Republic of the Philippines before or afterwards, Villanueva being in the best of temper, on finding himself

SUPREME COURT injured the complainant left the spot while Villanueva remained there. The court:
Manila
"Q. When the accused took the bolo from you was he angry or
EN BANC was he in a good temper?

G.R. No. 10606 September 11, 1915 A. He was in good temper.

THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee, Q. What was object in securing the bolo when he took it from
vs. your belt?
ANDRES VILLANUEVA, defendant-appellant.
A. Because he suddenly snatched my bolo and I caught at it.
Tirso de Irureta Goyena for appellant.
Attorney-General Avancea for appellee. Q. When did the accused note that you were wounded in the
hand?
ARELLANO, C.J.:
A. When I was leaving.
This case has come up on appeal from a judgment of the Court of First Instance
of Mindoro, by which Andres Villanueva was sentenced to two months and Q. So that you did not show the cut to the accused right after you
fifteen days' arresto mayor, accessory imprisonment, to indemnify the aggrieved wounded yourself?
party, Isidro Benter, in the sum of P21, or, in case of insolvency, to suffer
subsidiary imprisonment and to pay the costs. A. No, sir; I left at once.

According to the complaint Villanueva is charged "while quarreling with his
opponent, Isidro Benter, with having suddenly snatched the bolo which the latter
was carrying at his belt and with it inflicting upon him a wound in the palm of
the right hand that incapacitated the aggrieved party from performing work for
more than thirty days and which rendered the said principal member entirely
useless."
But it turns out that Villanueva was not Benter's opponent nor was there any
quarrel between the two. Neither did Villanueva inflict wound upon Benter. The
latter injured himself by an accident arising out of his own act.
Benter himself testified that he had agreed to take Villanueva to the town of Pola
in his boat; that on arriving at the landing boat was not there; that, thereupon he
told Villanueva that to avoid being late the latter ought to start right away; that
while both of them were standing with their arms folded it occurred to
Villanueva to take hold of the bolo which complainant carried at his belt; that the
complainant tried to retain it and that in doing so he caught it by the blade and
cut himself in the palm of the right hand; that without a word being said, either
Q. When you the told the accused that you did not have a banca
at your disposal, what sort of a temper was he in?
A. He did not speak.
Q. Had there any dispute between you prior to that date?
A. No, sir.
Rufino Cabe and Nicolas Montejo, witnesses for the prosecution, learned at the
time from Benter that he was wounded, but the first did not discover from Benter
how it came about and the second testified that Benter had said nothing as to
who had wounded him.
And that is all there is in the record with respect to the act complained of.
Said act took place on the 5th of July, 1914, and the complaint was not filed until
the 10th of October, 1914. Thus Benter was able to testify that the wound
delayed in healing for more than forty days. The trial was held on December 8,
and then Benter showed a scar in the right palm that ran from the base of the
little finger to the first joint of the index finger. The judge noted that the index
finger was stiff and that the man could not extend the ring finger. Neither was the
allegation contained in the complaint, to the effect that the right hand had been
rendered entirely useless, proven at the trial. The court asked the cirujano
ministrante called as an expert witness to look at the scar to see if Benter could
work as well with his hand in that state as when it was in its former normal
condition. The witness said no, for the reason that it was not entirely healed
inside; that on the other hand no arteries were injured, for if they were,
articulation would be impossible.
The principal charge of the accusation, that Villanueva inflicted upon Benter the
wound in question, is not proven in the slightest. The defense prayed for
dismissal. The prosecution did not oppose it. But the lower court denied the
petition. The defense renounced its right to present evidence. And the court
pronounced judgment of conviction in which he sums up the act complained of
in the following language: "That the accused, suddenly and without saying a
word, drew the bolo from the sheath in which the aggrieved party Isidoro Benter
was carrying it at his belt; that the said Isidoro Benter instinctively caught at the
bolo to retain it and in so catching it with his right hand, the bolo said, in sliding
through with all its edge (with all its weight?) wounded him across the entire
width of the palm of the hand in a direction perpendicular to the base of the
fingers; the wound was not healed for more than 40 days."
According to this opinion it was the bolo that wounded Benter, not the accused.
But this notwithstanding "In the opinion of the court, the act complained of,
as proven at the trial, constitutes lesiones graves by reckless negligence, a crime
provided for and punished by article 568 of the Penal Code, because the accused,
in taking the prosecuting witness' bolo from its sheath, without intending to
wound the latter, performed an act which occasioned the wound in question,
because he did not employ that care and precaution which any person who was
in the least careful would have taken to avoid the evil which he produced."
The law speaks of a person who by reckless imprudence commits an act which,
if maliciously performed, would constitute a grave felony. (Art. 568, Penal
Code.) But the act of the accused in the case at bar does not constitute a
felony, grave, or menos grave, nor it is a misdemeanor. The only act which he
performed was to take, or attempt to take, from its sheath the bolo which Benter
was carrying at his belt, and that was an act which is not defined in any law as
being a crime or misdemeanor.
If the accused, in drawing the bolo from its scabbard, or if any other person in
taking a revolver from the belt of a person carrying it, should, by not employing
proper care, wound the latter, clearly, then, he would have to answer for his act
of injuring the other, as guilty of having caused an injury without malice and
merely by reckless negligence by reason of not using proper care. But the
defendant did not wound Benter. It was the latter who, by his own act in catching
hold of the edge of the blade of the bolo, wounded himself, or as is said in the
judgment appealed from, the bolo, by its edge or by its own weight, in slipping
from Benter's hand into the scabbard he did not grasp it firmly, wounded Benter;
the bolo did this, not the defendant.
The crime of lesiones graves (physical injuries) which the trial court understands
to be committed without malice or with reckless imprudence is thus classified in
article 416 of the Penal Code: "Any person who shall wound, beat, or assault
another ... shall suffer: 1. .... 2. The penalty of prision etc., if in consequence of
the physical injuries inflicted the injured person shall have lost an eye or any
physical member, etc."
The defendant did not wound, beat, or assault Benter; consequently he cannot be
guilty of the crime of inflicting serious physical injuries, not even by reckless
imprudence.
A similar case was decided by the appellate court on June 11, 1880: "Whereas it
appears that on the evening of the 26th of April, 1879, Cipriano Belinchon, a
mute, in company with his servant, Salustiano Sanchez, went to cut some grass
on the side of a declivity in a garden belonging to Evaristo Gomez; that the latter
came up and warned Cipriano not to do it again because he was keeping the
grass for use in his stables; that thereupon the mute became angry; that raising
his sickle he threatened Evaristo with it, whereupon the latter, in order to
frustrate the blow, caught hold of the sickle, saying, "Ah, you rascal, you have
cut me!" inflicting upon himselfvarious cuts on the three last fingers of the right
hand that took until the 18th of May to heal, ... Whereas, according to article 1 of
the Penal Code, crimes are willful acts and omissions punished by law: Whereas
the only action attributed to the defendant Cipriano Belinchon in the judgment
appealed from is that of having threatened to strike Evaristo Gomez with the
sickle with which, a few months before being warned, he was cutting grass, it
cannot therefore be doubted that this simple act on the part of Belinchon cannot
fall squarely within the penal sanction of article 431 that was appealed by the
trial court, the latter being of the opinion that a person is responsible who
wounds, beats or assaults another, causing him any of the physical injuries set
forth in the four paragraphs that constitute the article: Whereas the injuries of
this character, which render a member not a principal one useless, which were
inflicted upon Evaristo Gomez and are provided for in paragraph 3 of the said
article, were not the direct effect of a wound, blow or assault made upon him by
Belinchon, but by the indiscretion with which, when the sickle was raised and
without the necessary blow being struck, he seized the tool and cut his fingers
an act which could not be possibly have been foreseen by the defendant nor have
been prevented on account of the rapidity with which it is to be imagined Gomez
grasped the sickle that was raised in the attitude to strike. ... We therefore decree
that the appeal taken by Cipriano Belinchon Lucas from the judgment of the
criminal sala of the Audencia de Albacete be sustained and the judgment is
hereby reversed."

