[ G. R. No. 17427. February 17, 1922 ] 42 Phil. 788
[ G. R. No. 17427. February 17, 1922 ]
JULIANA PAYOMO, PETITIONER, VS. O. FLOYD, CAPTAIN, U. S. MARINE CORPS, RESERVATION OFFICER, OLONGAPO NAVAL RESERVATION, RESPONDENT. D E C I S I O N
STREET, J.:
This is an original application for the writ of habeas corpus in behalf of Calixto Mendigorin to secure liberation from detention at the hands of Captain 0. Floyd, Reservation Officer at the Subic Bay Naval Station, Olongapo, in the Province of Zambales. A citation to show cause why the writ should not issue having been served, due return was made by the respondent on February 25, 1921. Later this court of its own motion requested the Attorney-General to appear in representation of the respondent, as provided in subsection (b) of section 1661 of the Administrative Code; and at about the same time an order was made for the issuance of the peremptory writ of habeas corpus, requiring the respondent to have the detained person before this court on March 23, 1921, to be dealt with according to law. At the request of the Attorney-General, the order for the production of the detained person in court was waived; but on the date stated both parties appeared either in person or by counsel, when by consent an order was entered admitting the detained person to bail, and the respondent submitted as part of his return a printed copy of the Laws and Regulations for the Organization and Administration of the United States Naval Reservation, Olongapo, Philippine Islands, approved July, 1920, by Rear Admiral C. B. Morgan, Commandant. The cause was then orally argued and submitted for determination on the issues thus presented.
It appears that by an executive order dated November 26, 1902, President Roosevelt proclaimed a Naval Reservation at Olongapo, in the Province of Zambales, Philippine Islands. After defining the limits of the Naval Reservation, it was declared in this proclamation that said reservation and all land included therein should be under the governance and control of the Navy Department. At a later date the control thus vested in the Navy Department was delegated by the Secretary of War to the Commandant of the Naval Station at Olongapo; and on July 20, 1920, Rear Admiral C. B. Morgan, U. S. N., as such Commandant, promulgated certain rules and regulations for the reservation under the title of “Laws and Regulations for the Organization and Administration of the United States Naval Reservation, Olongapo, Philippine Islands.” These regulations exhibit an orderly scheme for the organization and administration of the government, both military and civil, throughout the reservation, including Olongapo, which is a town, containing nearly ten thousand inhabitants, located within its confines.
Among the provisions contained in this little Code, pertinent to the matter now in hand, is subsection 5 of Article I, which creates the office of a reservation police judge and confers on him original jurisdiction over all infractions of the laws and regulations aforesaid. It is further declared that, in determining the penalties to be imposed on offenders, the police judge shall be limited to such fines and punishments as might be imposed by a justice of the peace in a civil community for like offenses under the Penal Code of the Philippine Islands.
As to cases brought before him which are beyond the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, the police judge is directed to turn the accused over to the local justice of the peace, to be bound over to the Court of First Instance of Zambales.
As is readily discernible from the tenor of this provision, the purpose in creating the office of the police judge evidently was to confer on him a criminal jurisdiction substantially identical with that of an ordinary justice of the peace, so far as relates to infractions of the Laws and Regulations promulgated by the Commandant for the government and administration of the Olongapo Naval Reservation.
Before the police court thus constituted, Calixto Mendigorin, a civilian resident of Subic, Zambales, was arraigned on February 12, 1921, for violation of subsection 13, Article II, of the Laws and Regulations aforesaid, which provision prohibits the cutting of timber on the reservation without a permit from the proper officer. Though it does not affirmatively appear that any complaint or information was formulated against the accused in writing, he was duly appraised of the nature of the charge against him; and after trial in accordance with the procedure appropriate in criminal causes, he was found guilty and fined for two distinct offenses, to wit, P200 for the unlawful cutting of timber on the reservation, and another P200 for attempting to cut timber on the reservation. The court further assessed damages against him in the amount of P600 for unlawful trespass, making a total of P1,000. No part of this amount having been paid by the accused, he was placed in confinement by the respondent reservation officer, being given to understand that he would be released upon presentation of an acceptable bond for the payment of said P1,000, within a reasonable time.
