THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. CHINOS VICENTE DELGADO ET AL., DEFENDANTS. CHINO VICENTE DELGADO AND CHINO MARIANO SEVILLA, APPELLANTS.

MALCOLM, J.:

Counsel for the defendants and appellants in this
case begin their brief with the following rather startling sentence:
“There has been something mysterious about the whole history of this
case.” The mystery suggested concerns the delay in the trial; for while
the unlawful occurrence took place on October 11, 1914, and while the
original information was filed on February 5, 1915, it was not until
six years later that the case reached this court. Such intolerable
delay in the presentation and decision of criminal cases must be
severely condemned. Justice delayed is indeed nearly equivalent to
justice denied.

The case involves an alleged violation of Act No.
2381, the Opium Law, by three defendants, Vicente Delgado, Mariano
Sevilla, and Ong Tengco, all Chinese. One of the defendants, Ong
Tengco, died before the trial. Another defendant, Mariano Sevilla, on
being arraigned, pleaded guilty. The third defendant, Vicente Delgado,
pleaded not guilty, and stood trial. The judgment of the Court of First
Instance of Ambos Camarines was that Mariano Sevilla and Vicente
Delgado shall each be sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, to pay a
fine of P500, with subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and
to pay onehalf of the costs. The opium and the utensils for its use
were ordered confiscated.

The appellants assign the following errors:

“1. That the lower court erred in overruling the demurrer.

“2. That the lower court erred in finding that the evidence established
the guilt of defendant Vicente Delgado beyond a reasonable doubt and in
convicting the said Vicente Delgado of the crime charged in the
information.

“3. That the penalty imposed by the trial court is too severe.”

The demurrer mentioned in the first assignment of
error was one filed by the defendants in which they alleged that Act
No. 2381 had been repealed by the Act of Congress of December 17,1914.
This contention has heretofore been adversely resolved by decisions of
this court. (U. S. vs. Tan Oco [1916], 34 Phil., 772; U. S. vs. Wayne Shoup [1916], 35 Phil., 56; U. S. vs. Jao Li Sing [1917], 37 Phil., 211.)

The second assignment of error goes to the merits
of the case and concerns the sufficiency of the evidence and the
credibility of the witnesses. If we are to believe the witnesses for
the prosecution, then we must rule that the evidence adduced at the
trial establishes the guilt of the defendant Vicente Delgado beyond a
reasonable doubt. We have scrutinized the evidence of the witnesses of
the prosecution with great care, and fail to agree with the defense
that there was in effect a plan to convict the defendant irrespective
of the actual facts. The discrepancies in the evidence pointed out by
counsel are all easily explainable.

The trial court found, and we believe properly,
that the defendant Vicente Delgado was found lying on his bed by
Sergeant Cariaga of the Constabulary. Delgado, on seeing the
Constabulary man enter his room, got up to meet him. Lieutenant
Lawrence of the Constabulary, following Cariaga, entered the room and
took possession of the opium utensils lying on the table and
surrounding the defendant on. his bed. (These utensils, the trial court
said, were of such a nature that they could only have been possessed by
a well-to-do person.) A strong odor of opium permeated the room at that
moment. The container of the opium pipe was still warm, and a small
lamp was lighted. When Captain Pate, also of the Constabulary, came
into the room, Vicente Delgado is said to have gone to him and
exclaimed: “Culpable, culpable, senor capitan, qu6 mas quiere Vd. tiene
Vd. bastante prueba.”

The remaining assignment of error is addressed to
the sentence rendered by the trial court. A plea is made for the
imposition of the minimum penalty permitted by law. The
Attorney-General joins in this request and recommends that the practice
of the court in imposing the minimum penalty upon persons who have
violated the Opium Law for the first time be followed.

Advantage is taken of this opportunity to say
something about the Opium Law, the spread of the opium evil in the
Philippines, the attitude which the Supreme Court should assume in
considering appeals involving the violation of the Opium Law, and the
penalties which should be imposed.

The Philippine Commission, and later the Philippine
Legislature, enacted Acts Nos. 1461, 1761, and 2381, for the purpose of
restricting the use of opium and other prohibited drugs and eventually
of eradicating their use. The primary object of such legislation was
the protection of society from the evils believed to be incident to the
widespread Use of poisonous drugs other than as medicine or for
scientific purposes. In the legitimate exercise of the police power,
and in the discharge of their duty as guardians of the public welfare,
the legislators adopted these laws to regulate the disposition and use
of dangerous drugs, which the weak and unwary, unless prevented, may
use to their physical and mental ruin. Opium and other drugs of a
similar character are regarded by the medical profession as active
poisons which cannot be used legitimately except for medicinal
purposes. Indulgence in this loathsome, disgusting, and degrading habit
generates disease, pauperism, and crime. Its usual concomitants are
degeneration, neglect of appearance, of family, and of duty, abject
poverty, and criminal propensities. (See Ex parte Yung Jon [1886], 28 Fed., 308; Territory of Washington vs. Ah Lim [1890], 1 Wash., 156, 9 L. R. A., 395; Ex parte Mon Luck [1896], 29 Ore., 421, 32 L. R. A., 738; U. S. vs. Lim Sing [1912], 23 Phil., 424; Aschaffenburg, Crime and its Repression, pp. 88, et seq.)

