[ G.R. No. 22631. November 29, 1924 ] 50 Phil. 884
[ G.R. No. 22631. November 29, 1924 ]
THE PEOPLE OP THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. JUAN CARIASO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT. D E C I S I O N
ROMUALDEZ, J.:
The complaint which initiated these proceedings is as follows:
“That on or about January 16, 1924, and in the municipal district of Siraway of the Province of Zamboanga, Philippine Islands, the said accused who was then and there a teacher in the public school named ‘Siokon Settlement Farm School’ and as such in charge of the education and instruction of the Mora Ubbang, 11 years of age, voluntarily, illegally and criminally lay with said Ubbang girl against her will. Contrary to law and within the jurisdiction of this court.”
After trial, the Court of First Instance of Zamboanga found the accused guilty of the crime of rape and sentenced him to seventeen years and four months reclusion temporal, to endow the offended party in the sum of P00, to recognize and support the offspring, if any, and to pay the costs. The accused appeals from this judgment and makes two assignments of error committed by the trial court: (1) In giving weight to the testimony of the alleged offended party and in not taking into consideration that of the five witnesses for the defense; and (2) in not acquitting him and ordering his release. After examining the evidence we find it proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused had carnal relations with the offended party on the occasion referred to in the complaint. It has not been sufficiently proved that the offended party at that time was less than 12 years of age, nor that the act consummated was against her will. And, giving the accused the benefit of the reasonable doubt which we entertain on these two points, there are no grounds for declaring him guilty of the crime of rape. He, however, according to the allegations of the complaint, was then “a teacher in the public school named ‘Siokon Settlement Farm School/ and as such was in charge of the education and instruction of the Mora Ubbang;” and said accused, according to the testimony of Cristino Buendia, a witness for the defense, “was in charge of the field work of the school and, at the same time, taught the second grade of said school” (p. 40, s. t. n.). And, according to the offended party’s testimony, at that time she was a pupil of the third grade in said school and was working in the field known as the school garden (p. 6, Ibid). Although the accused was not the teacher of the third grade class which the offended party attended and which the trial court referred to in remarking that he “was not, however, in charge of the class which the offended party attended on the day in question,” nevertheless, he was in charge of the education of the offended party in agricultural matters, because he was in charge of the field work of the school, according to the witness for the defense, Cristino Buendia. And we hold that this relation of the accused to the offended party is sufficient to make the seduction, which we understand was voluntary, punishable under the provisions of article 443 of the Penal Code. The term “teacher,” employed in this article, includes not only teachers who give academic instruction, but also those of trade schools. (Decision of the Supreme Court of Spain of December 15,1883; vide 3 Viada, Codigo Penal, pp. 136, 137.) Under the terms of the complaint and upon the facts proved, the accused may and must be held guilty of the crime defined and penalized in said article 443 of the Penal Code. Therefore, the judgment appealed from finding the appellant guilty of the crime of rape is reversed and he is found guilty of the crime of qualified seduction as denned and punished in the first paragraph of article 443 of the Penal Code, and he is sentenced to one year, eight months and twenty-one days prision correctional, to the accessories provided in article 61 of the Penal Code, to endow the offended party in the sum of P300, to recognize and support the offspring, if any, and in case of insolvency of the endowment and support of the offspring, to suffer subsidiary imprisonment not to exceed one-third of the principal penalty here imposed, with the costs of both instances against the appellant. So ordered. Street, Avanceña, Villamor, Ostrand, and Johns, JJ., concur.