EN BANC

[G.R. No. 6027. April 1, 1911.]

THE UNITED STATES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. TOMAS BERNARDO, Defendant-

Appellant.

W. A. Kincaid and Thos. L. Hartigan, for Appellant.

Attorney-General Villamor, for Appellee.

SYLLABUS

1. CRIMES AND OFFENSES; CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LIABILITY. — Every crime or

misdemeanor gives rise to a penal or criminal action for the punishment of the
guilty party, and also to a civil action for the restitution of the thing, repair of the
damage, and indemnification for the losses; wherefore, after the prosecution of the
criminal action, it shall be understood that the civil action has been utilized, for the
reason that every person criminally liable for a crime or misdemeanor is also civilly
liable (art. 17, Penal Code), unless the aggrieved party should expressly waive his
right (art. 23).

2. ID.; ID.; JUDGMENTS SHOULD DECLARE CIVIL LIABILITY. — In the judgments

respectively pronounced by the Courts of First Instance and those of justices of the
peace, in the suits or actions tried by them, all the questions which are the subject
matter thereof shall be resolved by acquitting the accused or sentencing them to
the principal and accessory penalties prescribed by law, and by declaring the
consequent civil liabilities, if there be any, and it be proper to do so, in accordance
with the provisions of article 17 and the next two following, and articles 119 to 126,
and 609 of the Penal Code.

3. ID.; PENALTIES; JURISDICTION OF JUSTICE: OF THE PEACE. — In the cases

where, in the commission of the different crimes punished by the Penal Code with
only the penalty of arresto mayor, a material, in addition to a moral injury, has
resulted which should be repaired or indemnified, or where something must be
restored, the amount of the indemnity to the aggrieved party does not generally
exceed P200, owing to the rules as to proportionate penalties in crimes against
property, and therefore the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace is
unquestionable, both with respect to the personal penalty and to the
indemnification, in the cases of civil liability resulting from a crime, as may be seen,
among others, by articles 513, 518, No. 4, 534, No. 1, and 557, No. 1, of the Penal
Code.

4. RAPE, SEDUCTION, AND ABDUCTION; JURISDICTION. — From the crimes of

rape, seduction, and abduction spring especially, by express provisions of the law,
civil liabilities in the form of obligations to endow the offended spinster or widow, to
recognize the offspring to which the said aggrieved party may give birth with the
character of natural son or daughter, and to maintain such offspring, whatever be
 the quality of its origin; and consequently only the Courts of First Instance can try
causes prosecuted for the said three crimes, inasmuch as the judgments rendered
therein necessarily must contain findings declaratory of the obligations mentioned
to which, according to article 449 of the Penal Code the guilty parties must be
sentenced, who are liable, in consequence of their crime, for the dowry and the
alimony, the amounts of which are generally much in excess of P200, and for the
obligatory recognition of the offspring, which recognition determines the civil status
of the new being with right to life; and the law did not expressly authorize justices
of the peace to make such declarations, indispensable in a sentence for the crime of
seduction in granting them jurisdiction to try crimes penalized by a maximum
penalty of six months’ imprisonment. (Secs. 3 and 4, Act No. 1627.)

5. JURISDICTION OF COURTS OF FIRST INSTANCE. — The judge of First Instance

can not, by virtue of his original jurisdiction, take cognizance of the complaint filed
by the provincial fiscal, in an action unduly prosecuted before a justice of the peace
without jurisdiction to try the crime which is the subject matter thereof, which
action was raised to and is now pending in the Court of First Instance by reason of
an appeal; because, as such appellate judge, he must dismiss the appeal and
declare the action and the judgment of the justice of the peace null and void.
Should a complaint afterwards be filed by the fiscal in the matter of the crime which
was thus improperly prosecuted, the said judge may proceed, in accordance with
law, independently of the aforementioned invalid action.

DECISION

TORRES, J.:

In November, 1907, Tomas Bernardo entered into amorous relations with Isidora
Mesina, a minor 18 years of age, and on this account the said Tomas Bernardo
frequented the house in which the girl lived; he succeeded in lying with her on the
afternoon of March 1, 1909, through promise of marriage, while her father,
Saturnino, and her sister, Juliana Mesina, were absent from the house and her
mother was in another room attending her sick daughter. As a result of the said
relations and of the coition that took place on the afternoon aforesaid, the girl
became pregnant and later gave birth to a female child, one month and a half
before the hearing in the present case.