It is common knowledge, however, that instead of
the illicit traffic in prohibited drugs in the Philippines decreasing,
the number of victims firmly in the clutches of the insidious vice is
increasing day by day. Not less than one thousand cases for violation
of the Opium Law are filed annually and no one can even surmise how
many other delinquents escape unnoticed. Twenty per cent of the
criminal cases on the last calendar of this court were for violation of
the Opium Law. The tremendous proportions of the opium trade, said to
be organized as carefully as any other business, and the number of
addicts to the habit who now include not only the unfortunate Chinese
but natives of the country as well, is appalling.

The pertinent questions then are: What shall be
done to save these unhappy victims from themselves? What shall be done
to stop the spread of the opium traffic? The legislature has done its
part by putting on the statute books a drastic and comprehensive law.
Executive officials must do their part by vigilant investigation and
fearless enforcement of the law. And lastly, in so far as is within
their power, the courts must cooperate with the other two departments
of the Government by an application of the Opium Law of such severity
as will serve to repress the evil.

In the imposition of penalties under the Opium Law,
it must be frankly admitted that there has existed considerable
confusion. This situation has come about through a misunderstanding of
the decision of this Court in United States vs. Lim Sing, supra,
followed later almost too literally, by the constant dissent therefrom
in numerous cases of Mr. Justice Moreland, and by the growing tendency
of newer members of the court to depart from the doctrines of the Lim
Sing case.

The attitude taken by Mr. Justice Moreland with
which certain other members of the court seem to concur, was announced
in numerous dissenting opinions. Possibly, as succinct a statement of
this view as any is that found in the dissenting opinion in the case of
United States vs. Valera Ang Y ([1914] 26 Phil., 598), where it was said:

“I am in accord with the result in this case. I object, however, to the reference made to1 United States vs.
Lim Sing (23 Phil., 424). That case, in so far as it sought to limit
the trial court in the use of its discretion in the imposition of
penalties under the Opium Law, has been repeatedly overruled by the
practice of this Court. While it has been followed in some instances,
it has been disregarded in more. It has been and is utterly discredited
as an authority. A case which has been disregarded and rejected as
often, if not oftener than it has been followed, I do not consider an
authority relative to the doctrine as to which it has been disregarded.

“If the reference to the case were confined to some of the general
principles therein referred to, I would have no objection; but an
attempt to reaffirm a doctrine, already thoroughly discredited, which
takes away from Courts of First Instance the discretion which the
legislature expressly gave them, which deprives them of the power to
represent their districts judicially, which prohibits them from
administering the law according to the needs of their provinces and
thereby makes their knowledge of those provinces and of the history and
status of crime therein utterly valueless, which takes from them the
right of informing themselves relative to the criminal before them, his
mental and physical condition, his antecedents and history, and make
proper use of such information, which prevents them from considering
the personal needs of the criminal with the object of uniting curative
and punitive treatment, which denies them the right to use the faculty
of observation at trials and of making deductions therefrom, which puts
discretion in bonds and judgment in stocks, which makes trial courts
not trial courts but referees to take testimony for submission to the
Supreme Court, which makes them automatons moving and acting by the
substituted judgment of the Supreme Court, which, while it does not
relieve them of the grave responsibility of properly administering the
Jaw in their districts placed upon them by the legislature, robs them
of the ability to meet and discharge that responsibility adequately,
which repeals the law establishing discretional penalties and
substitutes in its place a courtmade law instituting the system of
fixed penalties, which overrules the doctrine universally accepted that
an appellate court will not interfere with a trial court acting in the
exercise of its discretion unless a clear abuse thereof is
affirmatively shown and that the judgment of a trial court imposing a
criminal penalty which is within his discretion is not subject to
review by an appellate court, which lays down the proposition that a
court which is expressly authorized by statute to impose, in its discretion,
a. fine of from P300 to P10,000, commits a reversible error when it
imposes P400; an attempt to reaffirm a doctrine doing or tending to do
these things meets my instant opposition.”

