art. 1 (1) us vs look chow, (2) us vs wong cheng

8/12/2019 Art. 1 (1) US vs Look Chow, (2) US vs Wong Cheng

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US vs. Look Chaw, G.R. No. L-5887,

December 16, 1910

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT

Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-5887 December 16, 1910

THE UNITED STATES,plaintiff-appellee, vs. LOOK CHAW (alias LUKCHIU),defendant-appellant.

Thos. D. Aitken for appellant.

Attorney-General Villamor for appellee.

ARELLANO, C. J.:

The first complaint filed against the defendant, in the Court of FirstInstance of Cebu, stated that he "carried, kept, possessed and had in hispossession and control, 96 kilogrammes of opium," and that "he had beensurprised in the act of selling 1,000 pesos worth prepared opium."

The defense presented a demurrer based on two grounds, the second ofwhich was the more than one crime was charged in the complaint. Thedemurrer was sustained, as the court found that the complaint containedtwo charges, one, for the unlawful possession of opium, and the other, forthe unlawful sale of opium, and, consequence of that ruling, it ordered thatthe fiscal should separated one charge from the other and file a complaintfor each violation; this, the fiscal did, and this cause concerns only theunlawful possession of opium. It is registered as No. 375, in the Court ofFirst Instance of Cebu, and as No. 5887 on the general docket of thiscourt.

The facts of the case are contained in the following finding of the trial court:

The evidence, it says, shows that between 11 and 12 o'clock a. m. on thepresent month (stated as August 19, 1909), several persons, among themMessrs. Jacks and Milliron, chief of the department of the port of Cebu andinternal-revenue agent of Cebu, respectively, went abroad the steamshipErroll to inspect and search its cargo, and found, first in a cabin near thesaloon, one sack (Exhibit A) and afterwards in the hold, another sack


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(Exhibit B). The sack referred to as Exhibit A contained 49 cans of opium,and the other, Exhibit B, the larger sack, also contained several cans of thesame substance. The hold, in which the sack mentioned in Exhibit B wasfound, was under the defendant's control, who moreover, freely and of hisown will and accord admitted that this sack, as well as the other referred to

in Exhibit B and found in the cabin, belonged to him. The said defendantalso stated, freely and voluntarily, that he had bought these sacks ofopium, in Hongkong with the intention of selling them as contraband inMexico or Vera Cruz, and that, as his hold had already been searchedseveral times for opium, he ordered two other Chinamen to keep the sack.Exhibit A.

It is to be taken into account that the two sacks of opium, designated asExhibits A and B, properly constitute the corpus delicti. Moreover, anotherlot of four cans of opium, marked, as Exhibit C, was the subject matter of

investigation at the trial, and with respect to which the chief of thedepartment of the port of Cebu testified that they were found in the part ofthe ship where the firemen habitually sleep, and that they were delivered tothe first officer of the ship to be returned to the said firemen after thevessel should have left the Philippines, because the firemen and crew offoreign vessels, pursuant to the instructions he had from the Manilacustom-house, were permitted to retain certain amounts of opium, alwaysprovided it should not be taken shore.

And, finally, another can of opium, marked "Exhibit D," is also corpus delictiand important as evidence in this cause. With regard to this the internal-revenue agent testified as follows:itc-alf

FISCAL. What is it?

WITNESS. It is a can opium which was bought from the defendant by asecret-service agent and taken to the office of the governor to prove thatthe accused had opium in his possession to sell.

On motion by the defense, the court ruled that this answer might bestricken out "because it refers to a sale." But, with respect to this answer,

the chief of the department of customs had already given this testimony, towit:

FISCAL. Who asked you to search the vessel?

WITNESS. The internal-revenue agent came to my office and said that aparty brought him a sample of opium and that the same party knew thatthere was more opium on board the steamer, and the agent asked that the


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vessel be searched.

The defense moved that this testimony be rejected, on the ground of itsbeing hearsay evidence, and the court only ordered that the part thereof"that there was more opium, on board the vessel" be stricken out.

The defense, to abbreviate proceedings, admitted that the receptaclesmentioned as Exhibits A, B, and C, contained opium and were found onboard the steamship Erroll, a vessel of English nationality, and that it wastrue that the defendant stated that these sacks of opium were his and thathe had them in his possession.

