MERU, Immanuel Anthony E.

Legal Medicine
Case Digest: People vs. Buenviaje (47 Phil. 536)
Issue/s of the case:
- Whether or not chiropractic is a form of medicine regulated under the
law.
- Whether or not the information was duplicitous.
Regulation/s involved:
1. Act 2711 (1917 Administrative Code)
- Section 770. Inhibition against practicing medicine by uncertificated
persons No person shall practice medicine in the Philippine Islands
without having previously obtained the proper certificate of registration
issued by the Board of Medical Examiners as herein constituted, or the
lawful Board which was its predecessor, except as hereinafter stated in
this section and in the next following section of this Act.
A person shall be considered to practice medicine within the meaning
of this section, who shall, for compensation or reward or even without
the same, diagnose, treat, operate, prescribe remedies for any human
disease, injury, deformity, physical or mental condition or any ailment,
real or supposed, regardless of the nature of the remedy or treatment
used or recommended, or who shall, by means of signs, cards,
advertisements, or in any other way either offer or undertake by any
means or method to diagnose, treat, manipulate, adjust, operate, or
prescribe for any human disease, pain injury, deformity, physical or
mental condition.
2. Act 2711 (1917 Administrative Code)
- Section 2678. Violation of Medical Law A person violating any
provision of the Medical Law shall, upon conviction, be punished by a
fine of not more than 300, or by imprisonment for not more than 90
days, or both, in the discretion of the court.
Application of regulations involved:
1. Chiropractic is considered as practice of medicine, according to the
statutory definition of the term practice of medicine as found in
Section 770 of the 1917 Administrative Code (Act 2711). Hence,
defendant was required to have the pertinent license to practice, and
having been found in want of one, is guilty of illegal practice.
2. Said provision did not distinguish between illegal practice and illegal
representation. Both are violations of the Medical Law, and are merely
different ways of violating the same law.

Conclusion:
- Supreme Court ruled that there was no duplicitous information when
the Medical Law itself did not distinguish any specific violation, but
mere violation of said statute is punishable. Hence, for holding herself
out as a practitioner of chiropractic when she was not qualified, for
falsely advertising and holding herself out to the public as a Dra. and
a practitioner of chiropractic, Jovita Buenviaje was found guilty of
violating the Medical Law. It was further concluded by the High Court
that in order to use the prefix Dr. or Dra., one must be a doctor of
medicine, and such distinction has no application to practitioners of
chiropractic.
Facts:
Defendant Jovita V. Buenviaje was accused of violating the Medical Act,
where the information filed against her alleged that said defendant had been
practicing medicine without having obtained from the Board of Medical
Examiners the necessary certificate of registration, in the City of Manila,
whereby she was further alleged that she assisted, treated, and manipulated
the head and body of Regino Noble, for the purposes of curing him of
ailments, diseases, pains and physical defects which he pretended to suffer
from, and for advertising and offering her services as a physician (doctor of
chiropractic), evidenced by letterheads and signs exposed on her office door,
and in newspapers circulated in Manila, and adding the prefix Dra. To her
name, causing the public to believe that she was a legitimate doctor.
Defendant admitted said facts. She further admitted to collecting 1 from
Noble for her services, and that she graduated a doctor of chiropractic from
the American University School of Chiropractic on 13-Aug-1919, in Chicago.
Trial court found her guilty. Counsel for defendant appealed that the
demurrer to information should have been sustained when the information
charged more than one offense (illegal practice of medicine, and illegal
representation).