THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. MARTIN DOMINGO ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

One of the candidates for the office of president of the municipality of Santa Maria, Province of Ilocos Sur, at the last municipal elections held a public meeting for the purpose of furthering his candidacy on the evening of the day before the election.  The  meeting was well attended, from 150 to 250 persons being present, most of whom were partisans of the candidate who organized it.  It was addressed by various speakers, including the candidate himself.   Between the hours of 9 and  10 o’clock, about the time when the last speaker was bringing his address to a close, a party  of 100 persons, more or less, composed largely, if not exclusively, of partisans of the opposing candidate  for  the  office of president, marched  down the street to the inspiring airs of a guitar.  When this party arrived in front  of the house where the meeting was being held, it stopped.  Some words passed between  the members of the crowd on the  street and the people at the windows upstairs where the meeting was being held; but no attempt appears to have been made by the party outside to  enter the house or to disturb the meeting inside by any concerted action, other than by standing in a  large  crowd about the doors of the house in  such a way as to necessarily distract the attention of those attending the meeting inside by the mere fact that they were doing so. The last speech having come to an end, the people inside the house crowded down the stairs and  out on to the street; some of the more timorous ones climbed out of the windows at the back of the house, but later events  demonstrate that there was no necessity for such a superabundance of precaution, as,  with  possibly a single exception, thdse who went on to the street either  went  peaceably to their homes or mingled with the party outside, without any  attempt  on the part of the latter to do them any injury or in any way molest them.  The single exception to  the peaceable dispersal of the crowd on that occasion was an altercation which arose between  two individuals, members respectively of the  different parties,  both of whom were arrested by the police and taken to jail.  Their arrest seems to  have been occasioned by their individual misconduct and not to have been in any way the result of a conflict between the parties as a whole; and it does not clearly appear from the evidence which of the two was the original aggressor.  There is some testimony to the effect that some of the members of the party outside threw stones at the house where the meeting was in progress, but none of the stones appear to have entered the windows and there was certainly no general stone throwing indulged in by the crowd  who  were standing immediately under the windows where the meeting was being held.  That there was some slight disturbance connected with the closing of the meeting can not be  doubted, but on a review of the whole record we do not think that it could have been  of a very serious  nature.  Partisan feeling was running very high at the time, and to us it seems rather remarkable that under all the circumstances a serious disturbance did not take place.  We are inclined to think that the party outside the house did  not plan a serious  disturbance or  intend that one should take place, as otherwise it could hardly have been avoided.  Their stopping in front of the house would appear to have  had for its object an effort to induce some  of the persons who were attending the first meeting to accompany them to other meetings being held at other places in the same  town,  where the claims of other candidates for office were  being pressed upon the attention of voters; and also perhaps, to impress upon the minds of those attending the meeting  inside,  the fact that the candidate who organized it was not the  only one who could  boast of a substantial following at the elections to take place the following day.

The trial judge was of opinion that each and all of the members of the party  who stopped outside  of the house where the meeting was being held were guilty of the crime of “gravely” disturbing the  public order on the occasion of a largely attended reunion or meeting, as defined and penalized in article 258 of the Penal  Code, and found the appellants guilty of that crime.  Five of them, who, as it appears, were officials of the municipality, were sentenced to six months of arresto mayor and the payment of a fine of 2,625 pesetas each, and seventeen others  were sentenced to four months and one day of arresto mayor and the payment of a fine of 1,500 pesetas each.  We are of opinion, however, that while the evidence  sustains the finding of the trial court that all these defendants were members  of the  gathering which stopped outside on the street  while the meeting was in progress inside, the offense committed by these appellants constituted merely  a  misdemeanor as defined in section 4 of article 574 of the Penal Code, which is as follows:

“ART. 674. A fine of from 15 to 125 pesetas and reprimand may be imposed upon:

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“4. Those who, without being included in other provisions of this code, shall lightly disturb public order by using means that naturally would produce alarm or disturbance.”

