JOSE “PEPITO” TIMONER, PETITIONER, VS. THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES AND THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, IV DIVISION,

Petition for review of the affirmance in toto by
the Court of Appeals, now the Intermediate Appellate Court, of the judgment of
conviction handed down by the then Municipal Court of Daet, Camarines Norte, in
Cri­minal Case No. 4281, entitled “People of the Philippines vs. Jose
Timoner,” finding petitioner guilty of the crime of grave coercion, as follows:

“WHEREFORE, this Court finds the accused JOSE ‘PEPITO’ TIMONER
guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of Grave Coercion as penalized
under Art. 286 of the Revised Penal Code, and hereby sentences the said accused
pursuant to the provision of Rule 64, Par. 3, to suffer SIX MONTHS OF
IMPRISONMENT OF ARRESTO MAYOR IN ITS MAXIMUM PERIOD, to pay a fine of P300.00
and to pay the offended party in the amount of P5,000.00 as damages, without
subsidiary liability in case of insolvency. The other accused SAMUEL MORENA and ERNESTO QUIBRAL are hereby ordered
ACQUITTED.”

The salient facts are not disputed. At about  10:00 in the
evening of December 13, 1971, petitioner, then Mayor of Daet, Camarines Norte,
accompanied by two uniformed policemen, Samuel Morena and Ernesto Quibral, and
six laborers, arrived in front of the stalls along Maharlika highway, the main
thoroughfare of the same town. Upon
orders of petitioner, these laborers proceeded to nail together rough lumber
slabs to fence off the stalls which protruded into the sidewalk of the
Maharlika highway. Among the structures
thus barricaded were the barbershop of Pascual Dayaon, the complaining witness,
and the store belonging to one Lourdes Pia-Rebustillos. These establishments had been recommended
for closure by the Municipal Health Officer, Dra. Alegre, for non-compliance
with certain health and sanitation requirements.

Thereafter, petitioner filed a complaint in the Court of First
Instance of Camarines Norte against Lourdes Pia-Rebustillos and others for
judicial abate­ment of their stalls. The complaint, docketed as Civil Case No. 2257, alleged that these
stalls constituted public nuisances as well as nuisances per se. Dayaon was never able to reopen his
barbershop business.

Subsequently, petitioner and the two policemen, Morena and
Quibral, were charged with the offense of grave coercion before the Municipal
Court of Daet. As already noted, the
said court exonerated the two police­men, but convicted petitioner of the crime
charged as principal by inducement.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed in full the judgment of
the trial court. Hence, the present
recourse.

Petitioner contends that the sealing off of com­plainant Dayaon’s
barbershop was done in abatement of a public nuisance and, therefore, under
lawful authority.

We find merit in this contention. Unquestionably, the barbershop in question did constitute a
public nuisance as defined under Article Nos. 694 and 695 of the Civil Code, to
wit:

“ART. 694. A nuisance
is any act, omission, establishment, busi­ness, condition of property, or
anything else which:

(1)  Injures or endangers the health or safety of
others; or

(2)  Annoys or offends the senses; or

(3)  Shocks, defies or disregards decency or
morality; or

(4)  Obstructs or interferes with the free passage
of any public highway or street, or any body of water; or

(5)  Hinders or impairs the use of property.

“ART. 695. Nuisance is
either public or private. A public
nuisance affects a community or neighborhood or any consider­able number of
persons, although the ex­tent of the annoyance, danger or damage upon
individuals may be unequal. A pri­vate
nuisance is one that is not included in the foregoing definition.”

The barbershop occupied a portion of the side­walk of the
poblacion’s main thoroughfare and had been recommended for closure by the
Municipal Health Officer. In fact, the
Court of First Instance of Camarines Norte, in its decision in Civil Case No.
2257, declared said barbershop as a nuisance per se. Thus:

“Under the facts of the case, as well as the law in point, there is
no semblance of any legality or right that exists in favor of the defendants to
build a stall and conduct their business in a sidewalk, especially in a highway
where it does not only constitute a menace to the health of the general public
passing through the street and also of the unsani­tary condition that is bred
therein as well as the unsightly and ugly structures in the said place. More­over, even if it is claimed and
pretended that there was a license, per­mit or toleration of the defendants’
makeshift store and living quarters for a number of years does not lend
legality to an act which is a nuisance per se. Such nuisance affects the community or neighborhood or any con­siderable
number of persons and the general public which posed a danger to the people in
general passing and using that place, for in addition, this is an annoyance to
the public by the invasion of its rights – the fact that it is in a public
place and annoying to all who come within its sphere [Baltazar vs. Carolina
Midland, Ry. Co., 54 S.C. 242, 32 S.B. 358, cited in 11 Tolentino’s Civil Code
of the Philippines, p. 375; Kapisanan Lingkod ng Bayan; Inc. vs. Lacson,
CA-G.R. No. 27260-R, March 25, 1964; 61 O.G. 2487].

x        x          x          x          x

“IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the Court hereby declares that the
struc­tures subject of this complaint as well as those occupied by the
impleaded de­fendants are nuisances per se, and there­fore orders the
defendants to demolish the stall and vacate the premises imme­diately x x
x.”

But even without this judidicial pronouncement, petitioner could
not have been faulted for having fenced off said barbershop. Paragraph 3, Article 699 of the Civil Code
authorizes the abatement of a public nuisance without judicial proceedings.

“ART. 699. The
remedies against a public nuisance are:

[1] A prosecution under the Penal Code or any local ordinance; or

[2] A civil action; or

[3] Abatement, without judicial proceedings.”

In the case at bar, petitioner, as mayor of the town, merely
implemented the aforesaid recom­mendation of the Municipal Health Officer. Having then acted in good faith in the
performance of his duty, petitioner incurred no criminal liability.

Grave coercion is committed when “a person who, without
authority of law, shall by means of violence, prevent another from doing
something not prohibited by law or compel to do something against his will,
either it be right or wrong.”^[1]
The three elements of grave coercion are: [1] that any person be pre­vented by another from doing something not
prohibited by law, or compelled to do something against his will, be it right
or wrong; [2] that the prevention or com­pulsion be effected by violence,
either by material force or such display of it as would produce intimi­dation
and control the will of the offended party, and [3] that the person who
restrained the will and liberty of another had no right to do so, or, in other
words, that the restraint was not made under authority of law or in the
exercise of a lawful right.^[2]

The third element being absent in the case at bar, petitioner
cannot be held guilty of grave coercion.

WHEREFORE, the decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R.
No. 19534-CR, is hereby set aside and peti­tioner is acquitted of the crime
charged. Costs de oficio.

SO ORDERED.

Makasiar, (Chairman), Aquino, Concepcion, Jr., Guerrero, Abad
Santos, and De Castro, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Article 286, Revised Penal Code.

^[2]
Justice Ramon C. Aquino, The Revised Penal Code, Book II, 1976, p. 1392.