Dunlao v CA [August 22,1996]

FACTS: Petitioner is a duly licensed retailer and wholesaler of scrap iron in Davao City using the business name Dunlao Enterprise. Fortunato Mariquit and Carlito Catog, both employees of Lourdes Farms, were instructed by its proprietor, Mrs. Lourdes Du, to go to petitioners premises together with police officers Pfc. Epifanio Sesaldo and Pat. Alfredo Ancajas to verify information received that some farrowing crates and G.I. pipes stolen from Lourdes Farms were to be found thereat. Upon arrival at petitioners compound, the group saw the farrowing crates and pipes inside the compound. After he was informed by the police operatives that said pipes were owned by Lourdes Farms and had been stolen from it, petitioner voluntarily surrendered the items. These were then taken to the police station. Dunlap was found guilty. Petitioner then appealed his conviction to the Court of Appeals. On May 10, 1993, the appellate court promulgated its decision affirming the judgment of the trial court. Hence, this petition.
ISSUE: whether intent to gain need not be proved in crimes punishable by a special law such as P.D. 1612.
RULING: The law has long divided crimes into acts wrong in themselves called acts mala in se, and acts which would not be wrong but for the fact that positive law forbids them, called acts mala prohibita. This distinction is important with reference to the intent with which a wrongful act is done. The rule on the subject is that in acts mala in se, the intent governs, but in acts mala prohibita, the only inquiry is, has the law been violated? When an act is illegal, the intent of the offender is immaterial.
In the case of Lim v. Court of Appeals involving violation of the Anti-Fencing Law, we said:
On the aspect of animus furandi, petitioner is of the belief that this element was not clearly established by the Peoples evidence and he, therefore, draws the conclusion that respondent court seriously erred in presuming the existence of intent to gain. Again, this supposition ignores the fact that intent to gain is a mental state, the existence of which is demonstrated by the overt acts of a person (Soriano vs. People, 88 Phil. 368 [1951]; 1 Reyes, Revised Penal Code, Eleventh Rev. Ed., 1977, p. 45; 1 Aquino, Revised Penal Code, 1988 Ed., p. 197). And what was the external demeanor which petitioner showed from which the trial court and respondent court inferred animus furandi? These circumstances were vividly spelled in the body of the judgment which petitioner chose to blandly impugn and over which he remains indifferent even at this crucial stage. Withal, the sinister mental state is presumed from the commission of an unlawful act in bringing out the tires from his bodega which were loaded on his pick-up (People vs. Sia Teb Ban, 54 Phil. 52 [1929]; 1 Reyes, supra at P. 46; Section 3(b), Rule 131, Revised Rules on Evidence). At any rate, dolo is not required in crimes punished by a special stature like the Anti-Fencing Law of 1979 (U.S. vs. Go Chico, 14 Phil. 128 [1909]; 1 Reyes, supra at p. 58) because it is the act alone, irrespective of the motives which constitutes the offense (U.S. vs. Siy Cong Bieng, et al., 30 Phil. 577 [1915]; 1 Reyes, supra, at p. 59; 1 Aquino, supra, at p. 52).

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