Prohibited acts.
Section 17
SEC. 17. Prohibited acts. — The following shall be guilty of an offense punishable by imprisonment of not less than one month nor more than six months: Any foreigner who shall aid, directly or indirectly, or take part in or influence in any manner the outcome of any referendum or shall contribute or make any expenditure in connection therewith; Any voter or any other person who gives or accepts free of charge, directly or indirectly, transportation, food, or drinks during a public meeting and during the three hours before and after such meeting, on the day preceding the referendum and on the day of the referendum; or who gives or contributes, directly or indirectly, money or things of value for such purposes; Any person who solicits votes or undertakes any propaganda on the day of the referendum for or against any issue within the barangay center and within a radius of thirty meters thereof; Any public officer, or officer of any commercial, industrial, agricultural, economic or social enterprise, private corporation or association, or any employer, who coerces or intimidates or compels directly or indirectly, any of his subordinates or employees, to aid, campaign or vote for or against any issue in any referendum; Any officer, member or employee of the Armed Forces of the Philippines or any member thereof without specific authority to assist the Commission in maintaining a free, orderly and honest referendum, or any member of a police force who shall influence in any manner any referendum or take part therein, except to vote if entitled thereto or to preserve public order, if he is a peace officer; f) Any person who, without authority, prints or causes the printing of any barangay ballot that appears as official ballot; or who distributes or causes the same to be distributed to be used in the referendum, whether or not they are actually used; g) Any person who, without authority, keeps, uses or carries out or causes to be kept, used or carried out, any official ballot or printed proof thereof, type-form mould, electrotype printing plates and any other plates, numbering machines and other printing paraphernalia being used in connection with the printing of official ballots; h) Any official or employee of any printing establishment or of the Commission or any member of the committee in charge of the printing of official ballots who causes official ballots to be printed in quantities exceeding those authorized by the Commission or who distributes, delivers, or in any manner disposes or causes to be distributed, delivered, or disposed of, any official ballots to any person or persons not authorized by law or by the Commission to receive or keep official ballots or who sends or causes them to be sent to any place not designated by law or by the Commission; Any person who opens the package of any pad or official ballots before the hour fixed for the start of the voting in the barrio or barangay center on referendum day; Any person who, being a registered voter of the barrio or barangay fails to cast his vote without justifiable excuse; Any person who votes more than once in the same referendum; Any person who votes in substitution for another whether with or without the latter's knowledge and/or consent; Any person who avails himself of any scheme to discover the contents of the ballot of a voter who is preparing or casting his vote or who has just voted, except as otherwise authorized in this Decree; Any voter, who in the course of voting, uses a ballot other than the one given by the barangay election committee or who has in his possession more than one official ballot; Any person who places under arrest or detains a voter without lawful cause, or molests him in such a manner as to obstruct or prevent him from going to the barangay center to cast his vote or from returning home after casting his vote or to compel him to reveal how he voted; Any member of the barangay election committee charged with the duty of reading the ballots during the counting of votes who deliberately omits to read the vote duly written on the ballot, or misreads the vote actually written thereon or reads a vote where no vote is written on the ballot; Any person who, without authority, acts as, or assumes or performs any function of, a member of the barangay election committee, or deputy or representative of the Commission; Any person who, in the presence or within the hearing of the barangay election committee during any of its meeting, conducts himself in a disorderly manner in such a way as to interrupt or disrupt its work or proceedings to the end of preventing said body from performing its functions, either partly or totally; Any person who, for the purpose of disrupting or obstructing referendum processes or causing confusion among the voters propagates false and alarming reports or information regarding any matter related to the printing of the official ballots, the postponement of referendums, and the transfer of barangay centers; Any person who, without or against the lawful order of the Commission, holds or causes the holding of a referendum on a day other than that fixed by law or by the Commission, or stops a referendum being legally held, or who holds a referendum not legally authorized; Any person who, without legal authority, destroys, or takes away from the possession of those having legal custody thereof, or from the place where they are legally deposited, any ballot box which contains official ballots or other documents used in the referendum or any referendum results; Any person having legal custody of the ballot box containing the official ballots used in the referendum who opens or destroys said box or removes or destroys its contents without or against the order of the Commission; or who tampers with the same or any of its contents; or who through commission or negligence enables any person to commit any of the aforementioned acts, or take away said ballot box from his custody; Any public official or any person acting in his behalf, who relieves any member of the barangay referendum committee or who changes or causes the change of the assignment of members of said committee without authority of the Commission; Any member of the barangay referendum committee who knowingly uses ballots other than the official ballots, except in those cases where the use of emergency ballots is authorized by the Commission; Any provincial, city, municipal and municipal district treasurer who neglects or fails to properly preserve and account for any ballot box, documents, forms and other referendum supplies and materials received by him and kept under his custody; and Any person who reveals the contents of any ballot in violation of Section 10 of this Decree.