In the present case we have to take into consideration the fact that the defendant,
in taking or attempting to take the bolo from its scabbard, made not the slightest
threat or any indication of striking with it. His action appears to have been
motived by mere curiosity.

The judgment appealed from is reversed. We freely acquit Andres Villanueva

with the costs of both instance de oficio. So ordered.

Torres, Johnson, Carson, Trent, and Araullo, JJ., concur.

 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-34665 August 28, 1931
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
DONATO BINDOY, defendant-appellant.
Florentino Saguin for appellant.
Attorney-General Jaranilla for appellee.
VILLAMOR, J.:
The appellant was sentenced by the Court of First Instance of Occidental
Misamis to the penalty of twelve years and one day of reclusion temporal, with
the accessories of law, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the amount of
P1,000, and to pay the costs. The crime charged against the accused is homicide,
according to the following information:
That on or about the 6th of May, 1930, in the barrio of Calunod,
municipality of Baliangao, Province of Occidental Misamis, the accused
Donato Bindoy willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously attacked and with
his bolo wounded Emigdio Omamdam, inflicting upon the latter a
serious wound in the chest which caused his instant death, in violation
of article 404 of the Penal Code.
The accused appealed from the judgment of the trial court, and his counsel in this
instance contends that the court erred in finding him guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt, and in convicting him of the crime of homicide.
The record shows that in the afternoon of May 6, 1930, a disturbance arose in
a tuba wineshop in the barrio market of Calunod, municipality of Baliangao,
Province of Occidental Misamis, started by some of the tubadrinkers. There were
Faustino Pacas (alias Agaton), and his wife called Tibay. One Donato Bindoy,
who was also there, offered some tuba to Pacas' wife; and as she refused to drink
having already done so, Bindoy threatened to injure her if she did not accept.
There ensued an interchange of words between Tibay and Bindoy, and Pacas
stepped in to defend his wife, attempting to take away from Bindoy the bolo he
carried. This occasioned a disturbance which attracted the attention of Emigdio
Omamdam, who, with his family, lived near the market. Emigdio left his house
to see what was happening, while Bindoy and Pacas were struggling for the bolo.
In the course of this struggle, Bindoy succeeded in disengaging himself from
Pacas, wrenching the bolo from the latter's hand towards the left behind the
accused, with such violence that the point of the bolo reached Emigdio
Omamdam's chest, who was then behind Bindoy.
There is no evidence that Emigdio took part in the fight between Bindoy and
Pacas. Neither is there any indication that the accused was aware of Emigdio
Omamdam's presence in the place, for, according to the testimony of the
witnesses, the latter passed behind the combatants when he left his house to
satisfy his curiosity. There was no disagreement or ill feeling between Bindoy
and Omamdam, on the contrary, it appears they were nephew and uncle,
respectively, and were on good terms with each other. Bindoy did not try to
wound Pacas, and instead of wounding him, he hit Omamdam; he was only
defending his possession of the bolo, which Pacas was trying to wrench away
from him, and his conduct was perfectly lawful.
The wound which Omamdam received in the chest, judging by the description
given by the sanitary inspector who attended him as he lay dying, tallies with the
size of the point of Bindoy's bolo.
There is no doubt that the latter caused the wound which produced Emigdio
Omamdam's death, but the defendant alleges that it was caused accidentally and
without malicious intent.
Pacas and the widow of the deceased, Carmen Angot, testified having seen the
accused stab Omamdam with his bolo. Such testimony is not incompatible with
that of the accused, to the effect that he wounded Omamdam by accident. The
widow testified that she knew of her husband's wound being caused by Bindoy
from his statement to her before his death.
The testimony of the witnesses for the prosecution tends to show that the accused
stabbed Omamdam in the chest with his bolo on that occasion. The defendant,
indeed, in his effort to free himself of Pacas, who was endeavoring to wrench his
bolo from him, hit Omamdam in the chest; but, as we have stated, there is no
evidence to show that he did so deliberately and with the intention of committing
a crime. If, in his struggle with Pacas, the defendant had attempted to wound his
opponent, and instead of doing so, had wounded Omamdam, he would have had
to answer for his act, since whoever willfully commits a felony or a
misdemeanor incurs criminal liability, although the wrongful act done be
different from that which he intended. (Art. 1 of the Penal Code.) But, as we
have said, this is not the case.
The witness for the defense, Gaudencio Cenas, corroborates the defendant to the
effect that Pacas and Bindoy were actually struggling for the possession of the
bolo, and that when the latter let go, the former had pulled so violently that it
flew towards his left side, at the very moment when Emigdio Omamdam came
up, who was therefore hit in the chest, without Donato's seeing him, because
Emigdio had passed behind him. The same witness adds that he went to see
Omamdam at his home later, and asked him about his wound when he replied: "I
think I shall die of this wound." And then continued: "Please look after my wife
when I die: See that she doesn't starve," adding further: "This wound was an
accident. Donato did not aim at me, nor I at him: It was a mishap." The
testimony of this witness was not contradicted by any rebuttal evidence adduced
by the fiscal.

We have searched the record in vain for the motive of this kind, which, had it
existed, would have greatly facilitated the solution of this case. And we deem it
well to repeat what this court said in United States vs. Carlos (15 Phil., 47), to
wit:

The attention of prosecuting officers, and especially of provincial

fiscals, directed to the importance of definitely ascertaining and proving,
when possible, the motives which actuated the commission of a crime
under investigation.

In many criminal cases one of the most important aids in completing the
proof of the commission of the crime by the accused is the introduction
of evidence disclosing the motives which tempted the mind of the guilty
person to indulge the criminal act.

In view of the evidence before us, we are of opinion and so hold, that the
appellant is entitled to acquittal according to article 8, No. 8, Penal Code.
Wherefore, the judgment appealed from is reversed, and the accused Donato
Bindoy is hereby acquitted with costs de oficio. So ordered.

