Cumplir con la recolección 3 veces por semana entre las 7:00 y 22:00 horas

Art. 337. Qualified seduction. Art. 338. Simple seduction

1. An amendatory rule has been introduced by R.A. 7610, approved on June 17, 1992. Sec. 10(e) thereof provides that the penalty for the commission of acts punishable under Arts. 337, 339, 340 and 341 of this Code for the crimes of qualified seduction, acts of lasciviousness with the consent of the offended party, corruption of minors, and white slave trade, respectively, shall be one degree higher than that imposed by law when the victim is under 12 years of age.

2. The gist of qualified seduction is the abuse of authority, confidence, or relationship as the means for committing the crime; in simple seduction, it is the use of deceit. Hence, as long as there is such abuse by the offender, the seduction is qualified even if there was also deceit, such as contrived promise of marriage, as this latter circumstance will merely be considered a superfluity. Deceit is not required in qualified seduction (People vs. Fontanilla, G.R. No. L-25354, June 28, 1968).

3. It has been posited that qualified seduction does not require physical virginity (virgo intacta) or as the term is understood in medical science. The legal view is that qualified seduction only requires virginity in law, that is, that the victim has had no other voluntary carnal relations with another man.

a. Legal virginity, as thus understood, should have the same meaning as virginity in consented abduction (Art. 343). There is actually no legal conflict between U.S. vs. Suan (27 Phil. 12) on qualified seduction and U.S. vs. Casten (34 Phil. 808) on abduction with consent. In the first case, the complainant had maintained illicit relations with other men, thus she was not a virgin in any sense as she was virtually a public woman; while in the latter case, the woman previously had sexual relations with one and the same man who was the accused in the case hence, insofar as he was concerned, she was still a virgin in law.

b. Since virginity is required by law, it is suggested that there can be no qualified seduction of a widow, unless it can be proved that she never had sexual relations with the deceased husband, even if she is 12 years or over and under 18 years of age, and there was abuse of authority, confidence or if the offender is a brother or ascendant. In any event, the victim’s virginity or age is immaterial, and the crime is categorized as qualified seduction as an expression of the laws revulsion against incest.

c. For qualified seduction, there must be abuse of (a) authority, by a person in public authority, a guardian, a teacher, or a person entrusted with the education or custody of the victim, such as a housemaid; (b) confidence, by a priest, a house-servant or a domestic; and (c) relationship, by a brother or ascendant, whether legitimate or illegitimate, but not by adoption since incest is contemplated, hence the relationship must be by consanguinity.

d. A domestic is different from a house-servant. A domestic is any person living under the same roof as a member of the same household, and includes boarders or houseguests but not transients or visitors (U.S. vs. Santiago, 41 Phil. 793; People vs. Subingsubing, G.R. Nos. 104942-43, Nov. 25, 1993).

e. In People vs. Alvarez (G.R. No. L-34644, Jan. 17, 1974), while there was some intimation that the brother-in-law had taken advantage of his moral ascendancy over the victim, the fact that their relationship was by affinity is actually inconsequential. It was qualified seduction because of his abuse of the victim’s confidence since she lived in the same household as the accused and his wife, who was the victim’s sister, hence she was a domestic.

f. Regarding a teacher, it is sufficient that he is a faculty member in the same school where the victim is studying even if she is not taking subjects under him, since such a teacher nevertheless exercises some influence over students in the same school (De los Santos vs. People, 69 Phil. 321).

g. Seduction is not a continuing offense, hence the liability of the accused for cohabiting with the victim during a particular period under a promise of marriage is determined by the acts and circumstances o the parties during that period (People vs. Bautista, 76 Phil. 184; cf. U.S. vs. Salud, 10 Phil. 206).

4. For simple seduction, aside from the age requirement, it is only required that the victim is single or a widow of good reputation. It is not required in simple seduction that the victim be a virgin (II Cuello Calon, Codigo Penal, 10th Ed., pp. 580-581).

a. A promise of marriage is usually the principal inducement, therefore it must precede the seduction (U.S. vs. Sarmiento, 27 Phil. 121), even if made 11 months before the act (People vs. Iman, 62 Phil. 92).

b. Generally, a breach of a promise of marriage constitute the deceitful conduct but there have been other deceitful means resorted to, as where the offender convinced the woman that the sexual congress was part of her medication (People vs. Don Moran, 25 Mich. 356) or where a fictitious marriage ceremony was performed to convince the victim (U.S. vs. Hernandez, 29 Phil. 109).

