By: Atty. Gregorio B. Austral, CPA
How a comma saves the accused from jail
Hart, Miller, and Natividad, were found guilty on a charge of vagrancy under the
provisions of Act No. 519. On appeal, they presented evidence showing that each of
them was earning a living at a lawful trade or business sufficient enough to support
themselves. The Attorney-General, however, argued that in Section 1 of Act No. 519,
the phrase “no visible means of support” only applies to the clause “tramping or
straying through the country” and not the first clause which states that “every person
found loitering about saloons or dram shops or gambling houses,” thus making the
three appellants guilty of vagrancy. He further argued that it been intended for “without
visible means of support” to qualify the first part of the clause, either the comma after
gambling houses would have been omitted, or else a comma after country would have
been inserted.
The Court rejected the argument of the Attorney General and acquitted the three
defendants. The Court explained that when the meaning of a legislative enactment is
in question, it is the duty of the courts to ascertain, if possible, the true legislative
intention, and adopt that construction of the statute which will give it effect. The
construction finally adopted should be based upon something more substantial than the
mere punctuation found in the printed Act. If the punctuation of the statute gives it a
meaning which is reasonable and in apparent accord with the legislative will, it may be
used as an additional argument for adopting the literal meaning of the words of the
statute as thus punctuated. But an argument based upon punctuation alone is not
conclusive, and the courts will not hesitate to change the punctuation when necessary,
to give to the Act the effect intended by the Legislature, disregarding superfluous or
incorrect punctuation marks, and inserting others where necessary.
A most important step in reasoning, necessary to make it sound, is to ascertain
the consequences flowing from such a construction of the law. What is loitering? The
dictionaries say it is idling or wasting one’s time. The time spent in saloons, dram
shops, and gambling houses is seldom anything but that. So that under the proposed
construction, practically all who frequent such places commit a crime in so doing, for
which they are liable to punishment under the Vagrancy Law. We cannot believe that it
was the intention of the Legislature to penalize what, in the case of saloons and dram
shops, is under the law’s protection. If it be urged that what is true of saloons and
dram shops is not true of gambling houses in this respect, we encounter the wording of
the law, which makes no distinction whatever between loitering around saloons and
dram shops, and loitering around gambling houses.
That the absence of visible means of support or a lawful calling is necessary
under these statutes to a conviction for loitering around saloons, dram shops, and
gambling houses is not even negatived by the punctuation employed.
In the case at bar, all three of the defendants were earning a living by legitimate
methods in a degree of comfort higher than the average. Their sole offense was
gambling, which the legislature deemed advisable to make the subject of a penal law.
The games in which they participated were apparently played openly, in a licensed
public saloon, where the officers of the law could have entered as easily as did the
patrons (US vs. Hart, G.R. No. L-8848, November 21, 1913).
Vagrancy has been decriminalized pursuant to Republic Act No. 10158.