SECOND
DIVISION
THE
PEOPLE OF THE
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
G.
R.
No. 22945
March
3, 1925
-versus-
JOVITA V.
BUENVIAJE,
Defendant-Appellant.
D
E C I S I
O N
OSTRAND,
J :
The defendant is accused
of violation of the Medical Act, the Information alleging "that on or
about
the first day of June, 1923, and for some time prior to said date, the
said accused, without having obtained from the Board of Medical
Examiners
the corresponding certificate of registration for the practice of
medicine
in the Philippine Islands, voluntarily, illegally and criminally and
for
compensation, practiced medicine in the City of Manila, Philippine
Islands,
assisting, treating and manipulating the head and body of Regino Noble
for the purpose of curing him of the ailments, diseases, pains an
physical
defects from which he pretended to suffer, and advertising and offering
her services as a physician, by means of cards which she distributed
any
by letterheads and signs which she exposed on the door of her officer,
situated at No. 712 Calle Asuncion, and in newspapers which are
published
and circulated in the City of Manila, in which cards, letterheads,
signs
and advertising she added and prefixed to her name the letters 'Dra.,'
which is the abbreviation of the word 'doctor,' for the purpose of
causing
the public to believe that she, the said defendant, had received the
corresponding
title of doctor."
To this Information,
the defendant demurred in the Court below on the grounds: (1) That it
stated
more than one offense; and (2) that it was not drawn in accordance with
the form prescribed by law. The demurrer was overruled and the
defendant
pleaded not guilty.
At the trial of the
case, the defendant made the following admissions: "That on the first
of
June, 1923, she had no certificate from the Board of Medical Examiners
authorizing her to practice medicine in the Philippine Islands; that on
that day she treated and manipulated the head and body of Regino Noble
in order to cure of ailments from which he pretended to suffer, the
treatment
consisting in a 'thrust' by means of the application of the hand to the
spinal column; that she for such treatment received and collected from
said Regino Noble the sum of P1; that the said treatment tool place in
her office situated at No. 712 Calle Asuncion, District of Binondo,
City
of Manila, Philippine Islands; that she on or about the first day of
June,
1923, and for some time prior to that date, advertised herself as a
'doctor
of chiropractic,' in said City of Manila, said advertisement appearing
upon her business cards and in the newspaper 'El Debate,' in its issue
of April 29, 1923, edited and published in Manila and in which cards
and
newspaper advertisement the defendant prefixed the abbreviation 'Dra.'
to her name; that she was graduated a doctor in chiropractic on the
13th
day of August, 1919, as evidenced by a certificate marked Exhibit I and
issued by the American University School of Chiropractic of Chicago,
Illinois."
Upon this admission
and some other evidence to the same effect, the trial court found the
defendant
guilty as charged in the Information and, in accordance with Section
2678
of the Administrative Code, sentenced her to pay a fine of P300, with
subsidiary
imprisonment in case of insolvency an to pay the costs. From this
judgment
the defendant appeals to this Court and presents four assignments of
error.
I. In the first
assignment
of error, counsel contends that the demurrer to the Information should
have been sustained on the ground that said Information charged more
than
one offense. The Medical Law is contained in Sections 758 to 783 of the
Administrative Code and it is argued that inasmuch as some of the
illegal
acts with which the defendant is charged are prohibited by Section 770
of the Code and others by Section 783, the defendant is in reality
accused
of two separate and distinct offenses, namely, illegal practice of
medicine
and illegally representing oneself as a doctor.
We cannot accept this
view. It may be noted that the Medical Law itself, as it appears in the
Administrative Code, does not declare any of the therein prohibited
acts
penal offenses. The penal provisions relating thereto are contained in
Section 2678 of the Code, which reads as follows:
"Sec. 2678. Violation
of Medical Law. — A person violating any provision of the Medical
Law
shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not more than three
hundred
pesos or by imprisonment for not more than ninety days, or both, in the
discretion of the court."
The offense here penalized
is "violation of the Medical Law." The statute makes no distinction
between
illegal practice of medicine and illegally advertising oneself as a
doctor.
Both are in violation of the Medical Law and carry the same penalty.
They
are merely different ways or means of committing the same offense and
both
of these means are closely related to each other and usually employed
together.
In these circumstances
and where, as alleged in the information in the present case, the
various
violations have taken place simultaneously, we do not think it was the
intention of the legislator that each single act should be regarded as
a separate offense and separate informations presented for each. The
language
of this court in the case of United States vs. Poh Chi [20 Phil., 140],
in regard to the Opinion Law, is opposite to the present case.
"It is true that the
Commission have provided a certain punishment for the possession of
pipe
used in the smoking of opium, for the smoking of opium, as well as a
punishment
for the illegal possession of opium, but is not believed that it was
the
intention of the legislature to have separate complaints filed against
a person who was found in the illegal possession of opium and a pipe at
the same time. If that were true then every person who was found to be
smoking opium could be charged in three different complaints: First,
with
the illegal possession of the pipe; second, the illegal possession of
the
opium; and third, for smoking the opium. Certainly the legislature did
not intend any such consequences."
In the case of United States
vs. Douglas [2 Phil. 461], the Court said:
"It is not
objectionable,
when a single offense may be committed by the use of different means,
to
charge, in the alternative, the various means by which the crime may
have
been committed. [U. S. vs. Potter, 27 Fe. Cases, 604; Bishop's New
Criminal
Procedure, Sec. 434]."
