Case Digest (G.R. No. L-1960)
Facts:
The People of the Philippines v. Florentino Abilong, G.R. No. L-1960. November 26, 1948, the Supreme Court En Banc, Montemayor, J., writing for the Court.
The People of the Philippines (plaintiff-appellee) prosecuted Florentino Abilong (defendant-appellant) in the Court of First Instance of Manila for alleged evasion of service of sentence. The information charged that on or about September 17, 1947, Abilong, having been previously sentenced by the Municipal Court on April 5, 1946, in Criminal Case No. B-4795 for attempted robbery to serve two years, four months and one day of destierro and to avoid entering any place within 100 kilometers of the City of Manila, willfully evaded that sentence by entering the prohibited area and committing vagrancy.
Upon arraignment in the Court of First Instance Abilong pleaded guilty; the trial court sentenced him to two years, four months and one day of prision correccional, imposed accessory penalties and costs. Abilong appealed the conviction to the Supreme Court, assigning as error that Article 157 of the Revised Penal Code—punishing "evasion of service of sentence"—does not cover evasion of destierro, because the English text of Article 157 uses the word "imprisonment" and, so argued, refers only to confinement in a penal institution.
The Solicitor General answered that the Spanish text of Article 157 controls and that the phrase “sufriendo privacion de libertad” (literally, suffering deprivation of liberty) includes destierro as a form of deprivation of liberty; he relied on prior decisions including People v. Samonte and People v. Jose de Jesus. The Supreme Court, through Montemayor, J., affirmed the conviction. Justices Perfecto and Briones filed a diss...(Pro-only)
Issues:
- Does Article 157 of the Revised Penal Code, as construed from its controlling Spanish text, criminalize the evasion of a sentence of destierro (banishment) by entering the prohib...(Pro-only)
Ruling:
- (Pro-only)
Ratio:
- (Pro-only)
Doctrine:
- (Pro-only)