[No. 16444. September 8, 1920.

]
EMETERIA VILLAFLOR, petitioner, vs. RICARDO SUMMERS, sheriff of the
City of Manila, respondent.

1. 1CONSTITUTIONAL LAW; PHILIPPINE BILL OF RIGHTS; RIGHTS OF

ACCUSED PERSON; GENERAL PRINCIPLES.—The object of having criminal
laws is to purge the community of persons who violate the laws to the great
prejudice of their fellow men. Criminal procedure, the rule of evidence, and
constitutional provisions

63

VOL. 41, 63
SEPTEMBER 8, 1920
Villaflor vs, Summers.

1. are then provided, not to protect the guilty but to protect the innocent. No rule is
intended to be so rigid as to embarrass the administration of justice in its
endeavor to ascertain the truth.

1. 2.ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.—With a losse extension of constitutional guaranties because of

a misconceived notion of the rights of accused persons, this court is not in accord.

1. 3.ID.; ID.; ID.; SELF-INCRIMINATION; HISTORY OF THE GUARANTY.— The

maxim of the common law, Nemo tenetur seipsum accusare, was recognized in
England in early days in a revolt against the thumbscrew and the rack. A legal
shield was raised against odious inquisitorial methods of interrogating an
accused person by which to extort unwilling confessions with the ever present
temptation to commit the crime of perjury. The principle was taken into the
American Constitutions, and from the United States was brought to the
Philippine Islands, in exactly as wide—but no wider—a scope as it existed in old
English days.

1. 4.ID.; ID. ; ID. ; ID.; POLICY OF THE LAW.—Even superior to the complete
immunity of a person to be let alone is the interest which the public has in the
orderly administration of justice. Between a sacrifice of the ascertainment of
truth to personal considerations, between a disregard of the public welfare for
refined notions of delicacy, law and justice cannot hesitate.

1. 5.ID. ; ID. ; ID. ; ID. ; RULES.—The constitutional guaranty, that no person shall
be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, is limited to a
prohibition against compulsory testimonial self-incrimination.

1. 6.ID. ; ID. ; ID. ; ID. ; ID.—Torture or f orce shall be avoided.

1. 7.ID. ; ID. ; ID. ; ID. ; BODILY EXHIBITION.—On a proper showing and under an
order of the trial court, an ocular inspection of the body of the accused is
permissible.

1. 8.ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.—Upon petition of the assistant fiscal for the city of Manila,
the trial court ordered the defendant, a woman charged with the crime of
 adultery, to submit her body to the examination of one or two competent doctors
to determine whether she was pregnant or not. Held: That while this order of the
trial court is phrased in absolute terms, it should, nevertheless, be understood as
subject to the limitations herein mentioned, and thus as not in violation of that
portion of the Philippine Bill of Rights and that portion of the Philippine Code of
Criminal Procedure which find their origin in the Constitution of the United
States and practically all State Constitutions, and in the common law rules of
evidence, relating to self-incrimination.

64

64 PHILIPPINE
REPORTS
ANNOTATED
Villaflor vs. Summers.

1. 9.ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.—The rules announced are believed to be stare decisis in
this jurisdiction. (Holt vs. U. S. [1910], 218 U. S., 585; U. S. vs. Tan Teng [1912],
23 Phil., 145; U. S. vs. Ong' Siu Hong [1917], 36 Phil., 735.) Even if not so, the
Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands would rather desire its decision to rest
on the reason of the case than on blind adherence to tradition.

ORIGINAL ACTION in the Supreme Court. Habeas corpus.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Alfredo Calupitan, and Gibbs, McDonough & Johnson f or petitioner.
Assistant City Fiscal Felix for respondent.

