THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. GUILLERMO FIDELDIA, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

United States versus Fideldia

The Case

This is a criminal appeal in which the Government of the United States, as plaintiff, prosecuted Guillermo Fideldia, the defendant, for the crime of abduction, known in the old Penal Code as rapto. The trial court convicted him under article 446 of the Penal Code for having induced his cousin, a woman over eighteen years of age, to leave her father's house without the father's consent and to live with him at the home of his own father. The case matters because the Supreme Court used it to fix the age limit for consensual abduction, holding that the change of sovereignty relaxed the old rule and that a woman eighteen years of age or older may no longer be the victim of abduction committed with her own consent.

Procedural History

The defendant was tried and convicted in the court below of the crime of rapto, as defined and penalized in article 446 of the Penal Code, and sentence was imposed upon him. He appealed from that judgment of conviction. The case came before the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands on that appeal, and the Court reversed the judgment and acquitted the defendant.

Facts

The defendant was a youth eighteen years of age, attending school in Manila and living in the house of his uncle. In that house lived his cousin, a daughter of the uncle. The defendant induced this cousin to accompany him, without the consent of her father, to the home of the defendant's own father, who was the woman's uncle as well.

She stayed at that home with the defendant for a vacation of two or three months before she returned to her father. While she was living there, she had illicit relations with the defendant. The visit was made precisely in order to establish and to carry on those illicit relations with greater impunity than was practicable in her own home.

The woman was over eighteen years of age at the time of the alleged abduction, and the Court noted that she was in fact over nineteen. The complaint charged abduction, and on that charge the case was tried and decided.

Issues

• Whether or not a woman who has reached the age of eighteen years may be the victim of the crime of abduction committed with her own consent under article 446 of the Penal Code.
• Whether or not the accused may be convicted of abduction where the woman he induced to leave her father's home was over eighteen years of age and consented to the act.

Applicable Provisions

Article 445 of the Penal Code provides:

Article 445. The abduction of a woman against her will and with lewd designs shall be punished by reclusion temporal. The same penalty shall be imposed in every case if the female abducted be under twelve years of age.

This article defines forcible abduction, which is not the charge here, because the woman went with the defendant of her own free will.

Article 446 of the Penal Code provides:

Article 446. The abduction of a virgin over twelve and under twenty-three years of age, committed with her consent, shall be punished by prision correctional in its minimum and medium degrees.

This is the provision under which the defendant was convicted, and the whole case turns on whether its age limit still stands at twenty-three years after the change of sovereignty.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the age limit in article 446 must be read down. The Court reasoned that when the legislator fixed the notably advanced age of twenty-three years, he had in mind the former law on the status of women, under which a woman below twenty-three was under the strict control of her father or other legal guardian, could not marry without his consent, and could be restrained in her freedom to prevent her from doing so. With the change of sovereignty, those strict provisions were somewhat relaxed, and the age at which a woman may leave her home and marry without the consent of her father or other legal guardian was fixed at eighteen years. The Court concluded that this change of status draws with it, by necessary implication, a modification of the penal provisions of article 446, so that the age limit under which a woman may be abducted with her own consent must be held to be the same as the age limit under which she is forbidden to marry without the consent of her father or other legal guardian.

On the second issue, the Court applied that rule to the facts. The woman was over nineteen years of age, and so the proofs did not establish the commission of the crime charged. The Court acknowledged that the defendant might be guilty of seduction or some other allied offense, but the complaint was for abduction, of which he was manifestly not guilty if the Court's conclusions on the modification of the age limit were correct.

Doctrine

The rule to retain is that the age limit for consensual abduction under article 446 of the Penal Code is eighteen years, not twenty-three. A woman who has reached eighteen years of age may leave her home and consent to the act, and one who induces her to do so cannot be convicted of abduction. The Court reached this result by necessary implication from the change of sovereignty, which relaxed the old paternal control and fixed eighteen as the age at which a woman may leave her home and marry without her father's consent. The penal age limit follows the civil age limit, because the two rest on the same status of women.

Disposition

The judgment of the court below convicting the defendant and imposing sentence upon him was reversed, and he was acquitted of the offense charged, with the costs of both instances de oficio.

Remember This

The single line to memorize is that the age limit for consensual abduction was reduced from twenty-three to eighteen years by necessary implication from the change of sovereignty. Examiners use this case to test statutory construction, particularly the reading of an old penal provision in light of a later change in the civil status of women.