For the foregoing reasons, the father of the seduced girl filed a complaint in the
justice of the peace court of Mariquina and, as a result of the trial, the accused was
sentenced to four months of arresto mayor and to the accessory penalties. An
appeal was taken to the Court of First Instance, and the provincial fiscal, in view of
the proceedings before the justice of the peace, filed a complaint, on June 17,
1909, charging Tomas Bernardo with the crime of estupro. The defendant excepted
on the ground of lack of jurisdiction, the court overruled the demurrer and declared
that it was competent in the matter at issue. The case thereupon came up for trial
and, upon the evidence adduced therein, judgment was rendered on March 18,
1910, sentencing the accused to the penalty of four months of arresto mayor, to
pay an indemnity of P400 to the offended party, to recognize as his daughter the
female child born to the said Isidora Mesina, to pay to the latter P10 a month for
the support of the child, and the costs. From this judgment the defendant appealed.

While it is true that the crime of simple, unqualified, seduction is punishable under
article 443 of the Penal Code with the penalty of arresto mayor, it is no less true
that article 449 of the same code provides that —

"Those guilty of rape, seduction, or abduction shall be condemned also, by way of

indemnification: (1) To endow the injured woman, if she were unmarried or a
widow; (2) to acknowledge the offspring, if the character of its origin should not
prevent it; (3) in all cases, to support the offspring."
cralaw virtua1aw library

These declarations, necessarily required by statute, are not really, in a strict legal
sense, accessories of the personal penalty imposed by the Penal Code upon the
seducer, but are rather those which the penal law prescribes shall be made by the
judge in passing final sentence in the cause, in order that it may be shown that,
besides the personal penalty, the accused, in consequence of his crime, has
incurred the obligations expressly stated by the said code.

These obligations imposed upon the culprit ordinarily exceed the amount of the
penalty fixed by the law as being within the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace
court and comprise, moreover, by virtue of the forced recognition imposed by
article 135 of the Civil Code, the special determination of the civil status of the
offspring which resulted from the crime, consequently, although the said crime of
seduction is only punished by the penalty of arresto mayor, a judgment of
conviction can not be pronounced by a justice of the peace, on account of his lack
of jurisdiction.

But disregarding the amount of the indemnity, whatever it be, according to the
conditions and circumstances of the offended party and of the one obliged to
furnish the same, which amount might be greater than that fixed by law as within
the jurisdiction of justice of the peace courts, the acknowledgment of the resulting
offspring, one of the findings which the sentence must contain, establishes by force
of law the civil status of the child whose acknowledgment is necessarily imposed
upon the guilty party; so with much less reason could the crime fall within the
jurisdiction of the justice of the peace court, inasmuch as, in accordance with
specific legal provisions, only the judge of the Court of First Instance can make
such pronouncements.

Under this hypothesis, the justice of the peace of Mariquina was not competent and
could not possibly have had jurisdiction to hear and try the case for the crime of
seduction brought before him by Saturnino Mesina, the father of the offended girl,
Isidora Mesina, as he did, rendering judgment on June 10, 1909, with the findings
recorded on folio 7 of the trial record; and therefore, all the proceedings had in the
said case, together with the judgment, are null and void, and- the judge of the
Court of First Instance, before whom the case came on appeal by the accused,
should have dismissed the same, as it was an action that was null and
unsustainable for the reasons afore-mentioned; hence he could not legally have
considered the complaint filed by the provincial fiscal by reason of the said appeal
of the accused, inasmuch as, in order to try the crime which was the subject of that
complaint, the judge of the Court of First Instance had to act by virtue of his
original jurisdiction; in the present case he could not lawfully do so because that
complaint was founded on the action tried before the justice of the peace which had
come to the Court of First Instance on appeal, and the judge of First Instance had
to hear and try the case by virtue of the jurisdiction which he had acquired by
reason of the appeal pending in second instance. It would be improper to conclude
that the said judge exercised the attributes of both courts at the same time by
virtue of his original jurisdiction and of the appeal.

After the case had been dismissed, and the proceedings had before the justice of
the peace, together with his decision in the matter, had been declared null and
void, the judge of First Instance, in the exercise of his original jurisdiction, could
have given, in accordance with the law, due course to the complaint which would
then have been presented by the provincial fiscal independently of the aforesaid
proceedings, which were improperly instituted owing to the absolute lack of
jurisdiction on the part of the justice of the peace to hear and try causes for the
crime of seduction, for the reasons hereinbefore set forth.

