MANILA ELECTRIC COMPANY, COMPLAINANT AND APPELLEE, VS. ANATALIO HALILI, RESPONDENT AND APPELLANT.

This is an appeal taken by the respondent Anatalio Halili from the
decision of Associate Commissioner, Anastasio R. Teodoro, with the
concurrence of commissioners M. V. del Rosario, and Vicente de Vera,
the dispositive part of which reads as follows:

“We
find that the charges alleged in the complaint are established by the
evidence, and order the respondent to pay a fine of P25 in addition to
the investigation expenses, which we fix at P25.

“If within
30 days from notice of this decision to the respondent, payment as
herein required is not made, the operation of said respondent will be
suspended, and the amount collected by attachment.”

In support of his appeal, the appellant assigns the following alleged
errors as committed by the Public Service Commission, to wit:

“1.
The Public Service Commission erred in ordering the herein appellant to
pay a fine of twenty-five pesos besides another twenty-five for
investigation expenses, in the decision rendered on February 15, 1932
in case No. 30171 of the Public Service Commission, despite the fact
that there is no evidence of record to justify such a fine and
investigation expenses.

“2. The Public Service Commission
also erred in rendering the decision aforementioned notwithstanding the
fact that case No. 30171 had been heard by only one commissioner,
namely, the Hon. Anastasio R. Teodoro.

“3. The Public
Service Commission erred and abused its discretion in denying the
motion for reconsideration of the herein appellant in case No. 30171.”

The first question to decide in this appeal is that raised in the
second assignment of error, to wit, whether the Public Service
Commission erred in rendering the decision in the present case
notwithstanding the fact that it had been heard by only one
commissioner.

Section 2 of Act No. 3108, as amended by section 2 of Act No. 3844, provides the following:

“Sec.
2. The commissioners shall hold office until removed as hereinafter
provided. All contested matters that may be presented before the
Commission shall be heard and decided upon by the Commission in full or
at least by two Commissioners, and before any Commissioner is assigned
to write the decision or any resolution which affects in some way the
right of the parties concerned, the matter shall be voted upon by the
members of the Commission who have taken part in the direction of the
case: Provided, however, That any one of the Commissioners
may, through authority of the Commission, make all the inquiries which
the Commission is empowered to undertake.”

From the foregoing legal provision it will be seen that any one of the
commissioners may, if authorized by the commission, conduct all the
investigations which the commission is empowered to undertake. In the
absence of evidence to the contrary, it is presumed that commissioner
Anastasio R. Teodoro was authorized by the commission to conduct the
investigation of the complaint filed by the appellee, the Manila
Electric Co., against the appellant Anatalio Halili for violation of
his certificate of public necessity and convenience, and the very fact
that the two other commissioners concurred in the decision shows not
only that such authority was given, but that all of them took part in
the voting of the case.

The second assignment of error is therefore unfounded.

The second question to decide, raised in the first assignment of error
is whether or not the respondent and appellant, Anatalio Halili, has
violated his certificate of public necessity and convenience, issued in
accordance with the decision in case No. 26014 empowering him to
operate along the Manila-San Jose Line via Novaliches and vice versa
with fixed hours of departure from Manila, La Loma, Novaliches, the
Dam, and San Jose, but without a special permit to operate within the
City of Manila or a prohibition to do so.

Anatalio Halili
acquired his certificate of public necessity and convenience by
purchase from the Orlanes & Banaag Transportation Co., in case No.
18311, which, in turn, had acquired it from the N. & B. Stables Co.
with the approval of the Public Service Commission. In the decision
dated August 25, 1926, rendered in favor of the N. & B. Stables Co.
in case No. 9680 of the Public Service Commission, the latter, in
granting the corresponding certificate to the N. & B. Stables Co.
in part said:

“With respect to the public
necessity and convenience, the facts conclusively show that by reason
of the work being done upon a big dam now under construction by the
Metropolitan Water District at La Mesa, within the jurisdiction of the
barrio of Novaliches, formerly a municipality of the Province of Rizal,
and now a part of the municipality of Caloocan in the same province, a
considerable number of people have come in and now live near where the
work is being done, many of them from other provinces of the
Archipelago, the great majority to work as day-laborers, who have
settled in the camps with their families, others to do business,
carrying wares to the different zones where construction work is going
on, and a large part of this floating population is continually on the
go, either returning to the City of Manila where some of them reside,
or securing articles of prime necessity and other merchandise for those
living in the camps, so that it is imperative to establish additional
transportation services, and the two present operators, opponents
Drueco and Austria, holding certificates of public convenience, do not
object to such increase in the service; and this is more so when the
considerable distance between the City of Manila and La Mesa Dam of
about 25 kilometers is taken into consideration.”

