TANG AH CHAN, PETITIONER, VS. HONORABLE ANACLETO DIAZ, JUDGE OF FIRST INSTANCE OF MANILA, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

This is an original petition for the writ of certiorari whereby the
petitioner, Tang Ah Chan, seeks to compel the respondent judge of the
Sixth Branch of the Court of First Instance of Manila to set aside an
order in criminal case No. 34449, entered on December 5, 1928,
requiring the petitioner to give bond in the amount of P22,000 to
secure his provisional liberty pending his appeal in that case, and to
require the same judge to accept another bond to be given by the
petitioner in the amount of P9,000; and further to secure a
pronouncement from this court declaring that all the proceedings in
civil case No. 34700, pending before the respondent judge, are void.
The case is now before us upon the allegations of the petition, answer
of the respondents, and exhibits, together with briefs submitted by the
attorneys for both parties.

In criminal proceeding No. 34449 the petitioner, with his co-accused,
one Diosdado Cartesiano, was, on November 28, 1928, convicted of the
offense of theft with falsification of private documents and sentenced
to undergo imprisonment for eight years, eight months and one day, with
the additional requirement of indemnifying the Pacific Commercial Co.
in the amount of P30,029.94, the value of 27,000 pounds of butter.
Having appealed from said judgment, the petitioner gave bond in the
amount of P22,000, as required by the respondent judge, and is now at
liberty pending action by this court on the appeal. In the petition it
is asserted that the bond required of him is excessive in amount, and
attention is directed to the common practice of Judges of First
Instance, in cases where imprisonment is imposed in criminal cases, to
fix the bond of the appellants at an amount equivalent to about P1,000
for each year of imprisonment. Upon this it is contended that, in the
case now under consideration, a bond in the amount of not more than
P9,000 would be appropriate.

While it is true that in case of a manifest abuse of discretion on
the part of the Court of First Instance in fixing the amount of a bond,
this court will entertain an application for the writ of certiorari
(Valdez vs. Querubin, 37 Phil., 774), nevertheless, in the
case before us, we are unable to see that there has been an abuse of
discretion on the part of the respondent judge in fixing the
petitioner’s bond in the amount of P22,000.

In the first place, the petitioner has in fact given the bond, and
this shows that the requirement was not beyond his resources. At any
rate he is not now deprived of his liberty by reason of his inability
to comply with the requirement. Again, the fact that the bond required
in this case was largely in excess of that usually required in a
criminal appeal is by no means conclusive that the respondent judge has
abused his discretion. In determining the amount of this bond his Honor
evidently had his attention fixed upon the fact that the petitioner had
been found liable for civil indemnity in the amount of more than
P30,000; and he appears to have entertained the reasonable fear that,
if the bond were fixed as low as P9,000, the petitioner might be
tempted to forfeit his bond and abscond, thereby escaping from
imprisonment in case of the affirmance of the judgment. This
consideration, we think, was legitimate
and under all the circumstances we think that the amount of the bond was not excessive.

It appears that after the petitioner had been convicted in the
criminal case and had been admitted to bail pending appeal, the Pacific
Commercial Co., the entity whose property was stolen, instituted an
independent civil action (No. 34700, of the Court of First Instance of
Manila) against the petitioner, based upon the obligation of the latter
to indemnify the plaintiff for the value of the property; and at the
inception of this action the plaintiff asked for an attachment on the
ground that the defendant (the herein petitioner) had disposed, or was
about to dispose of his property with intent to defraud his creditors.
The attachment having been granted, it was levied upon property
belonging to the petitioner, a part of which consisted of the St. Louis
Bakery, in the City of Manila, and the furnishings used in connection
therewith. Almost immediately after levy had been effected under said
attachment, the Pacific Commercial Co. applied to the court before;
which the action was pending for the appointment of a receiver, upon a
showing that the bakery was chiefly valuable as a going concern and
that if it should be shut down under the attachment, its value would be
destroyed. The court thereupon appointed a receiver, who is now in
charge of the property and conducting it as a going concern.

Upon these facts the petitioner now asks that all of the proceedings
in said civil case (No. 34700) be declared void. In this connection it
is insisted that, while the criminal action is still pending, the
respondent judge has no power to entertain an attachment proceeding
based upon the obligation of the petitioner to indemnify the Pacific
Commercial Co. for the value of the stolen butter. In support of this
contention the attorney for the petitioner cites article 114 of the
Spanish Code of Criminal Procedure.

Whether this contention is well founded we consider it unnecessary
now to determine; for we are of the opinion that the right of appeal in
ordinary course supplies an adequate and proper remedy for any error
into which the respondent judge may have fallen upon that point. We may
be permitted, however, to observe that we do not consider that the
question here raised has been foreclosed by our decision in United
States vs. Namit (38 Phil., 926), where we held that the
remedy of attachment, available, in criminal cases, under the Spanish
system of procedure, has been abrogated by General Orders No. 58; for
in that case the attachment had been sued out as an incident in the
criminal prosecution, while in the case before us the attachment was
sued out in an independent civil action instituted in aid of the
liability attendant upon conviction in the criminal case.

In conclusion we may observe that this petition for the writ of
certiorari contains two distinct causes of action, and a doubt has
suggested itself in the minds of some members of this court as to
whether an accumulation of distinct causes of action is permissible in
a proceedings of this character. But in view of the fact that the
petition, in our opinion, shows no valid cause of action in either
branch, we pass this question without discussion.

The petition must be dismissed, and it is so ordered, with costs.

Johnson, Malcolm, Villamor, Ostrand, and Romualdez, JJ., concur.

Johns and Villa-Real, JJ., concur in the result.