G.R. No. L-1477 January 18, 1950 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. JULIO GUILLEN, defendant-appellant.

Julio Guillen y Corpus has voted for the defeated candidate in the presidential elections held in 1946. Manuel A. Roxas assumed the office of President of the Commonwealth and subsequently President of the President of the Philippine Republic. According to Guillen, he became disappointed in President Roxas for his alleged failure to redeem the pledges and fulfill the promises made by him during the presidential election campaign. Moreover, he said that instead of President Roxas, looking after the interest of his country, he sponsored and campaigned for the approval of the socalled "parity" measure. For those reasons, he was determined to assassinate the President.

at the beginning of the trial and before arraignment, counsel de oficio for the accused moved that the mental condition of Guillen be examined. However, Dr. Fernandez of the National Psychopathic Hospital, after several tests, she concluded that Julio Guillen was not insane. He was sufferimg from Constitutional Psychopathic Inferiority, without psychosis. This case is before us for review of, and by virtue of appeal from, the judgment rendered by the Court of First Instance of Manila in case No. 2746, whereby Julio Guillen y Corpus, or Julio C. Guillen, is found guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of murder and multiple frustrated murder, as charged in the information, and is sentenced to the penalty of death, to indemnify the of the deceased Simeon Valera (or Barrela) in the sum of P2,000 and to pay the costs. Upon arraignment the accused entered a plea of not guilty to the charges contained in the information.
Issue: whether or not the appellant is guilty or murder and frustrated murder? Held:

There can be no question that the accused attempted to kill President Roxas by throwing a hand grenade at him with the intention to kill him, thereby commencing the commission of a felony by over acts, but he did not succeed in assassinating him "by reason of some cause or accident other than his own spontaneous desistance." For the same reason we qualify the injuries caused on the four other persons already named as merely attempted and not frustrated murder.

The sentence of the trial court being correct, we have no alternative but to affirm it, and we hereby do so by a unanimous vote. The death sentence shall be executed in accordance with article 81 of the Revised Penal Code, under authority of the Director of Prisons, on such working day as the trial court may fix within 30 days from the date the record shall have been remanded. It is so ordered.