta are
related in the following paragraphs transcribed from the judgment rendered
therein:
“It is alleged that the record does not sustain the guilt of the appellant.
The record, however, clearly shows that the accused entered a private house,
uninvited, where services of the Methodist Episcopal church were being conducted
by between ten and twenty persons, and threatened the assemblage with a club,
thereby interrumpting or disturbing the divine service.
* * * * *
* *
“The record fails to disclose the purpose of the defendant in committing the
acts complained of. It is true that it is shown that the defendant was of the
Aglipayan faith, while the members of the congregation were of a different sect,
but none of the witnesses for the prosecution state that the defendant made any
comment whatever upon religion. He simply threatened to assault them with a
stick he was carrying if they did not stop the services. Under the
circumstances, and considering that it was not proven that religious hatred
prompted the defendant to act as he did, his offense appears to be simply that
of disturbing or interrupting the religious services. An essential element of
the crime provided for in article 223 was not proven and the court erred in
finding him guilty of the crime therein defined.
“It is further alleged that the people thus dispersed by the defendant were
not holding religious services, as they were simply reading some verses out of
the Bible. We have been unable to find any provision of law which requires
religious services to be conducted in approved orthodox style in order to merit
its protection against interference and disturbance.”
A mere perusal of the three preceding paragraphs shows that the facts therein
related are very different from those concerned in the present decision.
For the foregoing reasons it is proper that, reversing the judgment appealed
from in the part thereafter relative to said three defendants and appellants,
Pedro Rigor, Mariano Goruspe, and Cipriano de los Reyes, they be, as they are
hereby sentenced each to the penalty of three years six months and twenty-one
days of prision correccional, to the accessory penalties of article 61,
to the payment by each of them of a fine of 1,000 pesetas, and in case
of insolvency, to the corresponding subsidiary imprisonment not to exceed
one-third of the time of the principal penalty, to pay each of them
one-fourteenth of the costs of first instance and one-third of the costs of this
second instance. So ordered.
Arellano, C. J., Johnson, Araullo, and
Avancena, JJ., concur.
MALCOLM, J., concurring:
I concur in the opinion and judgment as handed
down by Justice Torres. Reference is made to the case of the United States
vs. Balcorta. ([1913], 25 Phil., 273). This case held those articles of
the Penal Code defining special crimes against the State religion as well as
article 225, defening a crime against all others than that religion as no longer
operative. The same decision found article 223 of the Penal Code designed to
punished acts of interference with the freedom of will and conscience in
religious matters, and so, in effect. Applying these principles, it was found
that the acts of disturbance or interruption of religious service were not
prompted by the motives provided for in article 223. The facts in the present
case disclose unequivocally that the accused were endeavoring through violence
to prevent persons from performing an act of worship by taking part in a
religious procession. It is accordingly our duty to give force to the great
constitutional principles enunciated in the Treaty of Paris and in the
Philippine Bill of Rights protecting the free exercise and enjoyment of
religious profession and worship, the violation of which is punished by the
Penal Code. Even though the penalty meted out to the accused is severe, it is
not too severe, if religious liberty is to be respected.
CARSON, J., dissenting:
I dissent.
I think the offense committed was a misdemeanor as found by the trial judge,
and that the judgment entered in the court below should be affrimed.
The
factss in this case are substantially identical with those in the case of the
United States vs. Balcorta (25 Phil., Rep., 273), wherein we held that
the interruption and forcible dispersal of a bible class was a misdemeanor as
defined and penalized in article 571 of the Penal Code, and not a violation of
article 223 of that code.
STREET, J., dissenting:
I dissent.