In the case of Carroll and Ballesteros v. Paredes, on the petition for a writ
of certiorari, the judgment, dated September 26, 1910, contained the following
statements: jgc:chanrobles.com.ph

". . . Appealed criminal cases ’shall be tried in all respects anew.’ De novo, over
again. The nature of the action can not be changed in the Court of First Instance,
but must be tried de novo upon its merits on the same process and pleadings; that
is, the process and proceedings must be of the same nature as those in the justice
of the peace court. The prosecuting officer, however, can substitute his own
complaint for that filed in the justice of the peace court, provided the nature of the
action is not changed. In this jurisdiction no provision is made for an appeal from
justice of the peace courts upon the law only, but all appeals are taken for a new
trial, and the defendant is entitled to interpose the same objections as he could
have interposed in the justice of the peace courts.

"If the sentence imposed upon him by the justice of the peace is void for want of
jurisdiction of the subject matter, the defendant, on appeal, has a right to have the
appellate court so determine, or he may elect to have the Court of First Instance try
the case upon its merits, without raising the question of the jurisdiction of the
justice of the peace. If he raises no objection with reference to the jurisdiction of
the justice of the peace and submits himself to be retried for the crime for which he
was charged, then he will be presumed to have waived all questions as to
jurisdiction, and he can not thereafter raise this question of jurisdiction, provided
the appellate court had jurisdiction of his person and the subject matter. But should
he make a timely objection in the appellate court as to the want or excess of
jurisdiction of the justice of the peace, and should the court find such objection well
founded, then it acquires jurisdiction only for the purpose of dismissing the same,
without prejudice however to the institution of a new proceeding for the same
criminal acts in the proper tribunal. But in order to take advantage of these rights
the appellant must by proper objection call the attention of the court to these facts
and give the court an opportunity to pass upon the validity of such sentence;
otherwise he will be, as we have said, presumed to have waived the question of
jurisdiction. No agreement of the parties, or waiver of objection, can confer
jurisdiction on an appellate court which has no jurisdiction of the subject matter. . .

"In 24 Cyc., 641, it is said: jgc:chanrobles.com.ph

"‘On appeal from a justice of the peace, the appellate court has only such
jurisdiction as the justice had, and if he had no jurisdiction, the appellate court
acquires none; and it is immaterial that such court has original jurisdiction of the
subject matter of the action.’

"A number of cases from various States in the American Union are cited in support
of this proposition. It must be noted that this rule is based upon the theory that the
appellate court had jurisdiction of the subject matter of the action.

"On page 643 of the same volume (24 CYC.) it is said: jgc:chanrobles.com.ph

"‘While it has been held that, where the justice of the peace had no jurisdiction of
the subject matter of an action, the parties can not confer jurisdiction on the
appellate court by consent, the better view seems to be that where the appellate
court has original as well as appellate jurisdiction of the cause, jurisdiction of both
the subject matter and the person may be conferred upon it by waiver or consent.’
(Citing cases from Alabama, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan,
Minnesota, and Ohio.)

"‘The question of want of jurisdiction may be raised by motion to dismiss the

proceedings, or by objecting at the trial to the introduction of any evidence on
behalf of Plaintiff.’ Id.

x          x           x

"2. That in a criminal case where a justice of the peace renders a judgment wherein
he does not have jurisdiction of the person of the defendant and the subject matter
of the action, and an appeal is taken to the Court of First Instance, and no objection
is interposed in the said Court of First Instance as to the jurisdiction of the justice
of the peace, then the defendant will be presumed to have waived all objections to
such jurisdiction and the case can be tried upon its merits: Provided, however, That
the nature of the action is not changed and that the said Court of First Instance had
jurisdiction of the subject matter of the action; but when a timely objection is made
to the jurisdiction of the appellate court (Court of First Instance) to try such case on
its merits, the said court only acquires jurisdiction to dismiss the case; . . ." (p.
108).

For the reasons hereinbefore stated and those contained in the above citations it
has been demonstrated that the Court of First Instance, in the exercise of its
appellate jurisdiction, could not validly take cognizance of a crime which was the
subject matter of an action and judgment in the justice of the peace court that
were null and void for want of jurisdiction, by virtue of a complaint filed by the
provincial fiscal in the said Court of First Instance in view of said action, before the
latter had dismissed the appeal interposed by the accused on the ground of the
manifest nullity of the trial.

All the proceedings had in the present cause, together with the sentence therein
pronounced, are declared to be null and void, and the Court of First Instance shall
act in accordance with the law with respect to the proceedings of the justice of the
peace court of Mariquina. The costs are declared de oficio. So ordered.

Arellano, C.J., Mapa and Johnson, JJ., concur.

Carson and Trent, JJ., dissent.