The same rule was followed
in the case of United States vs. Dorr [2 Phil. 332]; United States vs.
Tolentino [5 Phil. 682]; and United States vs. Gustilo [19 Phil. 208]
and
is in harmony with the views of the courts in other jurisdictions. That
the various means of committing the offense is described in more than
one
section of the statute does not necessarily effect the general
principle
involved; the subdivision of a statute into section is merely a matter
of convenience and while it sometimes may be of some aid in
ascertaining
the legislative intent, it is, of course, not conclusive thereof.
II. Under the second
assignment of error, the appellant argues in substance that
chiropractic
has nothing to do with medicine and that the practice of that
profession
can therefore not be regarded as practice of medicine. There is no
merit
whatever in this connection. Assuming with out conceding that
chiropractic
does not fall within the term "practice of medicine" in its ordinarily
acceptation, we have the statutory definition contained in Section 770
of the Administrative Code and which clearly includes the manipulations
employed in chiropractic. The statutory definition necessarily prevails
over the ordinary one.
Under the same
assignment
of error the defendant also argues that the examination prescribed by
Section
776 of the Administrative Code for admission to the practice of
medicine,
embraces subjects which have no connection with chiropractic and that
to
require chiropractors to take that examination is unreasonable and, in
effect amounts to prohibition of the practice of their profession and
therefore
violates the constitutional principle that all men have the right to
life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness and are entitled to the equal
protection
of the law.
There is very little
force in this argument. The subjects in which an examination is
required
by Section 778 of the Administrative Code, as amended by Act No. 3111,
relate to matters of which a thorough knowledge seems necessary for the
proper diagnosis of diseases of the human body and it is within the
police
power of the State to require that persons who devote themselves to the
curing of human ills should posses such knowledge. [State vs. Edmunds,
127 Iowa, 333; 69 L.R.A., 504; Underwood vs. Scott, 43 Kan., 714;
People
vs. Blue Mountain Joe, 129 Ill., 370; State vs. Mylod, 20 R. I., 632;
41
L.R.A., 428; Stewart vs. Raab, 55 Minn., 20; Matthei vs. Wooley, 69
Ill.
App., 654; State vs. Buswell, 40 Neb., 158; 24 L.R.A. 68; O'Connor vs.
State, 46 Neb., 157; U.S. vs. Gomez Jesus, 31 Phil., 218].
III. The third
assignment
of error is closely related to the foregoing. The appellant contends
that
the prohibition in Section 783 against the unauthorized use of the
title
"doctor" must be understood to refer to "Doctor of Medicine" and has no
application to doctors of chiropractic. Under different circumstances
that
might possibly be so, but where, as here, chiropractic is by statute
made
a form of the practice of medicine, it necessary follows that a person
holding himself out as a doctor of chiropratic in legal effect
represents
himself as a doctor of medicine.
IV. In her fourth
assignment
of error, the appellant attacks the constitutionality of Act No. 3111,
amending Section 770 of the Administrative Code, on the ground that the
subject of the Act is not sufficiently expressed in its title and that
it embraces more than one subject. There is no merit in this
connection.
The title of Act No. 3111 reads as follows:
"An Act to amend
sections
seven hundred and fifty-nine, seven hundred and sixty, seven hundred
and
sixty-one, seven hundred and sixty-two, seven hundred and sixty-five,
seven
hundred and sixty-seven, seven hundred and seventy, seven hundred and
seventy-four,
seven hundred and seventy-five, seven hundred and seventy-six, seven
hundred
and seventy-eight, seven hundred and eighty, seven hundred and
eighty-two,
seven hundred and eighty-three, and twenty-six hundred and
seventy-eight
of Act Numbered Twenty-seven hundred and eleven, known as the
Administrative
Code, increasing the number of the members of the Board of Medical
Examiners,
conferring upon the same certain additional powers and responsibilities
and for other purposes."
All of the sections enumerated
in the title quoted relate to the same general subject, namely,
defining
and regulating the practice of medicine, and Section 770 is expressly
mentioned
as one of the sections amended.
This is sufficient.
Under constitutional provisions similar to ours, the general rule is
that
a title which declares the amendatory statute to be an exact to amend a
designated section or the like to a specified Code is sufficient and
the
precise nature of the amendatory Act need not be further stated. [Ross
vs. Aguirre, 191 U.S., 60; Udell vs. Citizens Street R. Co., 152 Ind.,
507; McGuire vs. Chicago, etc., R. of Somerset County, 73 Md., 105;
Tabor
vs. State, 34 Tex. Crim., 631; Com. vs. Brown, 91 Va., 762.) For a full
and authoritative discussion of this subject, see Note to Lewis vs.
Dunne,
55 L. R. A., 833. See also Government of the Philippine Islands vs.
Municipality
of Binalonan and Roman Catholic Bishop of Nueva Segovia (32 Phil., 634)
and Yu Cong Eng vs. Trinidad [p. 385, ante].
We find no error in
the judgment appealed from and the same is therefore affirmed, with th
costs against the appellant. So ordered.
Malcolm,
Villamor,
and Johns, JJ., concur.
Separate
Opinion
ROMUALDEZ,
J.,
Dissenting:
I believe that the
Complaint charges more than one offense, and that the demurrer
interposed
on that ground should have been sustained. For that reason, I dissent
from
the opinion of the majority. |