206 - People V Tin Ching Ting
206 - People V Tin Ching Ting
ISSUE:
HELD:
"Mutilation" means to take off part of the metal either by filing it or substituting it for another metal of inferior quality.
Mutilation is to diminish by ingenuous means the metal in the coin. One who mutilates a coin does not do so for the
sake of mutilating, but to take advantage of the metal abstracted; he appropriates a part of the metal of the coin.
Hence, the coin diminishes in intrinsic value. One who utters said mutilated coin receives its legal value, much more than
its intrinsic value. (People vs. Tin Ching Ting, G.R. No. L-4620, Jan. 30, 1952)
The coin must be of "legal tender" in mutilation. A reading of the provisions under this chapter will reveal that only in
this article does the law require "legal tender" as an element of the offense in the case of mutilation. Note the phrases
"coins of the legal currency" and "current coins" used in the law. It is indispensable that the mutilated coin be of legal
tender. (People vs. Tin Ching Ting, supra) Coins of foreign country not included.
The coin mutilated must be genuine and has not been withdrawn from circulation. The coin must be of the legal
currency or current coins of the Philippines. Therefore, if the coin mutilated is legal tender of a foreign country, it is not
a crime of mutilation under the Revised Penal Code.
Art. 165. Selling of false or mutilated coin, without connivance. — Any person who knowingly, although without the
connivance mentioned in the preceding articles, shall possess false or mutilated coin with intent to utter the same, or
shall actually utter such coin, shall suffer a penalty lower by one degree than that prescribed in said articles.
Possession of or uttering false coin does not require that the counterfeited coin is legal tender.
Thus, a person in possession of, with intention to put into circulation, a false five-dollar gold coin, an imitation of the
genuine five-dollar gold coin of the United States, is liable under Article 165, even if such gold coin is no longer legal
tender in the United States, and much less in the Philippines.
Art. 165 does not require that the coin be of legal tender. We should not add a condition not provided by the law.
(People vs. Tin Ching Ting, G.R. No. L-4620, Jan. 30, 1952, unreported, 90 Phil. 870)
But if the coin being uttered or possessed with intent to utter is a mutilated coin, it must be legal tender coin, because
of Article 164 to which Article 165 is related.
(Note: The copy of the full text of the case cannot be found; only the ruling)