It will be seen, therefore, that the purpose of establishing the
original Manila-Novaliches line was to furnish transportation to the
laborers and their families working on the dam being built by the
Metropolitan Water District at La Mesa, within the jurisdiction of the
barrio of Novaliches, and to those peddling their wares to those
families. Therefore, in view of the purpose and conditions of his
certificate, the respondent and appellant, Anatalio Halili, as
successor to the former transportation operators aforementioned, has no
right to operate within the City of Manila, carrying passengers from
one place to another, but only to receive passengers and take them
outside, along the line from Manila to San Jose via Novaliches, and
vice versa.

But there is an important question to decide in
this case, that has not been raised by either of the parties, to wit,
whether or not the respondent and appellant may be punished for an act
not prohibited in the order of the commission by virtue of which his
certificate of public necessity and convenience was issued.

Section 30 of Act No. 3108, as amended by section 8 of Act No. 3316, provides the following:

“Sec.
30. In default of compliance with any order of the Commission when the
same shall become effective the person or public service affected
thereby shall be subject to a penalty of not exceeding two hundred
pesos per day for every day during which such default continues, to be
recovered in an action in the name of the Government of the Philippine
Islands, and observance of the orders of the Commission may be enforced
by mandamus or injunction in appropriate cases, or by action to compel
the specific performance of the order or orders so made, or of the
duties imposed by law upon such public service: Provided,
That the Commission may compromise any civil or other action arising
under this Act, in such manner and for such sum as it may deem just and
reasonable.”

The respondent-appellant was
charged with, and fined for, operating along that portion of its route
within the City of Manila from Divisoria Market to La Loma without a
special permit to do so. The decision, or order, by virtue of which the
respondent-appellant, Anatalio Halili, was granted his certificate does
not contain an express prohibition from carrying passengers from one
place to another within the City of Manila along its route; nor does it
specify from what point to what point, along its line, outside the
Divisoria Market-San Jose line, he might carry passengers, in such a
manner that it might be clearly inferred from what points or to what
points he might not carry them. He is not prohibited from taking
passengers from La Loma to any other point along the line as far as
Novaliches and San Jose, and, nevertheless, it cannot be said that he
may not take passengers from any intermediate point between La Loma and
Novaliches or San Jose. The prohibition from carrying passengers from
one point to another in the City of Manila is therefore a mere
inference, remote and indirect, based upon the peculiar conditions of
traffic which require a public transportation company to have a special
permit before it may operate therein.

The legal provision
above quoted is penal in character (51 Corpus Juris, 84, section 150),
inasmuch as it punishes with a fine any one who violates any order
issued by the Public Service Commission. It is an elementary rule in
penal law that no one should be punished for the commission or omission
of an act not prohibited by law and for which no penalty has been
established (16 Corpus Juris, 64, section 22; 59 Corpus Juris, 1110,
section 658.) In United States vs. Olsen and Marker (36 Phil.,
395, 400), this court said “that an act will not be held to be a
criminal act unless the statute clearly and unmistakably makes it so.”
And in United States vs. Abad Santos (36 Phil., 243, 244), this court has laid down the following doctrine:

“2.
ID.; LAW MUST BE STRICTLY CONSTRUED.—Criminal statutes are to be
strictly construed; no person should be brought within their terms who
is not clearly within them, nor should any act be pronounced criminal
which is not clearly made so.”

If, as we
have seen, the order of the Public Service Commission, for the
violation of which the respondent-appellant has been fined because he
carried passengers from one point to another in the City of Manila,
contains no express provision prohibiting such operation, or any
provision from which such prohibition may logically and necessarily be
inferred; and inasmuch as under the rules of statutory construction,
penal laws are to be strictly interpreted, such laws will not be
enlarged by implication or intendment beyond the fair meaning of the
language used, and will not be held to include other offenses and
persons than those which are clearly described and provided for,
although the court may think the Legislature should have made them more
comprehensive (59 Corpus Juris, 1115, sec. 660), Anatalio Halili, the
respondent-appellant, cannot be held criminally liable for the act for
which he has been punished, the commission of which is not prohibited
by law.

In view of the foregoing, we are of opinion and so
hold that although according to the spirit of an order by virtue of
which a certificate of public necessity and convenience was issued to
an operator, he cannot operate along a certain portion of his route,
such operation not being prohibited in said certificate either
expressly or by necessary implication; if he does so, he cannot be
punished for it, inasmuch as section 30 of Act No. 3108, as amended by
section 8 of Act No. 3316, is penal in character and should be strictly
interpreted.

By virtue whereof, the decision appealed from
is reversed, and the respondent-appellant absolved from the fine
imposed upon him, but he is hereby prohibited from operating within the
City of Manila under his present certificate, without special
pronouncement of costs. So ordered.

Villamor, Hull, Vickers, and Imperial, JJ., concur.