THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. ADRIANO PANLILIO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of First Instance of the
Province of Pampanga convicting the accused of a violation of the law relating
to the quarantining of animals suffering from dangerous communicable or
contagious diseases and sentencing him to pay a fine of P40, with subsidiary
imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to pay the costs of the trial.

The information charges: “That on or about the 22d day of February, 1913, all
of the carabaos belonging to the above-named accused having been exposed to the
dangerous and contagious disease known as rinderpest, were, in accordance with
an order of a duly-authorized agent of the Director of Agriculture, duly
quarantined in a corral in the barrio of Masamat, municipality of Mexico,
Province of Pampanga, P. I.; that, on said date and at said place, the said
accused, Adriano Panlilio, illegally and voluntarily and without being
authorized so to do, and while the quarantine against said carabaos was still in
force, permitted and ordered said carabaos to be taken from the corral in which
they were then quarantined and conducted from one place to another; that by
virtue of said orders of the accused, his servants and agents took the said
carabaos from the said corral and drove them from one place to another for the
purpose of working them.”

The defendant demurred to this information on the ground that the acts
complained of did not constitute a crime. The demurrer was overruled and the
defendant duly excepted and pleaded not guilty.

From the evidence introduced by the prosecution on the trial of the cause it
appears that the defendant was notified in writing on February 22, 1913, by a
duly authorized agent of the Director of Agriculture, that all of his carabaos
in the barrio of Masamat, municipality of Mexico, Pampanga Province, had been
exposed to the disease commonly known as rinderpest, and that said carabaos were
accordingly declared under quarantine, and were ordered kept in a corral
designated by an agent of the Bureau of Agriculture and were to remain there
until released by further order of the Director of Agriculture.

It further appears from the testimony of the witnesses for the prosecution
that the defendant fully understood that, according to the orders of the Bureau
of Agriculture, he was not to remove the animals, or to permit anyone else to
remove them, from the quarantine in which they had been placed. In spite,
however, of all this, the carabaos were taken from the corral by the commands of
the accused and driven from place to place on his hacienda, and were used as
work animals thereon in the same manner as if they had not been quarantined.

The contention of the accused is that the facts alleged in the information
and proved on the trial do not constitute a violation of Act No. 1760 or any
portion thereof.

We are forced to agree with this contention.

The original information against the accused charged a violation of section 6
of Act No. 1760 committed by the accused in that he ordered and permitted his
carabaos, which, at the time, were in quarantine, to be taken from quarantine
and moved from one place to another on his hacienda. An amended information was
filed. It failed, however, to specify the section of Act No. 1760 alleged to
have been violated, evidently leaving that to be ascertained by the court on the
trial.

The only sections of Act No. 1760 which prohibit acts and pronounce them
unlawful are 3, 4 and 5. This case does not fall within any of them. Section 3
provides, in effect, that it shall be unlawful for any person, firm, or
corporation knowingly to ship or otherwise bring into the Philippine Islands any
animal suffering from, infected with, or dead of any dangerous communicable
disease, or any of the effects pertaining to such animal which are liable to
introduce such disease into the Philippine’ Islands. Section 4 declares,
substantially, that it shall be unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation
knowingly to ship, drive or otherwise take or transport from one island,
province, municipality, township, or settlement to another any domestic animal
suffering from any dangerous communicable disease or to expose such animal
either alive or dead on any public road or highway where it may come in contact
with other domestic animals. Section 5 provides that whenever the Secretary of
the Interior shall declare that a dangerous communicable animal disease prevails
in any island, province, municipality, township, or settlement and that there is
danger of spreading such disease by shipping, driving or otherwise transporting
or taking out of such island, province, municipality, township, or settlement
any class of domestic animal, it shall be unlawful for any person, firm or
corporation to ship, drive or otherwise remove the kind of animals so specified
from such locality except when accompanied by a certificate issued by authority
of the Director of Agriculture stating the number and the kind of animals to be
shipped, driven, taken or transported, their destination, manner in which they
are authorized to be shipped, driven, taken, or transported, and their brands
and distinguishing marks.

A simple reading of these sections demonstrates clearly that the case at bar
does not fall within any of them. There is no question here of importation and
there is no charge or proof that the animals in question were suffering from a
dangerous communicable disease or that the Secretary of the Interior had made
the declaration provided for in section 6 or that the accused had driven or
taken said animals from one island, province, municipality, township or
settlement to another. It was alleged in the information and proved on the trial
that the animals had been exposed to a dangerous communicable disease and that
they had been placed in a corral in quarantine on the premises of the accused
and that he, in violation of the quarantine, had taken them from the corral and
worked them upon the lands adjoining. They had not been in the highway nor moved
from one municipality or settlement to another. They were left upon defendant’s
hacienda, where they were quarantined, and there worked by the servants of the
accused.

The Solicitor-General in his brief in this court admits that the sections
referred to are not applicable to the case at bar and also admits that section 7
of said Act is not applicable. This section provides: “Whenever the Director of
Agriculture shall order any animal placed in quarantine in accordance with the
provisions of this Act, the owner of such animal, or his agent, shall deliver it
at the place designated for the quarantine and shall provide it with proper
food, water, and attendance. Should the owner or his agent fail to comply with
this requirement the Director of Agriculture may furnish supplies and attendance
needed, and the reasonable cost of such supplies and attendance shall be
collectible from the owner or his agent.”

