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THE
PEOPLE OF THE
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS,
G.
R.
No. 22945
March
3, 1925
-versus-
JOVITA V. BUENVIAJE, Defendant-Appellant. 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:
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.
In the case of United States
vs. Douglas [2 Phil. 461], the Court said:
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:
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. 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. |
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