Avancea, C.J., Johnson, Street, Malcolm, Romualdez, Villa-Real, and Imperial,

JJ., concur.
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-47722 July 27, 1943
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
ANTONIO Z. OANIS and ALBERTO GALANTA, defendants-appellants.
Antonio Z. Oanis in his own behalf.
Maximo L. Valenzuela for appellant Galanta.
Acting Solicitor-General Ibaez and Assistant Attorney Torres for appellee.
MORAN, J.:
Charged with the crime of murder of one Serapio Tecson, the accused Antonio Z.
Oanis and Alberto Galanta, chief of police of Cabanatuan and corporal of the
Philippine Constabulary, respectively, were, after due trial, found guilty by the
lower court of homicide through reckless imprudence and were sentenced each
to an indeterminate penalty of from one year and six months to two years and
two months of prison correccional and to indemnify jointly and severally the
heirs of the deceased in the amount of P1,000. Defendants appealed separately
from this judgment.
In the afternoon of December 24, 1938. Captain Godofredo Monsod,
Constabulary Provincial Inspector at Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, received from
Major Guido a telegram of the following tenor: "Information received escaped
convict Anselmo Balagtas with bailarina and Irene in Cabanatuan get him dead
or alive." Captain Monsod accordingly called for his first sergeant and asked that
he be given four men. Defendant corporal Alberto Galanta, and privates
Nicomedes Oralo, Venancio Serna and D. Fernandez, upon order of their
sergeant, reported at the office of the Provincial Inspector where they were
shown a copy of the above-quoted telegram and a newspaper clipping containing
a picture of Balagtas. They were instructed to arrest Balagtas and, if
overpowered, to follow the instruction contained in the telegram. The same
instruction was given to the chief of police Oanis who was likewise called by the
Provincial Inspector. When the chief of police was asked whether he knew one
Irene, a bailarina, he answered that he knew one of loose morals of the same
name. Upon request of the Provincial Inspector, the chief of police tried to locate
some of his men to guide the constabulary soldiers in ascertaining Balagtas'
whereabouts, and failing to see anyone of them he volunteered to go with the
party. The Provincial Inspector divided the party into two groups with defendants
Oanis and Galanta, and private Fernandez taking the route to Rizal street leading
to the house where Irene was supposedly living. When this group arrived at
Irene's house, Oanis approached one Brigida Mallare, who was then stripping
banana stalks, and asked her where Irene's room was. Brigida indicated the place
and upon further inquiry also said that Irene was sleeping with her paramour.
Brigida trembling, immediately returned to her own room which was very near
that occupied by Irene and her paramour. Defendants Oanis and Galanta then
went to the room of Irene, and an seeing a man sleeping with his back towards
the door where they were, simultaneously or successively fired at him with their .
32 and .45 caliber revolvers. Awakened by the gunshots, Irene saw her paramour
already wounded, and looking at the door where the shots came, she saw the
defendants still firing at him. Shocked by the entire scene. Irene fainted; it turned
out later that the person shot and killed was not the notorious criminal Anselmo
Balagtas but a peaceful and innocent citizen named Serapio Tecson, Irene's
paramour. The Provincial Inspector, informed of the killing, repaired to the scene
and when he asked as to who killed the deceased. Galanta, referring to himself
and to Oanis, answered: "We two, sir." The corpse was thereafter brought to the
provincial hospital and upon autopsy by Dr. Ricardo de Castro, multiple gunshot
wounds inflicted by a .32 and a .45 caliber revolvers were found on Tecson's
body which caused his death.
These are the facts as found by the trial court and fully supported by the
evidence, particularly by the testimony of Irene Requinea. Appellants gave,
however, a different version of the tragedy. According to Appellant Galanta,
when he and chief of police Oanis arrived at the house, the latter asked Brigida
where Irene's room was. Brigida indicated the place, and upon further inquiry as
to the whereabouts of Anselmo Balagtas, she said that he too was sleeping in the
same room. Oanis went to the room thus indicated and upon opening the curtain
covering the door, he said: "If you are Balagtas, stand up." Tecson, the supposed
Balagtas, and Irene woke up and as the former was about to sit up in bed. Oanis
fired at him. Wounded, Tecson leaned towards the door, and Oanis receded and
shouted: "That is Balagtas." Galanta then fired at Tecson.
On the other hand, Oanis testified that after he had opened the curtain covering
the door and after having said, "if you are Balagtas stand up." Galanta at once
fired at Tecson, the supposed Balagtas, while the latter was still lying on bed, and
continued firing until he had exhausted his bullets: that it was only thereafter that
he, Oanis, entered the door and upon seeing the supposed Balagtas, who was
then apparently watching and picking up something from the floor, he fired at
him.
The trial court refused to believe the appellants. Their testimonies are certainly
incredible not only because they are vitiated by a natural urge to exculpate
themselves of the crime, but also because they are materially contradictory. Oasis
averred that be fired at Tecson when the latter was apparently watching
somebody in an attitudes of picking up something from the floor; on the other
hand, Galanta testified that Oasis shot Tecson while the latter was about to sit up
in bed immediately after he was awakened by a noise. Galanta testified that he
fired at Tecson, the supposed Balagtas, when the latter was rushing at him. But
Oanis assured that when Galanta shot Tecson, the latter was still lying on bed. It
is apparent from these contradictions that when each of the appellants tries to
exculpate himself of the crime charged, he is at once belied by the other; but
their mutual incriminating averments dovetail with and corroborate substantially,
the testimony of Irene Requinea. It should be recalled that, according to
Requinea, Tecson was still sleeping in bed when he was shot to death by
appellants. And this, to a certain extent, is confirmed by both appellants
themselves in their mutual recriminations. According, to Galanta, Oanis shot
Tecson when the latter was still in bed about to sit up just after he was awakened
by a noise. And Oanis assured that when Galanta shot Tecson, the latter was still
lying in bed. Thus corroborated, and considering that the trial court had the
opportunity to observe her demeanor on the stand, we believe and so hold that no
error was committed in accepting her testimony and in rejecting the exculpatory
pretensions of the two appellants. Furthermore, a careful examination of Irene's
testimony will show not only that her version of the tragedy is not concocted but