5. The doctrine of mutual desire, or the defense that the woman yielded not because of deceit but because of her own desire, is applicable only to simple seduction but not to qualified seduction wherein the essence of the crime is abuse of authority, confidence, or relationship (People vs. Sarmiento, supra).

Art. 340. Corruption of minors. Art. 341. White slave trade.

1. The concept of the crime of corruption of minors was explained as early as the case of U.S. Tagle (1Phil. 692) that where the girl was forcibly taken without lewd designs on the part of the accused but to satisfy the lust of another, crime is corruption of that minor and not abduction.

2. Formerly however the Code provided that a single act of corruption, if without abuse of authority or confidence, was not punishable as corruption (U.S. vs. Javier et al., 20 Phil. 337). The rule has now been changed with the amendment introduction by B.P. 92, and corruption of minor is punishable without need for habituality, abuse of authority or abuse of confidence on the part of the offender.

3. Corruption may have as victims persons of their sex who are “under age and, as explained in Alimagno vs. People (G.R. No. L-36458), this meant those who were below 21, which was then the age of majority. The age majority is now 18, pursuant to the amendment of the Family Code by R.A. 6809, which was approved on Dec. 13, 1989, hence that holding in Alimagno is no longer controlling and is deemed modified.

4. Corruption of minors and white slave trade are distinguished as follows:

a. In corruption, it is essential that minors are used, while in white slave trade, minority need not be involved. b. Corruption may have victims of either sex, but white slavery is limited to females.

c. Corruption may not necessarily be for profit, but white slavery is generally for profit.

d. Corruption may be committed by a single act, but white slavery is generally committed habitually.

5. White slavery is committed by (a) engaging in prostitution, (b) profiting therefrom, and (c) enlisting the services of prostitutes. The first two modes require element of profit and habituality. In the third mode, the mode, the profit motive is not required (People vs. Nuevas, 76 Phil. 276; People vs. Golo, 56 O.G. 4056), nor is habituality an element thereof (People vs. Bueno, CA, 62 O.G. 1381).

6. White slave trade may be with or without the consent of the woman, while slavery for the purpose of assigning the woman to immoral traffic (Art. 272) is committed against her will.

Chapter Four ABDUCTION

Art. 342. Forcible abduction. Art. 343. Consented abduction.

1. In both forms of abduction, there must lewd designs and there must be the taking of the woman, not necessarily with some degree of permanence but for some appreciable period of the time (People vs. DE la Cuz, 48 Phil. 533; People vs. Ingayo, CA-G.R. No. 3723-R, Dec. 10, 1949).

2. The phase stating “over twelve and under eighteen’’ for consented abduction should read 12 years or over but under 18, so that if the victim was exactly 12 years old when abducted the accused may have the benefit of the doubt created by the law and be given the lesser penalty in Art. 343.

a. In forcible abduction, force sufficient to overcome the victim’s resistance is required, unless the victim is under 12 years of age. If the victim’s consent was obtained through deceit and therefore there was no valid consent, the crime is forcible abduction, the deceit to be considered as constructive force (see U.S. vs. Vivar, 29 Phil. 451).

b. For consented abduction, there is no need for deceit, but the victim’s consent must be intelligently and freely given, considering that she is already a person of sufficient discretion.

4. Where a woman is single, she is presumed to be a virgin and virtuous. Virginity is not to be understood in its material sense, as to exclude a virtuous woman of good reputation, since the essence of the crime of abduction is not the injury to the woman but the outrage and alarm to her family (Valdepeñas vs. People, G.R. No. L-20687, April 30, 1966).

5. Actual intercourse with the victim is not required in abduction as lewd design in the taking is sufficient. Even if the offender’s avowed intention was to marry the victim, but then he knew that as a minor she could not legally give consent to the marriage

he was consequently acting with lewd designs and is criminally liable (People vs. Crisostomo, 46 Phil. 775; People vs. Hatib Tala, et al., CA, 44 O.G. 117).

Chapter Five