Proceeding now to the questions of law arising upon the facts stated, it must be premised that this court, or for that matter any Court of First Instance in the Philippine Islands, undoubtedly has jurisdiction to set a civilian person at liberty if unlawfully arrested or detained by the military or naval authorities of the United States. In this respect we have the same authority as the federal courts in the United States. It is true that in the case of In re Calloway (1 Phil., 11), this court held that the courts of the Philippine Islands had no authority to release persons imprisoned by military authority. This decision, however, was based on General Orders No. 70, then in force, which expressly denied to this and other courts in the Philippine Islands the right to set at liberty any prisoner arrested in pursuance of military orders. But the law on this point was changed by Act No. 136, in relation with Act No. 190, which came into, effect subsequently to that decision. Our authority in the matter is now general, subject only to the restrictions expressed in section 529 of Act No. 190, as amended.
In this connection we do not overlook the fact that the courts of the various States comprising the American Union do not exercise jurisdiction over applications for the writ of habeas corpus to discharge a person detained under the authority of the Government of the United States. (12 R. C. L., 1219.) But this familiar limitation on the powers of the State courts is based upon the subjection of the States to the authority of the Federal Government; and the result is that the application for relief in such case must be made to some court organized under the laws of the Union. As there is no United States court, properly speaking, in existence in these Islands, the jurisdiction to hear and determine such an application as that now before us is necessarily vested in the courts that are here organized and operating under the authority of the laws of the United States, that is, in the Supreme Court and our Courts of First Instance.
The next point to be observed upon is that, where the detained person is held in restraint by virtue of a judgment rendered by a military or naval court, tribunal, or officer, no court entertaining an application for the writ of habeas corpus has authority to review the proceedings of that tribunal, court, or officer in the sense of determining whether the judgment was erroneous. The only question to be considered is whether the court, tribunal, or officer rendering the judgment had jurisdiction to entertain the case and render judgment at all. As was said by the Supreme Court of the United States in a case where the writ of habeas corpus had been sued out to liberate a person detained by virtue of the sentence of a court-martial, the civil courts exercise no supervisory or correcting power by the writ of habeas corpus over the proceedings of a court- martial and no mere errors in their proceedings are open to consideration. “The single inquiry, the test, is jurisdiction. That being established, the habeas corpus must be denied and the petitioner remanded. That wanting, it must be sustained and the petitioner discharged.” (In re Grimley, 137 U. S., 147; 11 Sup. Ct. Rep., 54; 34 L. ed., 636. See also 12 R. C. L., 1240; 21 Cyc, 326.) As otherwise stated the rule is that the proceedings of a military or naval court cannot be reviewed upon habeas corpus when it appears that such tribunal had jurisdiction over the offense charged and that the offender was a person amenable to its authority. (McGorray vs. Murphy, 80 Ohio St., 413; 17 Am. & Eng. Ann. Cas., 444.)
The sole question therefore in the case now before us is whether the reservation police judge, constituted as above stated, is a person, or court, lawfully empowered to hear and determine a criminal charge of the character of that upon which Calixto Mendigorin was tried and convicted. In our opinion it is clear that he had not this authority.
The question involves a consideration of the fundamental relations of the Army and Navy of the United States to the Civil Government of these Islands; and any discussion of the matter may well begin with an opinion of the Attorney-General of the United States, dated December 10, 1906, wherein the status of the Naval Reservation at Olongapo was considered. (26 Opinions, Atty.-Gen., 91.) By reference to that opinion, it will be seen that the Secretary of War had propounded to the Department of Justice a question as to the extent of the jurisdiction of the Navy Department over persons and property within the limits of said reservation, and particular inquiry was made as to whether the jurisdiction of the Navy Department was of such character and extent as to exclude the civil powers of the Philippine Government. The answer was in the negative.
Briefly stated, the position there taken is that the Government of the Philippine Islands is one of the branches, or dependencies, of the Government of the United States; that it has been endowed by Congress with authority to make its laws effective in the military and naval reservations; and that the jurisdiction of the Navy Department over the reservation in question is not of such character and extent as to justify it in the assumption of the functions of government or to exclude the operation of the civil powers of the Government of the Philippine Islands. It is also pointed out in said opinion that the Philippine Commission had enacted a law (Act No. 530) with especial reference to the conditions prevailing in the military and naval reservations and had made it a penal offense to cut timber thereon without lawful authority. As is observed by the author of the opinion referred to, this Act (No. 530) shows a definite assertion of jurisdiction by the Philippine Government over such reservations, though coupled with a scrupulous intention to support the national rights and aid the reservation purposes. (26 Opinions, Atty. Gen., 97.)
If that opinion is correct—and we believe it is—it necessarily follows that the naval authorities have no power to set up a court, or office, in the Olongapo Reservation with jurisdiction over matters cognizable under the penal laws of the Philippine Islands; for if the functions of the civil courts of the Philippine Islands can be excluded at one point, the whole civil system can be superseded altogether.