that it contains all indicia of veracity. In her cross-examination, even misleading
questions had been put which were unsuccessful, the witness having stuck to the
truth in every detail of the occurrence. Under these circumstances, we do not feel
ourselves justified in disturbing the findings of fact made by the trial court.
The true fact, therefore, of the case is that, while Tecson was sleeping in his
room with his back towards the door, Oanis and Galanta, on sight, fired at him
simultaneously or successively, believing him to be Anselmo Balagtas but
without having made previously any reasonable inquiry as to his identity. And
the question is whether or not they may, upon such fact, be held responsible for
the death thus caused to Tecson. It is contended that, as appellants acted in
innocent mistake of fact in the honest performance of their official duties, both
of them believing that Tecson was Balagtas, they incur no criminal liability.
Sustaining this theory in part, the lower court held and so declared them guilty of
the crime of homicide through reckless imprudence. We are of the opinion,
however, that, under the circumstances of the case, the crime committed by
appellants is murder through specially mitigated by circumstances to be
mentioned below.
In support of the theory of non-liability by reasons of honest mistake of fact,
appellants rely on the case of U.S. v. Ah Chong, 15 Phil., 488. The maxim
is ignorantia facti excusat, but this applies only when the mistake is committed
without fault or carelessness. In the Ah Chong case, defendant therein after
having gone to bed was awakened by someone trying to open the door. He called
out twice, "who is there," but received no answer. Fearing that the intruder was a
robber, he leaped from his bed and called out again., "If you enter the room I will
kill you." But at that precise moment, he was struck by a chair which had been
placed against the door and believing that he was then being attacked, he seized a
kitchen knife and struck and fatally wounded the intruder who turned out to be
his room-mate. A common illustration of innocent mistake of fact is the case of a
man who was marked as a footpad at night and in a lonely road held up a friend
in a spirit of mischief, and with leveled, pistol demanded his money or life. He
was killed by his friend under the mistaken belief that the attack was real, that
the pistol leveled at his head was loaded and that his life and property were in
imminent danger at the hands of the aggressor. In these instances, there is an
innocent mistake of fact committed without any fault or carelessness because the
accused, having no time or opportunity to make a further inquiry, and being
pressed by circumstances to act immediately, had no alternative but to take the
facts as they then appeared to him, and such facts justified his act of killing. In
the instant case, appellants, unlike the accused in the instances cited, found no
circumstances whatsoever which would press them to immediate action. The
person in the room being then asleep, appellants had ample time and opportunity
to ascertain his identity without hazard to themselves, and could even effect a
bloodless arrest if any reasonable effort to that end had been made, as the victim
was unarmed, according to Irene Requinea. This, indeed, is the only legitimate
course of action for appellants to follow even if the victim was really Balagtas,
as they were instructed not to kill Balagtas at sight but to arrest him, and to get
him dead or alive only if resistance or aggression is offered by him.
Although an officer in making a lawful arrest is justified in using such force as is
reasonably necessary to secure and detain the offender, overcome his resistance,
prevent his escape, recapture him if he escapes, and protect himself from bodily
harm (People vs. Delima, 46 Phil, 738), yet he is never justified in using
unnecessary force or in treating him with wanton violence, or in resorting to
dangerous means when the arrest could be effected otherwise (6 C.J.S., par. 13,
p. 612). The doctrine is restated in the new Rules of Court thus: "No unnecessary
or unreasonable force shall be used in making an arrest, and the person arrested
shall not be subject to any greater restraint than is necessary for his detention."
(Rule 109, sec. 2, par. 2). And a peace officer cannot claim exemption from
criminal liability if he uses unnecessary force or violence in making an arrest (5
C.J., p. 753; U.S. vs. Mendoza, 2 Phil., 109). It may be true that Anselmo
Balagtas was a notorious criminal, a life-termer, a fugitive from justice and a
menace to the peace of the community, but these facts alone constitute no
justification for killing him when in effecting his arrest, he offers no resistance or
in fact no resistance can be offered, as when he is asleep. This, in effect, is the
principle laid down, although upon different facts, in U.S. vs.Donoso (3 Phil.,
234, 242).
It is, however, suggested that a notorious criminal "must be taken by storm"
without regard to his right to life which he has by such notoriety already
forfeited. We may approve of this standard of official conduct where the criminal
offers resistance or does something which places his captors in danger of
imminent attack. Otherwise we cannot see how, as in the present case, the mere
fact of notoriety can make the life of a criminal a mere trifle in the hands of the
officers of the law. Notoriety rightly supplies a basis for redoubled official
alertness and vigilance; it never can justify precipitate action at the cost of
human life. Where, as here, the precipitate action of the appellants has cost an
innocent life and there exist no circumstances whatsoever to warrant action of
such character in the mind of a reasonably prudent man, condemnation not
condonation should be the rule; otherwise we should offer a premium to
crime in the shelter of official actuation.
duty. The second requisite is wanting for the crime by them committed is not the
necessary consequence of a due performance of their duty. Their duty was to
arrest Balagtas or to get him dead or alive if resistance is offered by him and they
are overpowered. But through impatience or over-anxiety or in their desire to
take no chances, they have exceeded in the fulfillment of such duty by killing the
person whom they believed to be Balagtas without any resistance from him and
without making any previous inquiry as to his identity. According to article 69 of
the Revised Penal Code, the penalty lower by one or two degrees than that
prescribed by law shall, in such case, be imposed.
For all the foregoing, the judgment is modified and appellants are hereby
declared guilty of murder with the mitigating circumstance above mentioned,
and accordingly sentenced to an indeterminate penalty of from five (5) years
of prision correctional to fifteen (15) years of reclusion temporal, with the
accessories of the law, and to pay the heirs of the deceased Serapio Tecson
jointly and severally an indemnity of P2,000, with costs.

