ASSOCIATED WORDS

By:

ISHADORA NICOLE C. SORIANO

Doctrine of casus omissus

The rule of casus omissus pro omisso habendus est states that a person, object or thing omitted from an enumeration must be held to have been omitted intentionally.

 Application: The maxim operates only if and when the omission has been clearly established, and in such a case what is omitted in the enumeration may not, by construction, be included therein.

 Exception: where legislature did not intend to exclude the person, thing or object from the enumeration. If such legislative intent is clearly indicated, the court may supply the omission if to do so will carry out the clear intent of the legislature and will not do violence to its language.

People of the Philippines v. Guillermo Manantan

Facts: In an information filed by the Provincial Fiscal of Pangasinan in the Court of First Instance (CFI) of that Province, Guillermo Manantan was charged with a violation of Section 54 of the Revised Election Code. A preliminary investigation conducted by said court resulted in the finding of a probable cause that the crime charged was committed by the defendant. Thereafter, the trial started upon defendants plea of not guilty, the defense moved to dismiss the information on the ground that as justice of the peace, the defendant is not one of the officers enumerated in Section 54 of the Revised Election Code. The lower court denied the motion to dismiss, holding that a justice of the peace is within the purview of Section 54. A second motion was filed by defense counsel who cited in support thereof the decision of the Court of Appeals (CA) in People vs. Macaraeg, where it was held that a justice of the peace is excluded from the prohibition of Section 54 of the Revised Election Code. Acting on various motions and pleadings, the lower court dismissed the information against the accused upon the authority of the ruling in the case cited by the defense.

 Issue: Whether the justice of the peace was excluded from the coverage of Section 54 of the Revised Election Code. Held: Under the rule of Casus omisus pro omisso habendus est, a person, object or thing omitted from an enumeration must be held to have been omitted intentionally. The maxim casus omisus can operate and apply only if and when the omission has been clearly established. The application of the rule of casus omisus 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. Substitution of terms is not omission. For in its most extensive sense the term judge includes all officers appointed to decide litigated questions while acting in that capacity, including justice of the peace, and even jurors, it is said, who are judges of facts. The intention of the Legislature did not exclude the justice of the peace from its operation. In Section 54, there is no necessity to include the justice of peace in the enumeration, as previously made in Section 449 of the Revised Administrative Code, as the legislature has availed itself of the more generic and broader term judge, including therein all kinds of judges, like judges of the courts of First Instance, judges of the courts of Agrarian Relations, judges of the courts of Industrial Relations, and justices of the peace.

Doctrine of last antecedent

Qualifying words restrict or modify only the words or phrases to which they are immediately associated not those which are distantly or remotely located. Simply stated, the doctrine means that a qualifying word or phrase should be understood as referring to the nearest antecedent.

 Ad proximum antecedens fiat relatio nisi impediatur sententia relative words refer to the nearest antecedents, unless the context otherwise requires. Rule: Use of a comma to separate an antecedent from the rest exerts a dominant influence in the application of the doctrine of last antecedent.

Illustration of rule-Florentino vs. Philippine National Bank

Facts:MARCELINO B. FLORENTINO and LOURDES T. ZANDUETA, petitioners-appellants are indebted to the respondent bank in the amount of P6,800 plus interest, the same having been incurred on January 2, 1953, which is due on January 2, 1954; 1. The said loan is secured by a mortgage of real properties; 2. The petitioner Marcelino B. Florentino is a holder of Backpay Acknowledgment No. 1721 dated October 6, 1954, in the amount of P22,896.33 by virtue of Republic Act No. 897 approved on June 20, 1953; and 3. On December 27, 1953, petitioners offered to pay their loan with the respondent bank with their backpay certificate, but the respondent bank, on December 29, 1953, refused to accept petitioner's offer to pay the said indebtedness with the latter's backpay certificate.

 Issue: Whether holders of back pay certificates can compel government-owned banks to accept said certificates in payment of the holders obligations to the bank. Held: The court, invoking the doctrine of last antecedent, ruled that the phrase qualify only to its last antecedent namely any citizen of the Philippines or association or corporation organized under the laws of the Philippines. The court held that back pay certificate holders can compel government-owned banks to accept said certificates for payment of their obligations with the bank.

Qualifications of the doctrine.

1. Subject to the exception that where the intention of the law is to apply the phrase to all antecedents embraced in the provision, the same should be made extensive to the whole. 2. Doctrine does not apply where the intention is not to qualify the antecedent at all.

Reddendo singular singuilis

Variation of the doctrine of last antecedent. Referring each to each; Referring each phrase or expression to its appropriate object, or let each be put in its proper place, that is, the word should be taken distributively. Rule of Statutory Construction: It requires that the antecedents and consequences should be read distributively to the effect that each word is to be applied to the subject to which it appears by context most appropriately related and to which it is most applicable.

People of the Philippines v. Teodoro Tamani

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 fortyeight 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: W/N the fifteen-day period should commence from the date of promulgation of the decision. HELD: 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