THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. JUAN PANGANIBAN, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

United States versus Panganiban

The Case

This is a criminal appeal from a conviction under Act Number 1696, the flag law. The United States prosecuted Juan Panganiban for publicly displaying a tablet or sign that reproduced the most prominent features of the flag used by the insurgents during the late insurrection. The case matters because it fixes the rule that the statute is violated not only by an exact copy of the prohibited flag, banner, emblem, or device, but also by any sign or painting that produces the same effect upon the minds of the people. It is the classic illustration of the principle that the law punishes the substance of the prohibited display, not merely its literal reproduction.

Procedural History

Juan Panganiban was charged before the Court of First Instance of the Province of Rizal with a violation of Act Number 1696. After trial, that court found him guilty, sentenced him to pay a fine of 500 pesos plus the costs, and held that he had knowingly and wilfully exposed the sign to public view. Panganiban appealed the judgment of conviction to the Supreme Court. The only question raised on appeal was a question of law: whether the exposing to public view of the sign or tablet in the manner described constituted a violation of the statute.

Facts

From about the 7th of January, 1908, until about the 16th of March of the same year, Juan Panganiban fastened a tablet or sign on a post on the side of a public street in the town of Antipolo, Province of Rizal, about seven meters from his own house. The tablet was a little over a meter long, almost half a meter wide, and quadrangular in shape. On one end, within a triangle, were painted the rising sun and three stars. Around the border and around the triangle ran a red and blue stripe with a white space between them. Nearly all of the remaining surface bore an inscription identifying the Union Nacionalista Party and commemorating a mass meeting held at Antipolo on Sunday, the 27th of January, 1907, for the purpose of expressing the people's views on the capacity and ability of the Filipino people to maintain a free and independent government.

The flag used by the insurgents during the late insurrection was also quadrangular. At the top end was a triangle enclosing a rising sun and three stars, and the background below the triangle was divided lengthwise into two equal parts, one red and the other blue. The sun represented a rising republic and the three stars the three great subdivisions of the Archipelago: Luzon, Mindanao, and the Visayas.

The painting on the tablet was not an exact reproduction of the insurgent flag, but it was an exact reproduction of its most prominent features, namely the triangle with the sun and three stars. The trial court found that the exact reproduction was intentionally avoided in order to escape the consequences, but that the sign as painted, including the inscription, would produce the same effect upon the minds of the people as an exact reproduction would have produced. In the place where it was exposed, it would have been difficult to distinguish the difference between it and the flag itself. The display was made for the express purpose of exciting the people and stirring up hatred in their minds against the constituted authorities, and the tablet was so designed as to accomplish those purposes.

Issues

• Whether or not the exposing to public view of a sign or tablet that is not an exact reproduction of the insurgent flag, but reproduces its most prominent features and produces the same effect upon the minds of the people, constitutes a violation of Act Number 1696.

Applicable Provisions

Section 1 of Act Number 1696 provides:

Any person who shall expose, or cause or permit to be exposed, to public view on his own premises, or who shall expose, or cause to be exposed, to public view, either on his own premises, or elsewhere, any flag, banner, emblem, or device used during the late insurrection in the Philippine Islands to designate or identify those in armed rebellion against the United States shall be punished.

This is the provision under which Panganiban was convicted, and the whole appeal turns on whether his tablet falls within the words any flag, banner, emblem, or device used during the late insurrection.

Ruling

The Court affirmed the conviction. It held that the display of the tablet was a violation of the statute even though the painting was not an exact copy of the insurgent flag. The Court reasoned that the painting reproduced the most prominent features of the flag, that in the place where it was exposed it would have been difficult to distinguish it from the flag itself, and that it would produce the same effect upon the minds of the people as an exact reproduction would have produced. The intention to cause injury was manifest, and the painting was amply sufficient for that purpose. The Court expressly relied on its earlier ruling in United States versus Go Chico, where medallions bearing miniature images of Emilio Aguinaldo and the insurgent flag were held to violate the same section. It explained that the fact that an exact copy was imprinted in that case, while only a substantial reproduction was painted here, was not of sufficient importance to bring the act outside the statute.

The Court also stressed the legislative purpose, declaring that to prohibit the display of such signs was one of the principal objects in the enactment of Act Number 1696, because the legislative body knew the conditions existing in the country and wisely prohibited the further display of such signs, banners, or devices.

Doctrine

Under Section 1 of Act Number 1696, the prohibited act is the public exposure of any flag, banner, emblem, or device used during the late insurrection to designate or identify those in armed rebellion against the United States. A Bar candidate should retain these rules. First, an exact reproduction of the prohibited flag, banner, emblem, or device is not required; a sign or painting that reproduces its most prominent features and produces the same effect upon the minds of the people falls within the statute. Second, the test is the effect of the display upon the public mind, not the literal fidelity of the copy. Third, the intention to excite the people and stir up hatred against the constituted authorities confirms that the display is within the prohibition. The doctrine is tied directly to the statutory words any flag, banner, emblem, or device, which the Court read to cover substantial reproductions designed to accomplish the same prohibited purpose.

Disposition

The Court affirmed the judgment of conviction, with the modification that in case of insolvency in the payment of the fine the defendant be condemned to suffer the corresponding subsidiary imprisonment, and ordered the defendant to pay the costs.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing is that a substantial reproduction of a prohibited flag, banner, emblem, or device, producing the same effect upon the minds of the people, is within the statute even if it is not an exact copy. Examiners like to use this case to test the principle of statutory construction that the purpose and effect of a prohibited act, not its literal form, control its inclusion within the prohibition.