MALCOLM, J.:

The petitioner prays that a writ of habeas corpus issue to restore her to her liberty.
The facts are not in dispute. In a criminal case pending before the Court of First
Instance of the city of Manila, Emeteria Villaflor and Florentino Souingco are
charged with the crime of adultery. On this case coming on for trial before the Hon.
Pedro Concepcion, Judge of First Instance, upon the petition of the assistant fiscal
for the city of Manila, the court ordered the defendant Emeteria Villaflor, now
become the petitioner herein, to submit her body to the examination of one or two
competent doctors to determine if she was pregnant or not. The accused refused to
obey the order on the ground that such examination of her person was a violation
of the constitutional provision relating to self-incrimination. Thereupon she was
found in contempt of court and was ordered to be committed to Bilibid Prison until
she should permit the medical examination required by the court.
The sole legal issue arising from the admitted facts is whether the compelling
of a woman to permit her body to be examined by physicians to determine if she is
pregnant,
65
VOL. 41, SEPTEMBER 8, 65
1920
Villaflor vs. Summers.
violates that portion of the Philippine Bill of Rights and that portion of our Code
of Criminal Procedure which find their origin in the Constitution of the United
States and practically all state constitutions and in the common law rules of
evidence, providing that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a
witness against himself. (President's Instructions to the Philippine Commission;
Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, section 5, paragraph 3; Act of Congress of August
29, 1916, section 3, paragraph 3; Code of Criminal Procedure, section 15 [4];
United States Constitution, fifth amendment.) Counsel for petitioner argues that
such bodily exhibition is an infringement of the constitutional provision; the
representative of the city fiscal contends that it is not an infringement of the
constitutional provision. .The trial judge in the instant case has held with the
fiscal; while it is brought to our notice that a judge of the same court has held on
an identical question as contended for by the attorney for the accused and
petitioner.
The authorities are abundant but conflicting. What may be termed the
conservative courts emphasize greatly the humanitarianism of the constitutional
provision and are pleased to extend the privilege in order that its mantle may
cover any fact by which the accused is compelled to make evidence against himself.
(Compare State vs. Jacobs [1858], 50 N. C., 259 with State vs. Ah Chuey [1879],
14 Nev., 79. See further State vs. Nordstrom [1893], 7 Wash.,
506; State vs. Height [1902], 117 lowa, 650; Thornton vs. State [1903], 117 Wis.,
338.) A case concordant with this view and almost directly in point
is People vs. McCoy ([1873], 45 How. Pr., 216). A woman was charged with the
crime of infanticide. The coroner directed two physicians to go to the jail and
examine her private parts to determine whether she had recently been delivered
of a child. She objected to the examination, but being threatened with force,
yielded, and the examination was had. The evidence of these physicians was
offered at the trial and ruled out.
66
66 PHILIPPINE REPORTS
ANNOTATED
Villaflor vs. Summers.
The court said that the proceeding was in violation of the spirit and meaning of
the Constitution, which declares that "no person shall be compelled in any
criminal case to be a witness against himself." Continuing, the court said: "They
might as well have sworn the prisoner, and compelled her, by threats, to testify
that she had been pregnant, and had been delivered of a child, as to have compelled
her, by threats, to allow them to look into her person, with the aid of a speculum,
to ascertain whether she had been pregnant and been delivered of a child. * * *
Has this court the right to compel the prisoner now to submit to an examination
of her private parts and breasts, by physicians, and then have them testify that
from such examination they are of the opinion she is not a virgin, and has had a
child? It is not possible that this court has that right; and it is too clear to admit
of argument that evidence thus obtained would be inadmissible against the
prisoner."
It may be revealing a judicial secret, but nevertheless we cannot refrain from
saying that, greatly impressed with the weight of these decisions, especially the
one written by Mr. Justice McClain, in State vs. Height, supra, the instant case
was reported by the writer with the tentative recommendation that the court
should lay down the general rule that a defendant can be compelled to disclose
only those parts of the body which are not usually covered. But having disabused
our minds of a too sensitive appreciation of the rights of accused persons, and
having been able, as we think, to penetrate through the maze of law reports to the