The crime committed by appellants is not merely criminal negligence, the killing Yulo, C.J., Bocobo, Generoso and Lopez Vito, A., concur.
being intentional and not accidental. In criminal negligence, the injury caused to
another should be unintentional, it being simply the incident of another act
performed without malice. (People vs. Sara, 55 Phil., 939). In the words of
Viada, "para que se celifique un hecho de imprudencia es preciso que no haya
mediado en el malicia ni intencion alguna de daar; existiendo esa intencion,
debera calificarse el hecho del delito que ha producido, por mas que no haya sido
la intencion del agente el causar un mal de tanta gravedad como el que se
produjo." (Tomo 7, Viada Codigo Penal Comentado, 5.a ed. pag. 7). And, as once
held by this Court, a deliberate intent to do an unlawful act is essentially
inconsistent with the idea of reckless imprudence (People vs. Nanquil, 43 Phil.,
232; People vs.Bindor, 56 Phil., 16), and where such unlawful act is wilfully
done, a mistake in the identity of the intended victim cannot be considered as
reckless imprudence (People vs. Gona, 54 Phil., 605) to support a plea of
mitigated liability.

As the deceased was killed while asleep, the crime committed is murder with the
qualifying circumstance ofalevosia. There is, however, a mitigating circumstance
of weight consisting in the incomplete justifying circumstance defined in article
11, No. 5, of the Revised Penal Code. According to such legal provision, a
person incurs no criminal liability when he acts in the fulfillment of a duty or in
the lawful exercise of a right or office. There are two requisites in order that the
circumstance may be taken as a justifying one: (a) that the offender acted in the
performance of a duty or in the lawful exercise of a right; and (b) that the injury
or offense committed be the necessary consequence of the due performance of Republic of the Philippines
such duty or the lawful exercise of such right or office. In the instance case, only SUPREME COURT
the first requisite is present appellants have acted in the performance of a Manila
 EN BANC had no intention to kill the deceased and committed the crime by mistake, he
should have been found guilty of homicide through negligence under paragraph
G.R. No. L-32066 March 15, 1903 1 of article 568 of the Penal Code and not of the graver crime of intentional
homicide.
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff and appellee,
vs. This contention is contrary to earlier decisions of this court. In these case of
GONA (Mansaca), defendant and appellant. United State vs. Mendieta(34 Phil., 242), the court said:

Jose Ma. Capili for appellant. Even admitting that the defendant intended to injure Hilario Lauigan
Attorney-General Jaranilla for appellee. instead of Pedro Acierto, even that, in view of the mortal wound which
inflicted upon the latter, in no way could be considered as a relief from
OSTRAND, J.: his criminal act. That he made a mistake in killing one man instead of
another, when it is proved that he acted maliciously and willfully, cannot
relieve him from criminal responsibility. Neither do we believe that the
The defendant was charged before the Court of First Instance of the Province of
fact that he made a mistake in killing the wrong man should be
Davao with the crime of homicide, the information reading as follows:
considered as a mitigating circumstances.
That on or about October 26, 1928, in the municipal district of
The appealed sentence is affirmed with the costs against the defendant. So
Pantukan, Province of Davao, Philippine Islands, as within the
ordered.
jurisdiction of the court, the said accused voluntarily, illegally, and
criminally and with a bolo which he then carried, assaulted
the Mansaca Mapudul, causing him a mortal wound on the left side of Johnson, Malcolm, Villamor, Johns, Romualdez and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.
the neck and that as a consequence of said wound, the said Mapudul
died.

Upon trial the court below found the defendant guilty as charged in the
information and taking into consideration the extenuating circumstance of non-
habitual intoxication, sentenced him to suffer twelve years and one ofreclusion
temporal with the accessory penalties prosecuted by law to indemnity the heirs
of the deceased in the sum of P1,000, and to the costs. From this sentenced the
defendant appealed.

It appears from the evidence that on the evening of October 26, 1928, a number
of Mansacas celebrated a reunion in the house of the Mansaca Gabriel. There
seems to have been liberal supply of alcoholic drinks and some of the men
present became intoxicated, with the result that a quarrel took the place between
the MansacaDunca and the defendant. Dunca and his son Aguipo eventually left
the house and were followed by Mapudul and one Award. The defendant left the
house about the same time with intention of assaulting Dunca, but in the Republic of the Philippines
darkness of the evening and in the intoxicated condition of the defendant, the SUPREME COURT
mistook Mapudul for Dunca and inflicated on him a mortal wound with a bolo. Manila