We are in accord with the opinion expressed by the Solicitor-General with
respect to this section, as we are with his opinion as to sections 3, 4, and 5.
The law nowhere makes it a penal offense to refuse to comply with the provisions
of section 7, nor is the section itself so phrased as to warrant the conclusion
that it was intended to be a penal section. The section provides the means by
which the refusal of the owner to comply therewith shall be overcome and the
punishment, if we may call it punishment, which he shall receive by reason of
that refusal. It has none of the aspects of a penal provision or the form or
substance of such a provision. It does not prohibit any act. It does not compel
an act nor does it make the refusal to comply unlawful, nor does it really
punish or impose a criminal penalty. The other sections of the law under which
punishments may be inflicted are so phrased as to make the prohibited act
unlawful, and section 8 provides the punishment for any act declared unlawful by
the law.

The Solicitor-General suggests, but does not argue, that section 6 is
applicable to the case at bar. Section 6 simply authorizes the Director of
Agriculture to do certain things, among them, paragraph (c) “to require that
animals which are suffering from dangerous communicable diseases or have been
exposed thereto be placed in quarantine at such place and for such time as may
be deemed by him necessary to prevent the spread of the disease.” Nowhere in the
law, however, is the violation of the orders of the Bureau of Agriculture
prohibited or made unlawful, nor is there provided any punishment for a
violation of such orders. Section 8 provides that “any person violating any of
the provisions of this Act shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not
more than one thousand pesos, or by imprisonment for not more than six months,
or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court, for each
offense.” ‘ A violation of the orders of the Bureau of Agriculture, as
authorized by paragraph (c), is not a violation of the provisions of the Act.
The orders of the Bureau of Agriculture, while they may possibly be said to have
the force of law, are not statutes and particularly not penal statutes, and a
violation of such orders is not a penal offense unless the statute itself
somewhere makes a violation thereof unlawful and penalizes it. Nowhere in Act
No. 1760 is a violation of the orders of the Bureau of Agriculture made a penal
offense, nor is such violation punished in any way therein.

Finally, it is contended by the Government that if the offense stated in the
information and proved upon the trial does not constitute a violation of any of
the provisions of Act No. 1760, it does constitute a violation of article 581,
paragraph 2, of the Penal Code. It provides:

“A fine of not less than fifteen and not more than seventy pesetas and
censure shall be imposed upon: * * *

“2. Any person who shall violate the regulations, ordinances, or
proclamations issued with reference to any ep£dwnic disease among animals, the
extermination of locusts1, or any other similar plague.”

It is alleged in the information and was proved on the trial that the Bureau
of Agriculture had ordered a quarantine of the carabaos at the’ time and place
mentioned; that the quarantine had been executed and completed and the animals
actually segregated and confined; that the accused, in violation of such
quarantine and of the orders of the Bureau of Agriculture, duly promulgated,
broke the quarantine, removed the animals and used them in the ordinary work of
his plantation. We consider these acts a plain violation of the article of the
Penal Code above quoted. The fact that the information in its preamble charged a
viojation of Act No. 1760 does not prevent us from finding the1 accused guilty
of a violation of an article of the Penal Com. The complaint opens as follows:
“The undersigned accuses Adriano Panlilio of a violation of Act No. 1760,
committed as follows:” Then follows the body of the information already quoted
in this opinidn. We would not permit an accused to be convicted under one Act
when he is charged with the violation of another, if the change from one statute
to another involved a change of the theory of the trial or required of the
defendant a different defense or surprised him in any other way. The allegations
required under Act No. 1760 include those required under article 581. The
accused could have defended himself in no different manner if he had been
expressly charged with a violation of article 581.

In the case of United States vs, Paua (6 Phil. Rep., 740), the information
stating the facts upon which the charge was founded terminated with this
expression: “In violation of section 315 of Act No. 355 of the Philippine
Commision in effect on the 6th of February, 1902.”

In the resolution of this case the Supreme Court found that the facts set
forth in the information and proved on the trial did not constitute a violation
of section 315 of Act No. 355 as alleged in the information, but did constitute
a violation of article 387 in connection with article 383 of the Penal Code, and
accordingly convicted the accused under those articles and sentenced him to the
corresponding penalty.

In that case the court said; “The foregoing facts, duly established as they
were by the testimony of credible witnesses who heard and saw everything that
occurred, show beyond peradventure of doubt that the crime of attempted bribery,
as defined in article 387, in connection with article 388 of the Penal Code, has
been committed, it being immaterial whether it is alleged in the complaint that
section 315 of Act No. 355 of the Philippine Commission was violated by the
defendant, as the same recites facts and circumstances sufficient to constitute
the crime of bribery as defined and punished in the aforesaid articles of the
Penal Code.” (U. S. vs. Lim San, 17 Phil. Rep., 273; U. S. vs.
Jeffrey, 15 Phil. Rep., 391; U. S. vs. Guzman, 25 Phil. Rep., 22.)

The accused is accordingly convicted of a violation of article 581, paragraph
2, of the Penal Code, and is sentenced to pay a fine of seventy pesetas (P14)
and censure, with subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and the costs
of this appeal. So ordered.

Arellano, C. J., Torres, Carson, and Araullo, JJ.,
concur.

Johnson, J., dissents.