The appellee filed a petition for naturalization and, at the trial, proceeded to grove that he possessed all the required qualifications and none of the disqualifications.  The  Solicitor General raised three objections dealing with the propriety and irreproachability of  the  personal behaviour of the appellee, the sufficiency of proof as to appellee's graduation from the Albay Provincial High School, and the qualification of one of the character witnesses of the appellee. Overruling these  objections, the Court of First Instance of Manila granted the petition.   Hence this appeal  by the Government.

It is  observed that the evidence of record discloses that the appellee had a theft case which  was only provisionally dismissed, and was prosecuted for "interferring with police duties and assault upon  a person in authority" which, although dismissed,  may be reopened at any  time for the same has not prescribed.   This observation cannot adversely affect the petition for naturalization because, with the admitted dismissal of the criminal charges, there is nothing that may be considered as tainting  appellee's character.

It is contended  for  the appellant that affidavit  of the faculty graduating class adviser in the Albay High  School is not the best evidence  to prove that the  appellee had completed  his  secondary education,  because the principal or administrative official of the school is the one who could attest to such  an  essential and indispensable fact; at any rate,  the  affidavit is a secondary evidence  which may be admitted only after it  has been  shown  that the  school records were destroyed; that the signer or maker of said affidavit should have been presented in  court;  and that, as said affidavit cannot thus be given weight, the appellee was not exempt from filing a declaration of intention to become a Filipino citizen.  Apart  from the fact that the objection now interposed to the admissibility of the affidavit in question  was not raised in the court below,  there is evidence to the effect that the school records were burned and destroyed, and so with the files of the Bureau of Public Schools.

Appellant's last argument is that the witness who attested to the character of the appellee  does  not really  know the latter, because he was not even aware that the appellee had been charged criminally; and that he committed contradictions  in his testimony regarding the number of employees that the appellee had in his bookstore.  This argument is also untenable, because there is  ample evidence  that said witness really is familiar with the appellee.  Their acquaintance began when the appellee proposed to rent the garage space of said witness, and the  appellee lived in  the first floor  of  the  former's house.  The discrepancy as to the number of employees of the appellee is not so fundamental as to  discredit  the  entire testimony.  Moreover, it was explained that the two Chinese employees are brothers of the appellee.  As to the ignorance of the charges against the appellee, it is not unnatural for people generally to keep unpleasant matters  away from  their  friends,  especially where the latter can be of no help.

In view of the foregoing, the decision appealed from is affirmed.  So ordered, without costs.

Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor, Reyes, A., Bautista Angelo, Labrador, and Endencia, JJ.,  concur.