People vs Manantan GR L-14129

Facts:
Guillermo Manantan was charged with a violation of Section 54, Revised Election Code. However, Manantan claims that as "justice of peace", the
defendant is not one of the officers enumerated in the said section. The lower court denied the motion to dismiss holding that a justice of peace is
within the purview of Section 54.
Under Section 54, "No justice, judge, fiscal, treasurer, or assessor of any province, no officer or employee of the Army, no member of the national,
provincial, city, municipal or rural police force and no classified civil service officer or employee shall aid any candidate, or exert any influence in any
manner in a election or take part therein, except to vote, if entitled thereto, or to preserve public peace, if he is a peace officer.".
Defendant submits that the said election was taken from Section 449 of the Revised Administration Code wherein, "No judge of the First Instance,
justice of the peace, or treasurer, fiscal or assessor of any province and no officer or employee of the Philippine Constabulary, or any Bureau or
employee of the classified civil service, shall aid any candidate or exert influence in any manner in any election or take part therein otherwise than
exercising the right to vote.". He claims that the words "justice of peace" was omitted revealed the intention of Legislature to exclude justices of
peace from its operation.
Issue:
Is justice of peace included in the prohibition of Section 64 of the Revised Election Code?
Held:
Yes, it is included in Section 54. Justices of the peace were expressly included in Section 449 of the Revised Administrative Code because the kinds
of judges therein were specified, i.e., judge of the First Instance and justice of the peace. In Section 54, however, there was no necessity therefore to
include justices of the peace in the enumeration because the legislature had availed itself of the more generic and broader term, "judge.", which
includes all kinds of judges.
A "justice of the peace" is a judge. A "judge" is a public officer, who, by virtue of his office, is clothed with judicial authority. This term includes all
officers appointed to to decide litigated questions while acting in that capacity, including justices of the peace, and even jurors, it is said, who are
judges of facts.
From the history of Section 54 of REC, the first omission of the word "justice of the peace" was effected in Section 48 of Commonwealth Act No. 357
and not in the present code as averred by defendant-appellee. Whenever the word "judge" was qualified by the phrase "of the First Instance', the
words "justice of the peace" were omitted. It follows that when the legislature omitted the words "justice of the peace" in RA 180, it did not intend to
exempt the said officer from its operation. Rather, it had considered the said officer as already comprehended in the broader term "judge".
The rule of "casus omisus pro omisso habendus est" is likewise invoked by the defendant-appellee. Under the said rule, a person, object or thing
omitted from an enumeration must be held to have been omitted intentionally. However, it is applicable only if the omission has been clearly
established. In the case at bar, the legislature did not exclude or omit justices of the peace from the enumeration of officers precluded from engaging
in partisan political activities. In Section 54, justices of the peace were just called "judges". Also, the application of this rule does not proceed from the
mere fact that a case is criminal in nature, but rather from a reasonable certainty that a particular person, object or thing has been omitted from a
legislative enumeration. In the case at bar, there is no omission but only substitution of terms.
The rule that penal statutes are given a strict construction is not the only factor controlling the interpretation of such laws; instead, the rule merely
serves as an additional, single factor to be considered as an aid in determining the meaning of penal laws.
Also, the purpose of the statute s to enlarge the officers within its purview. Justices of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, and various judges,
such as the judges of the Court of Industrial Relations, judges of the Court of Agrarian Relations, etc., who were not included in the prohibition under
the old statute, are now within its encompass.
The rule "expressio unius est exclusion alterius" has been erroneously applied by CA and lower courts because they were not able to give reasons
for the exclusion of the legislature for the term "justices of peace".
People vs Tamani GR L-22160-61
FACTS: Tamani was convicted of murder and attempted murder by the lower court on February 14, 1963. Upon receipt of a copy of this order, his
counsel subsequently filed a motion for reconsideration on March 1, 1963, which was denied. The lower court sent a copy of the order of denial to
the counsel by registered mail on July 13, 1963 through the counsels wife. Counsel filed his appeal only on September 10, 1963, forty-eight days
from July 24th, which is the reglementary fifteen-day period for appeal. Appellees contend that the case should be dismissed on the ground that the
appeal was forty-eight days late. They invoked Sec. 6, Rule 122 of the Rules of Court which states that an appeal must be taken within fifteen (15)
days from the promulgation or notice of the judgment or order appealed from.
ISSUE: Whether the fifteen-day period should commence from the date of promulgation of the decision.