policy which lies behind the constitutional guaranty and the common law
principle, we have come finally to take our stand with what we believe to be the
reason of the case.
In contradistinction to the cases above-mentioned are others which seem to us
more progressive in nature. Among these can be prominently mentioned decisions
of the United States Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of these Islands.
Thus, the always forward looking jurist,
67
VOL. 41, SEPTEMBER 8, 67
1920.
Villaflor vs. Summers.
Mr. Justice Holmes, in the late case of Holt vs. United States ([1910], 218 U. S.,
245), in resolving an objection based upon what he termed "an extravagant
extension of the Fifth Amendment," said: "The prohibition of compelling a man in
a criminal court to be a witness against himself is a prohibition of the use of
physical or moral compulsion to extort communications from him, not an exclusion
of his body as evidence when it may be material." (See also, of same general tenor,
decision of Mr. Justice Day in Adams vs. New York [1903], 192 U. S., 585.) The
Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands, in two decisions, has seemed to limit the
protection to a prohibition against compulsory testimonial self-incrimination. The
constitutional limitation was said to be "simply a prohibition against legal process
to extract from the defendant's own lips, against his will, an admission of his guilt."
(U. S. vs. Tan Teng [1912], 23 Phil., 145; U. S. vs. Ong Siu Hong [1917], 36 Phil.,
735, and the derivatory principle announced in 16 Corpus Juris, 567, 568, citing
the United States Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands
as authority.)
Although we have stated a proposition previously announced by this court and
by the highest tribunal in the United States, we cannot unconcernedly leave the
subject without further consideration. Even in the opinion of Mr. Justice Holmes,
to which we have alluded, there was inserted the careful proviso that "we need not
consider how far a court would go in compelling a man to exhibit himself." Other
courts have likewise avoided any attempt to determine the exact location of the
dividing line between what is proper and what is improper in this very broad
constitutional field. But here before us is presented what would seem to be the
most extreme case which could be imagined. While the United States Supreme
Court could nonchalantly decree that testimony that an accused person put on a
blouse and it fitted him is not a violation of the constitutional provision, while the
Supreme Court of Nevada could go so far
68
68 PHILIPPINE REPORTS
ANNOTATED
Villaflor vs. Summers.
as to require the defendant to roll up his sleeve in order to disclose tattoo marks,
and while the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands could permit substances
taken from the person of an accused to be offered in evidence, none of these even
approach in apparent harshness an order to make a woman, possibly innocent, to
disclose her body in all of its sanctity to the gaze of strangers. We can only
consistently consent to the retention of a principle which would permit of such a
result by adhering steadfastly to the proposition that the purpose of the
constitutional provision was and is merely to prohibit testimonial compulsion.
So much for the authorities. For the nonce we would prefer to forget them
entirely, and here in the Philippines, being in the agreeable state of breaking new
ground, would rather desire our decision to rest on a strong foundation of reason
and justice than on a weak one of blind adherence to tradition and precedent.
Moreover, we believe that an unbiased consideration of the history of the
constitutional provision will disclose that our conclusion is in exact accord with
the causes which led to its adoption.
The maxim of the common law, Nemo tenetur seipsum accusare, was recognized
in England in early days, but not in the other legal systems of the world, in a revolt
against the thumbscrew and the rack. A legal shield was raised against odious
inquisitorial methods of interrogating an accused person by which to extort
unwilling confessions with the ever present temptation to commit the crime of
perjury. The kernel of the privilege as disclosed by the textwriters was testimonial
compulsion. As forcing- a man to be a witness against himself was deemed
contrary to the fundamentals of republican government, the principle was taken
into the American Constitutions, and from the United States was brought to the
Philippine Islands, in exactly as wide—but no wider—a scope as it existed in old
English days. The provision should here be approached in no blindly worshipful
spirit, but with a judicious and a judicial appreciation of both its benefits and its
abuses.
69
VOL. 41, SEPTEMBER 8, 69
1920.
Villaflor vs. Summers.
(Read the scholarly articles of Prof. Wigmore in 5 Harvard L. R. [1891], p. 71, and
15 Harvard L. R., 1902, p. 61.0, found in 4 Wigmore on Evidence, pp. 3069 et
seq., and U. S. vs. Navarro [1904], 3 Phil., 143.)