Recently, in the case of United States vs.
Ngo Hiok, R. G. No. 15992 [decided January 23, 1920, not published],
Mr. Justice Street, speaking for the first division of this Court, said:

“The practice in this Court has for
several years undoubtedly been to modify the sentence where the trial
court has imposed a heavier penalty than the minimum on a first
offender against the Opium Law. For sometime, however, there has been a
growing indisposition among the judges of this Court to apply that rule
in a hard and fast way, and doubts have arisen as to the wisdom of
continuing to enforce it. The fact that some judges of First Instance
not infrequently impose heavier sentences than the minimum in defiance
of the practice adopted by us evinces a belief in some quarters that
the minimum is not always adequate. This is perhaps accredited in some
degree by the fact, patent to the observation of all, that the law
against the use of opium is still violated by many persons with
impunity.

“We are now disposed, therefore,
in cases of this kind to permit a little more latitude of discretion to
the judges of First Instance in such matters; and the result is that
whenever the penalty imposed does not appear to us to be illegal,
arbitrary or unreasonable in itself, it will be allowed to stand.”

The Opium Law, as was properly said in the decision in United States vs.
Lim Sing, previously referred to, confers upon the courts an
exceptionally wide range of discretion in the imposition of the
penalties prescribed for violations of the provisions of the Opium Law.
The reasonable exercise of the discretion which the Legislature has
expressly given to Courts of First Instance should ordinarily be left
free from interference. The judge of first instance is in a better
position to mete out a just punishment than is the appellate court
because the former can take into consideration the peculiar conditions
existing in his district.

Inasmuch, however, as there are numerous Courts of
First Instance and it is desirable to have uniformity in penalties,
certain observations for general guidance relative to the penalties
which should be imposed for violations of the Opium Law may not be
inappropriately made.

The most usual crime for which offenders of the
Opium Law are prosecuted is for the illegal possession and use of
prohibited drugs. It has been customary to impose the minimum penalty
provided by law of three months’ imprisonment and a fine of P300 upon a
person convicted for the first time of having a small quantity of opium
in his possession intended merely for his personal use. But as was well
said by Mr. Justice Villamor, speaking for the first division of this
court in the case of United States vs, Alvarez Ching, R. G. No. 16168
[decided July 22, 1920, not published]:

“The appellant was sentenced to the
minimum penalty provided in section 2 of said Act No. 2381. Other than
the discretional power of the court to impose a penalty within the
limits fixed by law, we do not find in the case any circumstance which
may mitigate the responsibility of the accused. Because of the
necessity of eliminating the opium vice in order to avoid the evils
which it produces in society—this being the purpose which the
legislature had in mind in enacting the Opium Law—we are of the opinion
that, in cases of violations of said law, the judicial discretion
should be exercised by imposing a penalty above the minimum, except
when sufficient reasons exist warranting another course of action/’

For the suppression of the opium vice, especially
where it is shown that the accused had in his possession a considerable
or a large quantity of the drug, or where he is a person of standing in
the community, or where he is a public employee, or where he attempts
to exploit the vice, or where the evidence discloses other strong or
compelling circumstances, a penalty above the minimum, dependent upon
the nature of the case, should be imposed.

The most serious offenses coming under the purview
of the law are those of maintaining an opium dive, of unlawful
importation of prohibited drugs, and of their unlawful sale or
delivery. Corresponding rigor in enforcement should accordingly be used
in order to stamp out the illicit traffic at the source.

Section 2 of the Opium Law having to do with the
illegal possession and use of prohibited drugs and the maintenance of
opium dives, section 4 concerning unlawful importation of prohibited
drugs, and section 5 having to do with the unlawful sale or delivery of
prohibited drugs, provide, in effect, that in case of recidivism
incident to the commission of a second or subsequent offense under the provisions of this section,
the delinquent may be deported if not a citizen of the United States or
of the Philippine Islands. On the other hand, section 3 of the Opium
Law pertaining to serving as a guard or look-out of an opium dive and
visiting an opium dive, and section 6 relating to the possession of
opium apparatus, do not authorize deportation. With these provisions of
the law in mind, we would impress on fiscals the necessity of avoiding
a rather common mistake in their drafting of informations alleging
recidivism. For example, to convict one of recidivism under section 2
of the Opium Law, it is essential that the information contain
allegations relative to the commission of a second or subsequent
offense, under the provisions of section 2 of Act 2881, and
the citizenship of the delinquent. Unless the accused shall plead
guilty to the information, the fiscal must introduce the record, in the
previous case or cases in evidence or otherwise prove recidivism.

Scrupulous care should be exercised by the fiscals
and the courts to ascertain the guilt or innocence of accused charged
with a violation of the provisions of the Opium Law. The rewards which
informers may gain is such that it is extremely easy for them either to
blackmail a person or to fix the badge of guilt upon him. Only the
constant vigilance of the courts can guard against the danger arising
from such abuses.

With all the foregoing before us, we are of the
opinion that there has been shown no unreasonable exercise of the
discretion vested in the Court of First Instance of Ambos Camarines in
this case. Consequently, judgment is affirmed, with costs against the
appellants. So ordered.

Mapa, C. J., Araullo, Street, Villamor, and Avanceña, JJ., concur.