THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. JOSE MAGNO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

“That on or about June 6, 1919, in the
Municipality of Mangatarem, Province of Pangasinan, Philippine Islands,
the said accused who was then the chairman of the Election Board of the
4th Electoral Precinct of Mangatarem, after the elections of June
3,1919, had been finished and the three election inspectors, namely,
the accused Jose Magno and Cenon Labrador and Guillermo Toledo had
prepared and signed the corresponding Election return and the result of
the election in said precinct in which the candidates for
representative for the second district of Pangasinan (comprising said
municipality), to wit, Alejandro de Guzman, Hilarion Magno, and
Lamberto Siguion obtained 157, 168, and 35 votes respectively had been
proclaimed, the aforesaid accused maliciously hid or retained in his
possession the said Election Return and in lieu thereof he prepared,
wrote and signed another return which he sent by registered mail to the
Provincial Treasurer of Pangasinan in which return he voluntarily,
illegally and criminally, and knowingly committed a falsehood in
counting and certifying the number of votes received by the candidates
and made and signed a false statement or declaration of the result of
the election, to wit, by adjudicating to the candidate, Alejandro de
Guzman 35 votes only instead of the 157 which the latter actually
received in the election, by adjudicating to Hilarion Magno 68 votes
instead of the 168 received by him, and to Lamberto Siguion 257 instead
of the 35 votes cast for him by the voters and by this means the number
of votes obtained by the last named candidate was increased by 222, and
the accused committed the aforesaid acts for the purpose of favoring
the said Lamberto Siguion in the canvass by the Provincial Board. In
violation of law.”

Upon the foregoing
information the accused, defended by several attorneys, was tried in
the Court of First Instance of the Province of Pangasinan. The trial
consumed several days, and the transcript of the stenographic notes,
together with the documentary evidence adduced, reached a considerable
bulk. After the trial of the cause, the Honorable V. Nepomuceno, judge,
in an exhaustive and very carefully prepared opinion, in which he
analyzed in detail all of the evidence, arrived at the conclusion that
the defendant was guilty of the crime charged in the complaint, and
sentenced him to be imprisoned for a period of one year, to pay a fine
of P500, with subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to pay
the costs. From that sentence the defendant appealed to this court.

Regardless of the documentary evidence consisting of plaintiff’s
Exhibits G, G-1 to G-5, K, K-1, L, and L-, which the appellant contends
should not have been admitted by the lower court, we find that the
following facts are proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and, indeed, are
not seriously disputed:

1. In the general
   elections held on June 3, 1919, in the Municipality of Mangatarem,
   Province of Pangasinan, the appellant Jose Magno was appointed chairman
   of the board of election inspectors of the fourth precint of said
   municipality. Cenon Labrador and Guillermo Toledo were appointed
   members of said board.

2. On
   the morning of June 4, upon the termination of the count of the votes,
   the appellant, as such chairman aforesaid, proclaimed the result of the
   elections in the said fourth precinct of Mangatarem; and, for the
   office of Representative, he announced that the following candidates
   obtained votes, respectively, as follows:

There
is not the slightest doubt in this case that the foregoing was the
correct and true result of the election of Representative in the
precinct in question. The correctness of such result of the election,
so proclaimed by the appellant, as aforesaid, immediately upon the
termination of the count of the votes, is conclusively corroborated (a)
by Exhibit E—a tabulated result of the elections, prepared by the
municipal treasurer of Mangatarem from the report furnished him by the
election inspectors, among whom was the appellant, who according to
said treasurer, gave him exactly the same result as that proclaimed by
said appellant as above set forth; and (b) by Exhibit N—a record of the
number of votes received by the different candidates in the precinct in
question, which record was made, during the counting of the votes, by
the watchers Paulino Seralde and Julian Olegario, and according to
which the different candidates for Representative obtained,
respectively, the number of votes which the appellant proclaimed as
aforesaid.

3. 3. After the
   proclamation of the result of the election by the appellant, the said
   inspectors prepared four copies of “Election Return,” in due form. Two
   copies were signed by the three inspectors and retained by the
   appellant. The other two copies were signed only by the inspectors
   Cenon Labrador and Guillermo Toledo, for the reason that the appellant,
   Jose Magno, refused to sign them unless they were also delivered to
   him—a request to which his two colleagues did not accede. The said
   copies of election return contained the true and correct result of the
   elections in the precinct in question.