One of the considerations showing that the Navy Department has no authority to make laws binding on the civil population and set up a court in the reservation to enforce those laws is found in the Act of Congress and the Presidential order under which the reservation was set apart. The power of the President of the United States in the premises is derived from section 12 of the Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, known as the Philippine Bill, which recognizes the power of the President of the United States to designate for military and other reservations “land or other property” acquired by the United States under the Treaty of Peace with Spain. It will be noted that the language there used is confined to the reservation of “land or other property.” It does not confer governmental jurisdiction. “It deals with property belonging to the Government; but does not grant the power to exercise the functions of government.” (26 Opinions, Atty.-Gen., 98.)
Then, again, when the reservation in question was created by proclamation of the President of the United States, it was placed under the “governance and control” of the Navy Department. This expression (“governance and control”) means no more than would be implied by the same words in any ordinary grant of franchise to any other entity. That is, it has reference to the administration of the property by the Navy Department for the use for which it was intended, and this, be it understood, in subjection to the general laws of the land. It is a rudimentary principle that a court cannot be created without direct legislative authority; and in this case no legislative authority whatever can be adduced for the establishment of the special office, or court, of the reservation police judge in the reservation.
The relation between the Civil Government of the Philippine Islands and the military and naval arms of the Government of the United States is accurately defined in the first paragraph of section 498 of the Administrative Code of the Philippine Islands (1917), which declares that the acquisition by the United States of land in the Philippine Islands for reservation purposes does not withdraw such land from the operation of the laws of these Islands except in so far as the same shall militate against or be inconsistent with the uses for which the property is held by the United States. This provision recognizes the fact that the military and naval authorities have an Incontestable right to use the reservation for military and naval purposes; and we have no hesitancy in expressing our conformity with the Attorney-General of the United States on the proposition that military control up to the limit of military necessity is paramount. But it is unnecessary for us to attempt here to define what the uses are to which the property may be legitimately put. These uses must be discovered from time to time as particular occasions arise. It is enough to say here that that provision cited does not confer a charter for the exercise of the functions of government over the civilian population of the reservation.
But it is said that experience has shown that a special tribunal of the character of that filled by the reservation police judge is exceedingly useful to the Olongapo community and convenient to the naval authorities in maintaining order in and around that centre. In this connection attention is directed to the fact that Iba, the provincial capital, is 60 kilometers distant from Olongapo; and it seems to be supposed that the exigencies of the police administration in Olongapo would not be served as well in criminal matters by a local justice of the peace as by a police judge constituted under the laws and regulations promulgated by the Commandant. A complete reply to this argument—and the only reply that can be made—is contained in the opinion to which we have already referred, in which the Attorney-General of the United States says:
“I do not think that the arguments ab inconvenienti which are advanced—the extent of the territory, the existence of local municipalities, the necessities of sanitation, the imperfections of native administration—can be heard to vary the rules of construction and enlarge the authority.” (26 Opinions, Atty.-Gen., 98.)
Another consideration which shows conclusively that, in this particular case at least, the police judge was without authority to pass sentence upon Calixto Mendigorin is found in the limitations imposed on the jurisdiction of said judge in the very article which creates the office. It is there stated that the fines and punishment to be meted out by the police judge shall be the same as those that might be assigned to similar offenses by a justice of the peace of the Philippine Islands. Upon examining the laws of the Philippine Islands, however, it will be found that our justice of the peace has no jurisdiction over the offense of cutting or destroying timber upon land reserved for military or naval purposes in these Islands; for by section 2661 of the Administrative Code (1917) said offense is made punishable by a fine in an amount not exceeding P1,000 or imprisonment for a period of not exceeding twelve months, or both, in the discretion of the judge. The penalty, or penalties, imposable under this section are not within the competency of the court of a justice of the peace; and any prosecution under that section must be conducted in a Court of First Instance. The circumstance that the two fines which were in fact imposed by the police judge in this case are not in excess of the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace does not bring the case within the jurisdiction of the police judge. The test of the limit of jurisdiction is not in the amount of the fine actually imposed but in the amount which may be imposed under the law applicable to the case.
Our conclusion is that Calixto Mendigorin is entitled to be at liberty and that the bond heretofore executed for his temporary enlargement should be discharged. It is so declared, without special pronouncement as to costs. Writ granted. So ordered,
Araullo, C. J., Avanceña, Villamor, Ostrand, Johns, and Romualdez, JJ., concur.