Perhaps the best way to test the correctness of our position is to go back once
more to elementals and ponder on what is the prime purpose of a criminal trial.
As we view it, the object of having criminal laws is to purge the community of
persons who violate the laws to the great prejudice of their fellow men. Criminal
procedure, the rules of evidence, and constitutional provisions, are then provided,
not to protect the guilty but to protect the innocent. No rule is intended to be so
rigid as to embarrass the administration of justice in its endeavor to ascertain the
truth. No accused person should be afraid of the use of any method which will tend
to establish the truth. For instance, under the facts before us, to use torture to
make the defendant admit her guilt might only result in inducing her to tell a
falsehood. But no evidence of physical facts can for any substantial reason be held
to be detrimental to the accused except in so far as the truth is to be avoided in
order to acquit a guilty person.
Obviously a stirring plea can be made showing that under the due process of
law clause of the Constitution every person has a natural and inherent right to
the possession and control of his own body. It is extremely abhorrent to one's sense
of decency and propriety to have to decide that such inviolability of the person,
particularly of a woman, can be invaded by exposure to another's gaze. As Mr.
Justice Gray in Union Pacific Railway Co. vs. Botsford ([1891], 141 U.S., 250) said,
"To compel any one, and especially a woman, to lay bare the body, or to submit to
the touch of a stranger, without lawful authority, is an indignity, an assault, and
a trespass." ' Conceded, and yet, as well suggested by the same court, even superior
to the complete immunity of a person to be let alone is the interest which the public
has in the orderly administration of justice.
70
70 PHILIPPINE REPORTS
ANNOTATED
Villaflor vs. Summers.
Unfortunately, all too frequently the modesty of witnesses is shocked by forcing
them to answer, without any mental evasion, questions which are put to them;
and such a tendency to degrade the witness in public estimation does not exempt
him from the duty of disclosure. Between a sacrifice of the ascertainment of truth
to personal considerations, between a disregard of the public welfare for refined
notions of delicacy, law and justice cannot hesitate.
The protection of accused persons has been carried to such an unwarranted
extent that criminal trials have sometimes seemed to be like a game of
shuttlecocks, with the judge as referee, the lawyers as players, the criminal as
guest of honor, and the public as fascinated spectators. Against such a loose
extension of constitutional guaranties we are here prepared to voice our protest.
Fully conscious that we are resolving a most extreme case in a sense, which on
first impression is a shock to one's sensibilities, we must nevertheless enf orce the
constitutional provision in this jurisdiction in accord with the policy and reason
thereof, undeterred by merely sentimental influences. Once again we lay down the
rule that the constitutional guaranty, that no person shall be compelled in any
criminal case to be a witness against himself, is limited to a prohibition against
compulsory testimonial self-incrimination. The corollary to the proposition is that,
on a proper showing and under an order of the trial court, an ocular inspection of
the body of the accused is permissible. The proviso is that torture or force shall be
avoided. Whether facts fall within or without the rule with its corollary and proviso
must, of course, be decided as cases arise.
It is a reasonable presumption that in an examination by reputable and
disinterested physicians due care will be taken not to use violence and not to
embarrass the patient any more than is absolutely necessary. Indeed, no objection
to the physical examination being made by the family doctor of the accused or by
doctor of the same sex can be seen,
71
VOL. 41, SEPTEMBER 71
10, 1920
Director of Lands vs. Abada.
Although the order of the trial judge, acceding to the request of the assistant fiscal
.for an examination of the person of the defendant by physicians was phrased in
absolute terms, it should, nevertheless, be understood as subject to the limitations
herein mentioned, and therefore legal. The writ of habeas corpus prayed for is
hereby denied. The costs shall be taxed against the petitioner. So ordered.
 Mapa, C. J., Araullo, Avanceña, Moir, and Villamor, JJ., concur.

CARSON, J., concurring:

I concur.
I think, however, that the scope of our ruling in this matter should be expressly
limited, in positive and definite terms, so as to make it clear that the examination
of the person of the accused shall not be carried beyond a mere ocular inspection,
wherein the use of instruments or of physical force upon the person of the accused
would be prohibited,
Writ denied.

______________

© Copyright 2019 Central Book Supply, Inc. All rights reserved.