This  case is before us on appeal from a judgment condemning the defendant, So Fo, to pay a fine of P300 and to suffer the corresponding subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to the payment of the of the cause, for having violated the provisions of section 31 of Act No. known as the Opium Law.

Counsel for the defendant insists that the court erred in finding as a fa the defendant acknowledged in the presence  of internal revenue agents that the opium  found was his.  Counsel further insists that the testimony presented does not establish the guilt of the appellant beyond a reasonable doubt.

The prosecution presented as witnesses two internal revenue agents, Best Sargan.  Best testified as follows: 

"On Saturday, 23d  of March (1912), about  12.30, in company  with Agents Sargan, Benjamin and  Ramos,  I went to the residence 178 Santo Cristo, is some kind  of a bakery; went into the rear part of the building where is a coal pile.   I could not say how much coal is there, but it is about high from the ground and as much as from  here  to the window. Immediately Sargan shovelled off some coal on top and picked up some lumps and threw them out from the pile and under this coal was found this can of opium.   I immediately took off my coat and got the shovel and went to work  and sweat pretty hard, and went all through the coal pile a could not find any more. Worked for about an hour.  I then brought out the can and held it up like this, and this Chinaman (indicating the defendant 'It is mine.'  I then looked at the license. His name was not on the lice the place.

"*  *   *  I said to  Sargan: 'You ask him also so that we can all hear i And  Sargan asked him too, and he (defendant) said it was his." Sargan testified substantially as follows:

"I, Mr. Best, Mr.  Ramos, and Benjamin went  down to the place called San Cristo No. 178 and searched the place there.  In the coal pile near where make some sugar I found this opium.  When Mr. Best held up this can and said: 'Who is the owner of this can?' immediately this Chinaman (the defendant) answered saying that this can belonged to  him.  I asked him also, whose this can was and he said: 'It is mine.'  I asked him in Tagal and he appeared to understand what I said."

The defendant  So  Fo testified  in  his own  behalf  and stated in substance that he was  an employee of the owner of the place where the opium was found; that the opium was  not his; that he had never had it in his possession,  and that  he never confessed or stated to either Best or Sargan or to anyone that the can of opium which was found in the coal pile belonged  to  him.   Tan Quin  Chioc, who was, at the time this case was tried in the court below, serving a sentence  of three  months in Bil Prison, being called as a witness for the defense, testified that he live No. 178 Santo Cristo; that he placed  the opium in the  coal pile, and the belonged to him.

That the can of  opium exhibited in the court below was found in  the  co pile at  the time and place stated  by the agents of the Bureau of Intern Revenue is not denied. Counsel for the defendant argues, as we have said that in view of the fact that defendant could not speak English and  could only speak Tagalog  (aside  from  his  native language), the internal rev agents were mistaken when they said that the  defendant stated to them that the opium was  his property; and (2)  that the testimony of record does not establish  the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.

With reference to the first proposition, we think there can be no question that the defendant did state more than once when the opium  was found that he was the  owner of the same, and that these statements or confessions were made entirely upon his own volition.  The two internal r agents testified  that when they asked to whom  the opium belonged they spoke in Tagalog and that  the defendant answered them in  the same language.

The second proposition raises the question whether or not an uncorroborat extrajudicial confession later  denied upon the trial of the cause is sufficient upon which to rest a judgment of conviction.  In Hopt vs. People o Utah, (110 U.  S., 574, 28 L. ed., 262), Hopt  was sentenced to death for murder of one Turner.   In considering the probative force of an extrajudicial oral confession, the Supreme Court of the United States said: 

"While some of the adjudged  cases indicate distrust of confessions which not judicial, it is certain, as observed by  Baron Parke in Regina vs. (2 Den., 430, 445), that the rule against their admissibility has been so carried too far, and in its application justice and common sense have  to frequently been sacrificed at the shrine of mercy,  A  confession, if freely and voluntarily  made, is evidence of the most satisfactory character.  S confession, said Eyre, C. B.  (King vs. Warickshall, 1 Leach., 2 deserving of the highest credit, because it is presumed to flow from the strongest sense of guilt and, therefore, it is admitted as proof of the c which it refers.'

"Elementary writers of authority concur  in saying that, while from the v nature of such evidence it must  be subjected to careful scrutiny and rec with great caution, a  deliberate, voluntary confession of guilt is  among most  effectual proofs  in the law, and  constitutes the strongest evidence against the party making it that can be given of the facts stated  in such confession."   (1 Greenl. Ev., sec. 215;  1  Archb. Cr. PL,  125; 1  Phil Stark, Ev., 73.)

The foregoing, coming from the highest court in the land and being  beyond question the law on the  subject, must necessarily be fallowed in  this jurisdiction.  The proposition is so well settled that further citation o is unnecessary.  The judgment being strictly in accordance with the law a evidence, the same is hereby affirmed, with costs  against the appellant.

Arellano, C, J., Mapa, Johnson, and Carson, JJ., concur.
   
 

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CONCURRING

TORRES, J.,

The undersigned concurs in the affirmation of the judgment appealed from, for the reason that the extrajudicial confession made by the accused So F to the officers  who arrested him is corroborated by the circumstance that even though  said accused  did not live at Np. 178  Cal Santo Cristo he frequented the place and was usually there as an employee of the owner of said house and also by the finding of the can of opium in question inside a coal pile within the yard or lot  of said house.

Therefore, in view of the fact that the said extrajudicial confession, afterwards  denied at the trial, is corroborated by said circumstantial e of the certainty of the facts confessed, it is proper to hold  that the g the accused has been duly proved,  as did  the court in  the judgment appealed from.