G.R. No. 6064. March 02, 1911

THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. SY-SUIKAO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Decisions / Signed Resolutions March 2, 1911 CARSON, J.:
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CARSON, J.:


The evidence of record in this  case fully  sustains the findings of fact by the trial court.   There can be no reasonable doubt  that  the defendant offered an officer of the Bureau of Internal  Revenue the sum  of P5  a barrel for each and every barrel of  spirits which that officer would permit  defendant to withdraw  from  the  warehouse, in which  it  was  stored, without exacting  the taxes  which under the law  the defendant would otherwise  be required to pay; that the officer, while pretending to accept the offer, and  to enter into the proposed agreement, did not in fact do so,  and on the contrary, reported the matter to his superiors, and procured the arrest  of the defendant just after five  barrels of  spirits had been  removed  from the warehouse, under his simulated agreement to accept the bribe offered him;  and that while  the spirits  were removed from  the  warehouse,  they never in fact passed beyond  the control of the internal-revenue officers.

Upon these  facts the trial court  found  the defendant guilty  of bribery (cohecho); but  under  the  rulings laid down by this court in many analogous cases, proof of these facts establishes the guilt of the defendant not of the consummated crime of bribery (cohecho), as held by the trial judge,  but of an attempt  to commit that crime.   (U. S. vs. Gloria, 4 Phil. Rep., 341; U. S. vs.  Paua, 6 Phil.  Rep., 740; U. S. vs.  Camacan, 7 Phil. Rep., 329; U. S.  vs. Tan Gee, 7 Phil. Rep., 738; see also Comentario, art. 402, Groizard, Penal Code of 1870, p. 257.)

The  judgment  of conviction and the sentence  imposed by the  lower court should be and are therefore  hereby reversed, and this court should and does find the defendant guilty of an attempt to commit the crime of bribery (cohecho)  set out  in the information;  and he  should  be and is hereby sentenced  to  pay a  fine of “P300, or  in  case of insolvency  and  failure  to pay the fine thus  imposed, to subsidiary  imprisonment  as  provided by law, and to  pay the  costs in the  first instance, the costs of  this  appeal to be de oficio.   So ordered.

Arellano, C. J., Mapa, Moreland, and Trent, JJ., concur.

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