There can no doubt that the defendant killed Mapudul and that he is guilty of the EN BANC
crime charged, but his attorney argues that in view of the fact that said defendant
 G.R. No. L-38511 October 6, 1933
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
FRANCISCO CAGOCO Y RAMONES (alias FRANCISCO
CAGURO, alias FRANCISCO ADMONES, aliasBUCOY, alias FRISCO
GUY), defendant-appellant.
W.A. Caldwell and Sotto and Astilla for appellant.
Office of the Solicitor-General Bengzon for appellee.
VICKERS, J.:
The accused was charged in the Court of First Instance of Manila with the crime
of asesinato, committed as follows:
That on or about the 24th day of July, 1932, in the City of Manila,
Philippine Islands, the said accused did then and there willfully,
unlawfully and feloniously, without any just cause therefor and with
intent to kill and treachery, assault and attack one Yu Lon by suddenly
giving him a fist blow on the back part of the head, under conditions
which intended directly and especially to insure, the accomplishment of
his purpose without risk to himself arising from any defense the victim
Yu Lon might make, thus causing him to fall on the ground as a
consequence of which he suffered a lacerated wound on the scalp and a
fissured fracture on the left occipital region, which were necessarily
mortal and which caused the immediate death of the said Yu Lon.
After hearing the evidence, Judge Luis P. Torres found the defendant guilty as
charged, and sentenced him to suffer reclusion perpetua, with the accessory
penalties of the law, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased Yu Lon in the sum of
P1,000, without subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to pay the
costs.
Appellant's attorney de oficio makes the following assignments of error:
1. The trial court erred in finding that the appellant the person who
committed the assault on Yu Lon, the victim to the crime charged in the
information.
2. Assuming that the appellant is the person who committed the assault
on Yu Lon (a fact which we specifically deny), the trial court erred in
finding that the appellant struck his supposed victim.
3. Assuming that the appellant is the person who committed the assault
on Yu Lon, and that the appellant did strike his supposed victim (facts
which we specifically deny) the trial court erred in finding that the blow
was dealt from the victim's rear.
4. The trial court erred in finding that the identity of the appellant was
fully established.
5. Assuming that the four preceding errors assigned are without merit,
the trial court erred in convicting the appellant of the crime of murder,
under article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, instead of convicting him
of the crime of maltreatment, under article 266 of the said Code.
It appears from the evidence that about 8:30 on the night of July 24, 1932 Yu
Lon and Yu Yee, father and son, stopped to talk on the sidewalk at the corner of
Mestizos and San Fernando Streets in the District of San Nicolas Yu Lon was
standing near the outer edge of the sidewalk, with his back to the street. While
they were talking, a man passed back and forth behind Yu Lon once or twice, and
when Yu Yee was about to take leave of his father, the man that had been passing
back the forth behind Yu Lon approached him from behind and suddenly and
without warning struck him with his fist on the back part of the head. Yu Lon
tottered and fell backwards. His head struck the asphalt pavement; the lower part
of his body fell on the sidewalk. His assailants immediately ran away. Yu Yee
pursued him through San Fernando, Camba, and Jaboneros Streets, and then lost
sight of him. Two other Chinese, Chin Sam and Yee Fung, who were walking
along Calle Mestizos, saw the incident and joined him in the pursuit of Yu Lon's
assailant. The wounded man was taken to the Philippine General Hospital, were
he died about midnight. A post-mortem examination was made the next day by
Dr. Anastacia Villegas, who found that the deceased had sustained a lacerated
wound and fracture of the skull in the occipital region, and that he had died from
cerebral hemorrhage; that he had tuberculosis, though not in an advanced stage,
and a tumor in the left kidney.
Yu Yee promptly reported the incident to the police, and about 3 o'clock the next
morning Sergeant Sol Cruz and other detectives, accompanied by Yu Yee, went
to the scene of the crime and found blood stains in the street. Yu Yee said that he
could recognize his father's assailant, and described him as being about five feet
in height, 25 or 30 years old, with long hair and wearing a suit of dark clothes.
After Sergeant Sol Cruz had been working on the case for three or four days he
received information that the accused might be the person that had assaulted Yu
Lon, and on August 4th the accused was arrested by detectives Manrique and
Bustamante. He was wearing a dark wool suit. Yu Yee was immediately called to
the police station. The accused was placed near the middle of a line of some
eleven persons that had been detained for investigation. They were wearing
different kinds of clothes. Yu Yee without hesitation pointed out the defendant as
the person that had assaulted Yu Lon. He identified him not only by his long hair
combed towards the back and worn long on the sides in the form of side-
whiskers (patillas), but also by his high cheek-bones and the fact that his ears
have no lobes. The defendant was identified at the trial not only by Yu Yee, but
also by Chin Sam and Yee Fung.
With respect to the first four assignment of error, which raise questions of fact as
to the identification of the accused, and whether or not be struck the deceased,
and if he did assault the deceased, whether he did so in a treacherous manner, we
see no sufficient reason, after considering the evidence and arguments of
counsel, to doubt the correctness of the findings of the trial judge. The accused
was identified by Yu Yee and two other Chinese, and although Yu Yee may have
overstated at the trial some of the facial peculiarities in the defendant that he
claimed to have observed at the time of the incident, it must be remembered that
Yu Yee without hesitation picked the defendant out of a group of eleven persons
as his father's assailant, and that he had exceptional opportunities for observing
his father's assailant, because while that person was walking back and forth
behind Yu Lon, Yu Yee was facing the assailant.
We find the testimony of the defendant and his witnesses as to the whereabouts
of the defendant on the night in question unworthy of credit.1awphil.net
The testimony of the three Chinese that a man struck the deceased and then ran
away is corroborated by the testimony of a 15-year old boy, Dominador Sales.
As to the contention that the deceased would have fallen on his face if he had
been struck on the back of the head, the expert testimony shows that in such a
case a person instinctively makes an effort to preserve or regain his balance, and
that as result thereof the deceased may have fallen backwards. Another
consideration is that sidewalks almost invariably slope towards the pavement,
and this being true, when the deceased straightened up, he naturally tended to fall
backwards. The evidence leaves no room for doubt that the accused struck the
deceased on the back of the head, because when the deceased was assaulted he
and Yu Yee were standing on the sidewalk, facing each other, and if the accused
had not struck the deceased on the back of the head, it would have been
necessary for him to go between the deceased and Yu Yee. Since the accused
struck the deceased from behind and without warning, he acted with treachery.
"There is treachery when the offender commits any of the crimes against the
person, employing means, methods, or forms in the execution thereof which tend
directly and especially to insure its execution, without risk to himself arising
from the defense which the offended party might make." (Article 14, No. 16, of
the Revised Penal Code.)
The fourth assignment of error is a repetition of the first.
In the fifth assignment of error it is contended that the appellant if guilty at all,
should be punished in accordance with article 266 of the Revised Penal Code, or
for slight physical injuries instead of murder.
Paragraph No. 1 of article 4 of the Revised Penal Code provide that criminal
liability shall be incurred by any person committing a felony (delito) although
the wrongful act done be different from that which he intended; but in order that
a person may be criminally liable for a felony different from that which he
proposed to commit, it is indispensable that the two following requisites be
present, to wit: (a) That a felony was committed; and (b) that the wrong done to
the aggrieved person be the direct consequence of the crime committed by the
offender. U.S.vs. Brobst, 14 Phil., 310; U.S. vs. Mallari, 29 Phil., 14 U.S. vs.
Diana, 32 Phil., 344.)
In the Brobst case, supra, it was held that death may result from a blow over or
near the heart or in the abdominal region, notwithstanding the fact that the blow
leaves no outward mark of violence; that where death result as the direct
consequence of the use of illegal violence, the mere fact that the diseased or
weakened condition of the injured person contributed to his death, does not
relieve the illegal aggressor of criminal responsibility; that one is not relieved,
under the law in these Islands, from criminal liability for the natural
consequences of one's illegal acts, merely because one does not intend to
produce such consequences; but that in such cases, the lack of intention, while it
does not exempt from criminal liability, is taken into consideration as an
extenuating circumstance. (U.S. vs. Luciano, 2 Phil., 96.)
The reasoning of the decisions cited is applicable to the case at bar. There can be
no reasonable doubt as to the cause of the death of Yu Lon. There is nothing to
indicate that it was due to some extraneous case. It was clearly the direct
consequence of defendants felonious act, and the fact that the defendant did not
intend to cause so great an injury does not relieve him from the consequence of
his unlawful act, but is merely a mitigating circumstance (U.S. vs. Rodriguez, 23
Phil., 22).
The next question is whether the crime committed by the defendant should be not neutralize that other qualifying circumstance of the resulting death,
classified as homicide or murder. Can the defendant be convicted of murder because if there was no alevosia for the purpose of killing there
when he did not intend to kill the deceased? was alevosia for the purpose of the illtreating. The means employed
were not made use of for the precise purpose of making certain the death
We have seen that under the circumstances of this case the defendant is liable for of Jacinto de Jesus but as a safe means of illtreating him without risk to
the killing of Yu Lon, because his death was the direct consequence of the persons who were doing so. If by this means the ill treatment was
defendant's felonious act of striking him on the head. If the defendant had not aggravated, it follows that it is a qualifying circumstances in the death
committed the assault in a treacherous manner. he would nevertheless have been which resulted. It was not a condition of the purpose, but it was a
guilty of homicide, although he did not intend to kill the deceased; and since the condition of the criminal act itself, in whatever sense this be taken.
defendant did commit the crime with treachery, he is guilty of murder, because
of the presence of the qualifying circumstance of treachery. The penalty of murder (article 248 of the Revised Penal Code) is reclusion
temporal in its maximum period to death, and there being present in this case one
The Supreme Court of Spain has held that there is no incompatibility, moral or mitigating and no aggravating circumstance the prison sentence of the appellant
legal, between alevosia and the mitigating circumstance of not having intended is reduced to seventeen years, four months, and one day of reclusion temporal.
to cause so great an injury: As thus modified, the decision appealed from is affirmed, with the costs against
the appellant.
Considering that there is no moral or legal incompatibility between
treachery and the mitigating circumstance No. 3 of article 9 of the Penal Avancea, C.J., Street, Abad Santos, and Butte, JJ., concur.
Code, because the former depends upon the manner of execution of the
crime and the latter upon the tendency of the will towards a definite
purpose, and therefore there is no obstacle, in case treacherous means,
modes or forms are employed, to the appreciation of the first of said
circumstances and simultaneously of the second if the injury produced
exceeds the limits intended by the accused; and for that reason it cannot
be held in the instant case that this mitigating circumstances excludes
treachery, or that the accused, being chargeable with the death of the
offended party, should not be liable due to the voluntary presence of
treachery in the act perpetrated, although with mitigation corresponding
to the disparity between the act intended and the act consummated, etc.
(Decision of May 10, 1905, Gazette of April 20, 906; Viada: 5th edition,
Vol. 2, p. 156.)