4. Later, the appellant and his said colleagues delivered to the municipal
   secretary the ballot boxes, duly sealed, but not the election returns,
   the appellant alleging that they had not yet been signed.

5. On June 10, 1919 ( see
   Exhibit F) the provincial treasurer of Pangasinan received from the
   appellant, by registered mail, an election return (plaintiff’s Exhibit
   B, fol. 86, rec), purporting to have been signed by Jose Magno, as
   chairman, and Cenon Labrador and Guillermo Toledo as members of the
   board of inspectors of the fourth precinct of Mangatarem. On the 9th
   day of June, there was also received in the Executive Bureau an
   election return (plaintiff’s Exhibit D-3, fol. 93, rec), which is
   exactly similar in every respect to that received by the provincial
   treasurer (Exhibit B). The municipal secretary of Mangatarem also
   received from the appellant (the date not appearing of record)
   defendant’s Exhibit 2 (fol. 223), a copy of election return identical
   to Exhibits B and D-3. All of these election returns (Exhibits B, D-3,
   and 2) give the result of the election for Representative in the fourth
   precinct of Mangatarem, as follows:

It is these election returns (and particularly Exhibit B, which was
received by the provincial treasurer from the appellant, by registered
mail, as aforesaid) that the said appellant was accused of having
falsified.

The only question presented by this appeal is
that raised by appellant’s second assignment of error, viz.: whether or
not said election returns Exhibits B, D-3, and 2 are false and
simulated.

It is admitted that the appellant’s signature
on each of said exhibits is genuine. And it is contended in his behalf
that his coinspectors, Cenon Labrador and Guillermo Toledo, also signed
said documents. Both of the latter, however, positively swear that they
never signed any of said documents ; that their alleged signatures
appearing thereon were forged or simulated; and that all of the copies
of election return which they signed contained the number of votes for
each of the candidates for Representative which was proclaimed by the
appellant and reported to the municipal treasurer, as hereinbefore
stated, and not the number of votes shown in said Exhibits B, D-3, and
2, as above set out.

There are various circumstances and
indications which show beyond doubt that Exhibits B, D-3, and 2 are
false. and that the inspectors Cenon Labrador and Guillermo Toledo did
not sign them:

First. A comparison of the alleged
signatures of Cenon Labrador and Guillermo Toledo appearing on said
exhibits with the admittedly genuine signatures of the same persons
appearing on Exhibits A and D, and especially the enlarged photographs
of the said signatures (Exhibits H, H-1, H-2, I, I-1, I-2, J-1, J-2,
and J-3), clearly shows, as the lower court found, that the alleged
signatures of Cenon Labrador and Guillermo Toledo on Exhibits B, D-3,
and 2 are forgeries. These forged signatures are clearly
distinguishable from the genuine ones (a) by the unsteady and
hesitating manner in which the former appear to have been written, in
contrast with the apparently easy and natural way in which the latter
appear to have been signed, and (b) by the notable difference between the formation and general appearance of the letters of the former and those of the latter.

Second. As heretofore indicated, appellant’s coinspectors, Cenon
Labrador and Guillermo Toledo, signed four copies of election
return—two were also signed by the appellant and retained by him, and
two, which were not signed by the appellant, were retained by the said
Cenon Labrador and Guillermo Toledo, each taking one copy. All of said
four copies, so signed by appellant’s coinspectors, contained the true
result of the election for Representative as proclaimed by the
appellant, whereas Exhibits B, D-3, and 2, which appear to have been
prepared by one and the same person, show a different result of such
election, as hereinbefore contrasted.