According to the testimony of the internal-revenue agent, the defendantstated to him, in the presence of the provincial fiscal, of a Chineseinterpreter (who afterwards was not needed, because the defendant spokeEnglish), the warden of the jail, and four guards, that the opium seized inthe vessel had been bought by him in Hongkong, at three pesos for eachround can and five pesos for each one of the others, for the purpose ofselling it, as contraband, in Mexico and Puerto de Vera Cruz; that on the15th the vessel arrived at Cebu, and on the same day he sold opium; thathe had tried to sell opium for P16 a can; that he had a contract to sell anamount of the value of about P500; that the opium found in the room of theother two Chinamen prosecuted in another cause, was his, and that hehad left it in their stateroom to avoid its being found in his room, which hadalready been searched many times; and that, according to the defendant,the contents of the large sack was 80 cans of opium, and of the small one,

49, and the total number, 129.

It was established that the steamship Erroll was of English nationality, thatit came from Hongkong, and that it was bound for Mexico, via the call portsof Manila and Cebu.

The defense moved for a dismissal of the case, on the grounds that thecourt had no jurisdiction to try the same and the facts concerned thereindid not constitute a crime. The fiscal, at the conclusion of his argument,asked that the maximum penalty of the law be imposed upon the

defendant, in view of the considerable amount of opium seized. The courtruled that it did not lack jurisdiction, inasmuch as the crime had beencommitted within its district, on the wharf of Cebu.

The court sentenced the defendant to five years' imprisonment, to pay afine of P10,000, with additional subsidiary imprisonment in case ofinsolvency, though not to exceed one third of the principal penalty, and tothe payment of the costs. It further ordered the confiscation, in favor of the


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Insular Government, of the exhibits presented in the case, and that, in theevent of an appeal being taken or a bond given, or when the sentencedshould have been served, the defendant be not released from custody, butturned over to the customs authorities for the purpose of the fulfillment ofthe existing laws on immigration.

From this judgment, the defendant appealed to this court.lawphi1.net

The appeal having been heard, together with the allegations made thereinby the parties, it is found: That, although the mere possession of a thing ofprohibited use in these Islands, aboard a foreign vessel in transit, in any oftheir ports, does not, as a general rule, constitute a crime triable by thecourts of this country, on account of such vessel being considered as anextension of its own nationality, the same rule does not apply when thearticle, whose use is prohibited within the Philippine Islands, in the present

case a can of opium, is landed from the vessel upon Philippine soil, thuscommitting an open violation of the laws of the land, with respect to which,as it is a violation of the penal law in force at the place of the commissionof the crime, only the court established in that said place itself hadcompetent jurisdiction, in the absence of an agreement under aninternational treaty.

It is also found: That, even admitting that the quantity of the drug seized,the subject matter of the present case, was considerable, it does notappear that, on such account, the two penalties fixed by the law on thesubject, should be imposed in the maximum degree.

Therefore, reducing the imprisonment and the fine imposed to six monthsand P1,000, respectively, we affirm in all other respects the judgmentappealed from, with the costs of this instance against the appellant. Soordered.

Torres, Mapa, Johnson, Carson, Moreland and Trent, JJ., concur.


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Republic of the Philippines SUPREME COURT Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-18924 October 19, 1922

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS,plaintiff-appellant,vs. WONG CHENG (alias WONG CHUN),defendant-appellee.

Attorney-General Villa-Real for appellant.

Eduardo Gutierrez Repidefor appellee.

ROMUALDEZ, J .:

In this appeal the Attorney-General urges the revocation of the orderof the Court of First Instance of Manila, sustaining the demurrerpresented by the defendant to the information that initiated this caseand in which the appellee is accused of having illegally smokedopium, aboard the merchant vessel Changsa of English nationalitywhile said vessel was anchored in Manila Bay two and a half milesfrom the shores of the city.

The demurrer alleged lack of jurisdiction on the part of the lower

court, which so held and dismissed the case.

The question that presents itself for our consideration is whether suchruling is erroneous or not; and it will or will not be erroneousaccording as said court has or has no jurisdiction over said offense.

The point at issue is whether the courts of the Philippines havejurisdiction over crime, like the one herein involved, committedaboard merchant vessels anchored in our jurisdiction waters. 1awph!l.net

There are two fundamental rules on this particular matter inconnection with International Law; to wit, the French rule, accordingto which crimes committed aboard a foreign merchant vessels shouldnot be prosecuted in the courts of the country within whose territorial

jurisdiction they were committed, unless their commission affects thepeace and security of the territory; and the English rule, based on theterritorial principle and followed in the United States, according to


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which, crimes perpetrated under such circumstances are in generaltriable in the courts of the country within territory they werecommitted. Of this two rules, it is the last one that obtains in this

jurisdiction, because at present the theories and jurisprudenceprevailing in the United States on this matter are authority in thePhilippines which is now a territory of the United States.

In the cases of The Schooner Exchange vs. M'Faddon and Others(7Cranch [U. S.], 116), Chief Justice Marshall said:

. . . When merchant vessels enter for the purposes of trade, it wouldbe obviously inconvenient and dangerous to society, and wouldsubject the laws to continual infraction, and the government todegradation, if such individuals or merchants did not owe temporary

and local allegiance, and were not amenable to the jurisdiction of thecountry. . . .

