PEOPLE VS PERFECTO

FACTS: The issue started when the Secretary of the Philippine Senate, Fernando
Guerrero, discovered that the documents regarding the testimony of the witnesses in an
investigation of oil companies had disappeared from his office. Then, the day following
the convening of Senate, the newspaper La Nacion – edited by herein respondent
Gregorio Perfecto – published an article against the Philippine Senate to the effect that
"the author or authors of the robbery of the records from the iron safe of the Senate
have, perhaps, but followed the example of certain Senators who secured their election
through fraud and robbery."

Consequently, the Attorney-General, through a resolution adopted by the Philippine

Senate, filed an information alleging that the editorial constituted a violation of article
256 of the Penal Code. Here, Mr. Perfecto was alleged to have violated Article 256 of
the Spanish Penal Code – provision that punishes those who insults the Ministers of the
Crown. Hence, the issue.

ISSUE: Whether or not Article 256 of the Spanish Penal Code (SPC) is still in force and
can be applied in the case at bar?

HELD: No.

REASONING: The Court stated that during the Spanish Government, Article 256 of the
SPC was enacted to protect Spanish officials as representatives of the King. However,
the Court explains that in the present case, we no longer have Kings nor its
representatives for the provision to protect. Also, with the change of sovereignty over
the Philippines from Spanish to American, it means that the invoked provision of the
SPC had been automatically abrogated. The Court determined Article 256 of the SPC to
be ‘political’ in nature for it is about the relation of the State to its inhabitants, thus, the
Court emphasized that ‘it is a general principle of the public law that on acquisition of
territory, the previous political relations of the ceded region are totally abrogated.’
"Political" being used to denominate the laws regulating the relations sustained by the
inhabitants to the sovereign.Hence, Article 256 of the SPC is considered no longer in
force and cannot be applied to the present case. Therefore, respondent was acquitted.