Third. That Exhibits B, D-3, and 2 were prepared or fabricated by one and the same person is shown (a) by the fact that they appear to be in the same handwriting; (b) by the poor orthography which may be noted in each of themm—for instance, “Vice Presidente” is invariably written “Vese Presedinte,” and “Aquilino Banaag” is invariably written “Aquilino Fanaag;” and (c)
by the fact that the author of said documents had evidently forgotten,
or unintentionally omitted at first, to set out the result of the
election for vice-president and, so, had to insert an extra sheet,
containing such result, next to the page containing some of the names
of the candidates for governor; the page following the inserted sheet
contains the names of the remaining candidates for governor. This gross
error, in our opinion, is eloquent to the nervousness and confusion
which would naturally attend such a guilty act as the falsification of
an important document. If with this we contrast the orderly and correct
manner in which plaintiff’s Exhibit A appears to have been prepared,
the forgeries in question become even more palpable. (Plaintiff’s
Exhibit A is one of the two copies of election return which were signed
by Cenon Labrador and Guillermo Toledo, and which contained the true
result of the elections. It was personally handed by said two
inspectors, in company with Mr. Alejandro de Guzman, to the secretary
of the provincial board of canvassers, and was later produced and
admitted in evidence during the trial of this cause.) It is also
significant that the capital letter J, many times used in writing the
names of candidates contained in Exhibits B, D-3, and 2, is peculiarly
identical in appearance to the capital letter J in the signature of
“Jose Magno” in each of said documents.

Thus, the
conclusion is irresistible that Exhibits B, D-3, and 2 are forgeries.
It is admitted that the appellant, Jose Magno, was the maker of Exhibit
B; he sent it personally, by registered mail, to the provincial
treasurer. And, although he denies authorship of Exhibits D-3 and 2,
such denial is not only idle but serves as a reflection upon his
truthfulness, because the said Exhibits D-3 and 2 are exactly identical
to the said Exhibit B, and could not have been written by a person
other than the author of the latter. Furthermore, even granting that
appellant had nothing to do with the fabrication of Exhibits D-3 and 2,
yet, having fabricated Exhibit B, he cannot escape criminal liability.

The appellant pleads that, being a brother of Hilarion Magno, one of
the above-named candidates for Representative, he would have favored
the latter and not Lamberto Siguion; and, therefore, he could not have
been the author of the forgery in question. This circumstance cannot
overcome the positive and conclusive proof of his guilt, appearing of
record, especially if we take into account the explanation of the
Attorney-General that the said brother of the appellant could not have
won even if the election return had been altered in his favor, in view
of the small number of votes received by him in other municipalities.

We are fully persuaded, therefore, that the appellant Jose Magno is
guilty of the crime charged in the complaint. Before concluding this
decision we might state that, as appears from the record, the ballot
boxes were tampered with and the ballots cast in the precinct in
question were altered (presumably with the intention of destroying one
of the proofs of the falsity of the forged election returns here in
question), and that the appellant herein, together with several others,
was prosecuted for such criminal act (criminal case No. 6787 of the
Court of First Instance of Pangasinan). It is exceedingly regrettable,
indeed, that, as appears from the divers election cases brought to this
court, like the present, many of our most intelligent voters—those who,
because of their education and social position, ought to lead
and guide their people in the maintenance of a clean government—have,
apparently, very little respect for the sanctity of the popular will,
the most essential factor in a democratic government. They have not, it
seems, the slightest compunction in thwarting the will of the people by
unduly influencing the voters, tampering with the ballots, or
falsifying election returns, in order to attain their selfish personal
ambitions. Needless to say, such persons deserve the severest penalty
allowed by law. And it is equally regrettable, in our opinion, that the
penalty prescribed by the Election Law for such nefarious crimes is
comparatively too light. Take, for instance, the present case. The
maximum penalty prescribed by the Election Law for the crime committed
by the accused herein is only imprisonment for one year and a fine of
P500. A person who falsifies a public document for the purpose of
defrauding another of even a paltry amount is liable, under the Penal
Code, to ten or twelve years imprisonment and a fine of about P2,000.
Yet, under the Election Law, an election inspector who falsifies an
election return for the purpose of defeating the sovereign will of the
people is liable, at most, to imprisonment for one year and a fine of
P500 only.

For all of the foregoing reasons, the sentence of the lower court is hereby affirmed, with costs. So ordered.

Araullo, Avancena, and Villamor, JJ., concur.

CONCURRING

STREET, J.,

I
concur and wish to add that the case against the accused is in my
opinion fully made out, even supposing that the signatures of Cenon
Labrador and Guillermo Toledo appearing on the false returns were
actually affixed by them.