In United States vs.Bull (15 Phil., 7), this court held:

. . . No court of the Philippine Islands had jurisdiction over an offenseor crime committed on the high seas or within the territorial waters ofany other country, but when she came within three miles of a linedrawn from the headlands, which embrace the entrance to ManilaBay, she was within territorial waters, and a new set of principles

became applicable. (Wheaton, International Law [Dana ed.], p. 255,note 105; Bonfils, Le Droit Int., secs. 490 et seq.; Latour, La Mer Ter.,ch. 1.) The ship and her crew were then subject to the jurisdiction ofthe territorial sovereign subject to such limitations as have beenconceded by that sovereignty through the proper political agency. . . .

It is true that in certain cases the comity of nations is observed, as inMali and Wildenhus vs. Keeper of the Common Jail (120 U.., 1),wherein it was said that:

. . . The principle which governs the whole matter is this: Disorderwhich disturb only the peace of the ship or those on board are to bedealt with exclusively by the sovereignty of the home of the ship, butthose which disturb the public peace may be suppressed, and, ifneed be, the offenders punished by the proper authorities of the local

jurisdiction. It may not be easy at all times to determine which of thetwo jurisdictions a particular act of disorder belongs. Much will


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undoubtedly depend on the attending circumstances of the particularcase, but all must concede that felonious homicide is a subject for thelocal jurisdiction, and that if the proper authorities are proceeding withthe case in the regular way the consul has no right to interfere toprevent it.

Hence in United States vs.Look Chaw (18 Phil., 573), this court heldthat:

Although the mere possession of an article of prohibited use in thePhilippine Islands, aboard a foreign vessel in transit in any local port,does not, as a general rule, constitute a crime triable by the courts ofthe Islands, such vessels being considered as an extension of its ownnationality, the same rule does not apply when the article, the use of

which is prohibited in the Islands, is landed from the vessels uponPhilippine soil; in such a case an open violation of the laws of theland is committed with respect to which, as it is a violation of thepenal law in force at the place of the commission of the crime, nocourt other than that established in the said place has jurisdiction ofthe offense, in the absence of an agreement under an internationaltreaty.

As to whether the United States has ever consented by treaty orotherwise to renouncing such jurisdiction or a part thereof, we find

nothing to this effect so far as England is concerned, to which nationthe ship where the crime in question was committed belongs.Besides, in his work "Treaties, Conventions, etc.," volume 1, page625, Malloy says the following:

There shall be between the territories of the United States ofAmerica, and all the territories of His Britanic Majesty in Europe, areciprocal liberty of commerce. The inhabitants of the two countries,respectively, shall have liberty freely and securely to come with theirships and cargoes to all such places, ports and rivers, in theterritories aforesaid, to which other foreigners are permitted to come,to enter into the same, and to remain and reside in any parts of thesaid territories, respectively; also to hire and occupy houses andwarehouses for the purposes of their commerce; and, generally, themerchants and traders of each nation respectively shall enjoy themost complete protection and security for their commerce, but subject


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always to the laws and statutes of the two countries, respectively.(Art. 1, Commerce and Navigation Convention.)

We have seen that the mere possession of opium aboard a foreignvessel in transit was held by this court not triable by or courts,because it being the primary object of our Opium Law to protect theinhabitants of the Philippines against the disastrous effects entailedby the use of this drug, its mere possession in such a ship, withoutbeing used in our territory, does not being about in the said territorythose effects that our statute contemplates avoiding. Hence such amere possession is not considered a disturbance of the public order.

But to smoke opium within our territorial limits, even though aboard aforeign merchant ship, is certainly a breach of the public order here

established, because it causes such drug to produce its perniciouseffects within our territory. It seriously contravenes the purpose thatour Legislature has in mind in enacting the aforesaid repressivestatute. Moreover, as the Attorney-General aptly observes:

. . . The idea of a person smoking opium securely on board a foreignvessel at anchor in the port of Manila in open defiance of the localauthorities, who are impotent to lay hands on him, is simplysubversive of public order. It requires no unusual stretch of theimagination to conceive that a foreign ship may come into the port of

Manila and allow or solicit Chinese residents to smoke opium onboard.

The order appealed from is revoked and the cause orderedremanded to the court of origin for further proceedings in accordancewith law, without special findings as to costs. So ordered.

Araullo, C.J., Street, Malcolm, Avancea, Villamor, Ostrand andJohns, JJ., concur.

art. 1 (1) us vs look chow, (2) us vs wong cheng

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