The trial judge based his conclusion that the defendants were guilty of the crime of “gravely” or grossly disturbing the public  order as defined and penalized in  article 258 of the Penal Code, on three grounds:

(1) Because the meeting which was disturbed was organized in connection  with the municipal elections to be held the next day:

(2) Because it appears that  the  ill-will engendered between the partisans of the various candidates at the election, resulted in such general disorder that some days thereafter a special detachment of Constabulary was required to keep the peace in the municipality; and

(3) Because some of the members of the party comprising the crowd in the street held municipal offices and were candidates for reelection  thereto.

Under the provisions of Chapter VI [Title III, Book II] of the Penal Code we would be entirely agreed with the trial judge in his characterization of the disturbance of which the defendants were guilty, as a “grave” or a “gross” disturbance of public order, had it taken place in connection with the actual  holding of an election; for instance, in  or about a voting booth, or the place where the votes were being    counted,  or, perhaps on the  public highway along which voters on their way to exercise their  right to vote must necessarily pass.  But we think that under all the circumstances of this case, the fact that numerous meetings were being held at which the citizens and voters called together in public by contending candidates and their partisans for the purpose of inducing or persuading them to support one candidate or the other at the forthcoming election, tends to justify a lenient  rather than a  severe  judgment of the nature, object, and conduct of the gathering of which the defendants formed a part.   In the excitement of a hotly contested campaign, some allowances must be made for the tense state of public feeling,  and not every petty  incident should be magnified into a matter of grave import.  Within reasonable limits the candidates and their partisans should be willing, to bear and forbear with each other, recognizing that at such a time things  are often said and done in the heat of the contest, which the authors themselves in a calmer moment would be the first to deprecate.   And so the courts, in passing upon the question whether a breach of the peace has resulted on such an occasion from the clash of contending wills and the  conflict of opposing policies, opinions, and sentiments,  and in characterizing such public disorders as do actually arise, should keep  in mind the actual conditions. The assembling of the people together, marching and countermarching in bands from place  to place, endeavoring by speeches and debate/both public and private, to hold together the partisans of one set of policies or candidates and to draw away the partisans of opposing policies and candidates, while it undoubtedly tends to disturb the peace and quiet which ordinarily  reigns in the community, does not necessarily involve a criminal breach of the peace or disturbance of public order.  Where no municipal ordinance or public law  or regulation forbidding such gatherings is violated, a criminal breach of the peace can not properly be said to have been committed,  unless  the  disturbance created  is such that it exceeds the limits within which the partisans may fairly be  required to restrict themselves under the circumstances; and in imposing a penalty for a breach of the peace on such occasions, it must not be forgotten that the reprehensible conduct of the partisans does not consist of their assembling together and making public demonstrations, but in exceeding those limits of public order and good behavior beyond which, under the circumstances, the citizen may not pass.

Nor can we agree with the trial judge that the conduct of these  accused amounted to  a  “grave” breach of the peace, because of the  serious disorders which it appears broke  out in the municipality after the election.   Had the proof shown that these disorders resulted directly or even indirectly from  the  disorderly  conduct of the  crowd of which these accused formed a part, that fact might perhaps be taken into consideration  in  characterizing the public disorder of which they were guilty;  but  there  is not  a particle of evidence which shows any relation of  cause  and effect, between the conduct of these accused on the night in question and the disturbances in the municipality which took place after the election had been held.

So too, when  it is considered that  the  local  municipal officials had a perfect right to take part in an election meeting and to join in a gathering of partisans of one candidate or the other,  we do  not think that their  presence in  the crowd substantially affected its nature, object, or purposes so as to convert  the slight disorder of which its  members were guilty into a grave breach of the peace.

The judgment  of conviction and  the  penalty imposed by the trial court should, therefore, be reversed and we find all of the appellants and each of  them guilty of the misdemeanor defined and  penalized in article 574,  section 4, of the Penal Code, and sentence them and each of them to pay a fine of P5 and the payment of  their respective shares of the costs in the first instance, the costs of this instance to be de oficio.   So ordered.

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