In the case of the United States vs. Candelaria (2 Phil., 104), this court speaking
through Chief Justice Arellano said:

In trying Jacinto to a tree the three defendants acted treacherously

(alevosamente). Whether it was to prevent him from making resistance,
whether it was to torture him for the purpose of making him give
information, or whether it was for the purpose of inflicting further
punishment, the fact is that by this means the defendants secured
themselves against any risk which might have arisen from an attempt at
self-defense on the part of the victim. We are of opinion that they had no FIRST DIVISION
intention to cause so great an evil as that which resulted, but this does
[G.R. No. 10037. December 23, 1914. ]

THE UNITED STATES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MAXIM0
MALLARI, Defendant-Appellant.
Ledesma, Lim & Irureta Goyena for Appellant.
Solicitor-General Corpus for Appellee.
SYLLABUS
1. CRIMINAL LAW; PLEA OF EXEMPTION FROM RESPONSIBILITY.
The plea or circumstance of exemption from criminal responsibility must be duly
proven in the case in the same way as the principal fact, in order to free the
perpetrator of the crime from responsibility therefor.
2. ID.; RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONSEQUENCES OF ACTS. The proven
perpetrator of a crime is directly responsible for all the consequences of his
criminal act, and therefore for the death that occurred five days after the victim
had received the wound that caused it.
3. ID.; DYING DECLARATIONS; GROUNDS OF ADMISSIBILITY. The
credibility of statements made by a severely wounded person to a justice of the
peace in the preliminary investigation rests not only on the serious situation
resulting from the wound he has received but also on his physical and mental
condition, which, given the depressed state of his mind, has induced the
profound conviction that his life is actually slipping away, and that he is in
positive and imminent danger of dying sooner or later as a consequence of his
serious wound; nor is the force of such declaration affected by the circumstance
that he did not die until many hours or days afterwards, for he finally did die
from the wound, whose gravity did not diminish from the time he made his
declaration until the hour of his death. (Moore v. State, 96 Tenn., 209.)
4. ID.; ID.; ID. Notwithstanding the fact that hearsay evidence is not
admissible at a trial, the statements made by an individual who is seriously
wounded, at a moment when he was dying, being convinced that there was no
hope of recovery, constitute per se at least a grave, conclusive and decisive
indication of the culpability of the persons designated by the dying man,
inasmuch as it must be assumed that he, being in so precarious a condition,
spoke truthfully, and that he was not induced by a desire to tell a lie and to injure
an innocent person. (U. S. v. Castellon, 12 Phil. Rep., 160.)
People vs Mallari
DECISION
TORRES, J. :
This case has been brought up on appeal filed by the defendant from the
judgment dated April 22, 1914, whereby the Honorable Julio Llorente, judge,
sentenced him to the penalty of twelve years and one day of reclusion temporal,
accessories, the payment of an indemnity of P1,000 to the heirs of the deceased,
and the costs.
On the morning of September 25, 1913, in the barrio of Batasan, municipality of
Macabebe, Province of Pampanga, before going to his work, the defendant
Maximo Mallari went to the house of the married couple, Vicente Sunga and
Canuta Flores, and from the shed outside asked Vicente Sunga to cure his wife of
a sickness from which she had been suffering for several days, and which he
thought was due to enchantment on the part of the said Vicente. As the latter
refused, averring that he was not a wizard and that he had not caused the illness
of defendants wife, the former became enraged and insulted the said spouses.
Threatening to kill them, he ascended the stairway carrying in his hand a thin,
sharp bolo. At his wifes suggestion Vicente Sunga tried to get out to report the
matter to the teniente of the barrio, who lived at some paces from their house, but
as he met the defendant on the stairway, he immediately went back inside and
jumped out of a window. He was straightway pursued by the defendant and on
arriving almost in front of the house of the teniente saw that the defendant was
following closely behind him. He therefore turned to face his pursuer and defend
himself as well as he could with his hands. Thereupon the defendant with a
single slash of the bolo wounded Vicente Sunga in the abdomen, so that his
intestines protruded therefrom. In this condition the victim sat down,
endeavoring with his hands to keep his intestines from falling out, while his
assailant took to flight.
The justice of the peace of Macabebe arrived on the scene a few moments later
and in his presence the wounded man declared that his assailant was Mallari,
who had been in his house, and who had inflicted the serious wound he had in
the abdomen. As a consequence of this wound he died three days later.
An autopsy was held on the corpse by the physician who is president of the
municipal board of health of Macabebe, and as a result of the examination made,
it appeared that the deceased had received an incised wound in the epigastric
region, which penetrated the gastrocolic epiploon, the middle part of the
transverse colon and the rectoabdominal muscles, and which had caused severe
peritonitis, the entire length of both intestines having become gangrened with
sanious discharges. This wound was necessarily fatal, especially in view of the
scarcity of antiseptics available in the towns of the provinces.
The facts set forth appear to have been duly proven in the case and constitute the
crime of homicide, provided for and penalized in article 404 of the Penal Code,
for the reason that the defendant appeared at the house of deceased with the
demand that the latter treat his wife, whom he believed to be bewitched by the
artifices of the deceased. As the latter refused to do so, saying that he was not a
wizard, the defendant Mallari insulted the Sunga spouses, threatened them with
death and straightway went up into the house of the deceased with a bolo in his
hand. When the deceased saw this he immediately leaped out of the window in
flight but the defendant pursued him and upon coming up with him in front of
the house of the teniente of the barrio, to whom he was going to complain, struck
him a blow in the abdomen with the bolo, inflicting a serious and fatal wound
that caused death on the third day thereafter.
Defendant declared that on the morning of the occurrence his wife, who was ill,
told him before going to work to. stop in at Isidro Sungas house and ask the
latters wife to treat her, for it was reported that she was a witch; that when he
reached the yard of Isidro Sungas house he asked the latters son, Silvino Sunga,
for his mother; that at Silvinos invitation he entered the yard and Isidro Sunga
asked him from the window what he wanted and invited him to come in; but that
he refused to enter, saying that he could tell what he wanted from outside; that
thereupon Isidro Sungas wife appeared at the window and upon seeing him
called to her children, saying that a bad man had come. Then they began to insult
him, and when he tried to get away, Vicente Sunga, Silvino Sunga, Isidro Sunga,
and Florentino Sunga, armed with long bolos, pursued him. At that instant
Vicente Sunga, who was foremost among them, struck him a blow with a pocket-
knife on one of his rumps. Upon feeling the wound he turned and slashed his
assailant in the belly with his bolo, and then forthwith took to flight, for the
others continued to pursue him. Defendant attempts to show by this testimony
that he was through necessity defending himself from the unlawful assault made
upon him by the deceased.
But it appears fully proven in the case that the defendant Mallari did not go to
Isidro Sungas house to perform his wifes errand but that he went directly to
another house, in which Vicente Sunga lived apart, to compel the latter to cure
his sick wife; that when the defendant pursued him in the direction of the house
of the teniente of the barrio, Sungas wife, Canuta Flores, and her brother,
Dalmacio Flores, came out of the house unarmed and saw the assault; that upon
approaching Sunga, whom they found seated on the ground with a wound in his
belly, they rendered him aid. At that time the defendant, who had assaulted him,
was no longer there, as he had straightway taken to flight. The agents of the
authorities and the justice of the peace who went to the place of the assault found
no weapon in possession of the deceased, or of his wife and his brother-in-law.
Isidro Sunga, who lived in another house with Silvino Sunga and Florentino
Sunga, was not in his house at the time of the occurrence and none of these
persons saw the affair, so they could not have pursued the defendant with
weapons, as he affirms. The two neighbors, Bernardo Saual and Esteban Yama,
who lived in houses adjoining the deceaseds, stated that when they heard the
cries of Canuta Flores calling for help they left their houses and thereupon saw
the defendant pursuing the deceased Vicente Sunga; that upon arriving in front of
the house of the teniente of the barrio, at the moment when Sunga turned toward
the defendant, who was pursuing him, said defendant slashed him in the belly
and straightway took to flight. They did not at that time see Sunga carrying any
weapon, or that he attacked his assailant before being wounded in the belly.
The witnesses for the defense, Bonifacio Ignacio and Diego Yabut, assert that
they saw four armed men pursuing the defendant on that occasion, the foremost
of whom was the deceased, who was carrying a pocket-knife, while the others
were provided with bolos, wherefore the defendant, upon being wounded in the
right rump by the deceased, defended himself and slashed the latter with his
bolo. To offset these declarations, the case affords positive proof that the
defendant, without provocation or prior aggression, attacked the deceased with a
bolo and wounded him in the belly.
The affirmations of said witnesses cannot prevail against the testimony of two
impartial neighbors who came up at the cries of the deceaseds wife calling for
help and who, along with the brother-in-law of the wounded man, witnessed the
occurrence and rendered him aid, without having seen those two witnesses of the
defense on the spot or the alleged prior aggression of the deceased against the
defendant.
Moreover, when the defendant was asked by the chief of police how he came to
be wounded in the rump, he replied that he did not know who had inflicted that
wound, and this statement of the chief was not impugned at the trial, so it may be
that the defendant in preparing his defense wounded himself with a pocket-knife,
for the wound was of a trifling nature; and at the investigation held by the justice
of the peace who went to the defendants house, the latter made no statement
regarding the person who had inflicted said wound, while the physician who
examined him said that it must have been received when he was standing still.
It does not therefore appear to be duly proven in the case that the defendant was
attacked and wounded with a pocket-knife by the deceased, and consequently
that there was any prior unlawful aggression on the part of the deceased, to
justify the finding that the defendant was compelled to wound him in the belly
with a bolo in lawful self-defense. The plea or circumstance of exemption from
responsibility must be fully proven in the same way as the principal fact, in order evidence is not admissible at a trial, the statements made by an individual who is
to hold that the perpetrator of the crime is not responsible therefor. seriously wounded, at a moment when he was dying being convinced that there
was no hope of recovery, constitute per se at least a grave, conclusive and
With reference to the classification of the criminal act, it does not appear in the decisive indication of the culpability of the persons designated by the dying man,
case that this was erroneous, for in spite of the statement of the health officer that inasmuch as it must be assumed that he, being in so precarious a condition,
the deceased might have been saved if the wound had been aseptically treated spoke truthfully, and that he was not induced by a desire to tell a lie and to injure
from the first, its seriousness and fatal character being due to lack of antiseptics, a innocent person."cralaw virtua1aw library
still the person inflicting it is responsible for all the consequences of his criminal
action, and therefore for the death that occurred some days after the deceased For the foregoing reasons, whereby the errors assigned t the judgment appealed
received the wound. from are refuted and said judgment found to be in accordance with the law and
the merits of the case, it is affirmed, with the costs against the Appellant.
With respect to the third error assigned to the court for having held that the
declarations made by the deceased before the justice of the peace had the Arellano, C.J., Johnson, Trent and Araullo, JJ., concur.
character of ante mortem declarations, when the death of the deceased did not
occur for three days and the wound was not in itself of a fatal nature, it must be
remembered that as a result of the wound inflicted upon the deceased his
intestines protruded and for this reason the wound was of a serious if not fatal
nature. Therefore the opinion of the court with reference to the nature and force
of the statements made by the victim before the justice of the peace at the time of
the investigation is quite proper, because the credibility of statements made by a
person severely wounded rests not only on the serious situation resulting from
his wound but also on his physical and mental condition, which, given the
depressed state of his mind, has induced the profound conviction that his life is
actually slipping away, and that he is in positive and imminent danger of dying
sooner or later from the wound: nor can the force of such declaration be affected
by the circumstance that he died later, hours o days after it was inflicted, for
when the patient did final die his death was due to the wound whose gravity did
not diminish from the time he made his declaration until the hour of his death.