RULING: Yes. Using the rule of reddendo singula singulis, the word promulgation should be construed as referring to judgment, while notice
should be construed as referring to order. Tamanis appeal is therefore 58 days late, not 47, as Appellees contend; he only had a day left from the
receipt of his wife of the notice on July 13. Nonetheless, the court decided to act upon the appeal at hand to obviate any possible miscarriage of
justice
Diokno v. Rehabilitation Finance CorporationCase No. 93G.R. No. L-4712 (July 11, 1952)
FACTS:
Petitioner, the holder of a back pay certificate of indebtedness issued under RA 304, sought to compel Respondent company to accept his back pay
certificate as payment of his loan from the latter. His basis was Sec. 2 of RA 304, which provides that investment funds or banks or other financial
institutions owned or controlled by the Government shall, subject to the availability of loanable funds, and any provision of the their charters, articles
of incorporation's, by-laws, or rules and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, accept or discount at not more than two per centum per annum
for ten years such certificate for the following purposes only: (1) the acquisition of real property for use as the applicant's home, or (2) the building or
construction of the residential house of the payee of said certificate: . . .. Respondent company contended however that the word shall used in this
particular section of the law is merely directory. The lower court sustained Respondent Company.

ISSUE:
W/N Petitioner can use his back pay certificate to pay for his loan to Respondent Company.
HELD:
No. It is true that in its ordinary signification, the word shall is imperative. However, the rule is not absolute; it may be construed as may when
required by the context or by the intention of the statute. The modifier, at not more than two per centum per annum for ten years., the interest to be
charged, that the verb phrase is mandatory because not only the law uses at not more but the legislative purpose and intent, to conserve the value
of the back pay certificate for the benefit of the holders, for whose benefit the same have been issued, can be carried out by fixing a maximum limit
for discounts. But as to when the discounting or acceptance shall be made, the context and the sense demand a contrary interpretation. If the
acceptance or discount of the certificate is to be subject to the condition of the availability of loanable funds, it is evident the legislature intended
that the acceptance shall be allowed on the condition that there are available loanable funds. In other words, acceptance or discount is to be
permitted only if there are loanable funds.
Bersabal v. Salvador
G.R. No. L-35910 (July 21, 1978)
FACTS: Private Respondents filed an ejectment suit against the Petitioner. The subsequent decision was appealed by the Petitioner and during its
pendency, the court issued an order stating that counsels for both parties are given 30 days from receipt of this order within which to file their
memoranda in order for this case to be submitted for decision by the court. After receipt, Petitioner filed a motion ex parte to submit memorandum
within 30 days from receipt of notice of submission of the transcript of stenographic notes taken during the hearing of the case which was granted by
the court. But the Respondent judge issued an order dismissing the case for failure to prosecute Petitioners appeal. Petitioner filed a motion for
reconsideration citing the submitted ex parte motion but the court denied it.
ISSUE: WON the submission of memoranda in Section 45 of RA No. 296 optional?
HELD: YES.
The second paragraph of Section 45 of R.A. No. 296, otherwise known as the Philippine Judiciary Act of 1948, as amended by R.A. No. 6031
provides, in part, as follows:
Courts of First Instance shall decide such appealed cases on the basis of the evidence and records transmitted from the city or municipal
courts: Provided, That the parties may submit memoranda and/or brief with oral argument if so requested ... . (Emphasis supplied).
The foregoing provision is clear and leaves no room for doubt. It cannot be interpreted otherwise than that the submission of memoranda is optional
on the part of the parties. Being optional on the part of the parties, the latter may so choose to waive submission of the memoranda. And as a logical
concomitant of the choice given to the Parties, the Court cannot dismiss the appeal of the party waiving the submission of said memorandum the
appellant so chooses not to submit the memorandum, the Court of First Instance is left with no alternative but to decide the case on the basis of the
evidence and records transmitted from the city or municipal courts. In other words, the Court is not empowered by law to dismiss the appeal on the
mere failure of an appellant to submit his memorandum, but rather it is the Court's mandatory duty to decide the case on the basis of the available
evidence and records transmitted to it.
As a general rule, the word "may" when used in a statute is permissive only and operates to confer discretion; while the word "shall" is imperative,
operating to impose a duty which may be enforced (Dizon vs. Encarnacion, L-18615, Dec. 24, 1963, 9 SCRA 714, 716-717). The implication is that
the Court is left with no choice but to decide the appealed case either on the basis of the evidence and records transmitted to it, or on the basis of
the latter plus memoranda and/or brief with oral argument duly submitted and/or made on request.
Moreover, memoranda, briefs and oral arguments are not essential requirements. They may be submitted and/or made only if so requested.