League Jose vs People

League Jose vs People

Facts:

Accused Jose League was the treasurer general of the party called Sakdalista aimed at obtaining the absolute independence of the Philippines before the end of 1935, that the sakdalistas planned an armed uprising in several provinces, especially Laguna.

On May 2, 1935, the telegraph wires and telephone connecting the municipality of Santa Rosa, Laguna, with Manila and neighboring towns were cut off electric lighting and closed houses, that armed men stood at ways to stop the passage of vehicles, passengers requisitioned and took the weapons they carried, that several hundred of the sakdalistas, armed bands, flags and a variety of weapons, marched in groups to seize municipal building in Santa Rosa and subtract that municipality of obedience to constituted government, that there was a bloody encounter between those sakdalistas and Constabulary were sent to restore order; that this meeting has been killed and wounded, that among the vehicles sakdalistas that tried to stop a car at night the car was Feliciano Gomez attorney who was in the passenger with several members of his family by not stopping the car to the intimation of these sakdalistas was shot, that Jose League, the appellant here, was among those armed individuals attempted to stop the car of lawyer Gomez; that saw and met the appellant, it had been his childhood companion and the driver Damian Harris also saw him this occasion armed a shotgun at a distance of meters from the vehicle dies, that the defendant fired two shots with his gun against the car of Gomez and the missiles were in the body of the same, that among the detainees there was a jitney car ownership of Ricardo Mendoza who acknowledged among people who stopped him the defendant because it was well lit by the light projected from the headlights of the jitney."

Issue:

Whether or not the appellant committed the crime of rebellion or sedition?

Held:

Indeed declare the First Division of the Court of Appeals that the facts in the above cause, which were substantially equivalent to those that were tested in the present, only constitute sedition, by reason that - using their own terms - "Rebellion is a rising that affects a large portion of territory, it is national and not local in character, and has purely political purpose. The disturbance engineered by the appellants meant to spread out later into national proportions, was, as matter of fact, a local disturbance. But the change is justified in the Court's view, because its latest decision which the appellant asks to review, promulgated on 23 October 1939, is more in line with the law that dictated his decision in that case.

Given the proven facts stated by the Court of Appeals, and the reasons that the ruling of the Court, subject to revision, hereby confirm the same and condemn the appellant to pay the costs of prosecution.