In the case of Moore v. State (96 Tenn., 209) the principle was maintained that "a
dying declaration, otherwise competent, will not be excluded because it was
made five days before death."cralaw virtua1aw library

In the syllabus of the decision in the case of Daughdrill v. State (113 Ala., 7, 9) it
is held: "Where it is shown the deceased had received a dangerous wound and
stated several times that he was dying, and wanted witness to take message to his
wife, and was gasping for breath at the time he was talking, and trembling from
fear or excitement, sufficient predicate is laid for the admission of a statement Republic of the Philippines
made at that time, as a dying declaration; and it is no objection to its admission SUPREME COURT
that such declaration took the form of a message to another."cralaw virtua1aw Manila
library
EN BANC
In the syllabus of the decision rendered in the case of the United States v.
Castellon (12 Phil. Rep., 160) it is held "Notwithstanding the fact that hearsay

G.R. No. L-27097 January 17, 1975
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
ANTONIO TOLING y ROVERO and JOSE TOLING y
ROVERO, defendants-appellants.
Office of the Solicitor General Felix V. Makasiar and Solicitor Dominador L.
Quiroz for plaintiff-appellee.
Santiago F. Alidio as counsel de oficio for defendants-appellants.
AQUINO, J.:
Antonio Toling and Jose Toling, brothers, appealed from the decision of the
Court of First Instance of Laguna, finding them guilty of multiple murder and
attempted murder, sentencing them to death and ordering them to indemnify each
set of heirs of (1) Teresita B. Escanan, (2) Antonio B. Mabisa, (3) Isabelo S.
Dando, (4) Elena B. Erminio (5) Modesta R. Brondial (6) Isabel Felices and (7)
Teodoro F. Bautista in the sum of P6,000 and to pay Amanda Mapa the sum of
P500 (Criminal Case No. SC-966). The judgment of conviction was based on the
following facts:
Antonio Toling and Jose Toling, twins, both married, are natives of Barrio Nenita
which is about eighteen (or nine) kilometers away from Mondragon, Northern
Samar. They are illiterate farmers tilling their own lands. They were forty-eight
years old in 1966. Antonio is one hour older than Jose. Being twins, they look
alike very much. However, Antonio has a distinguishing cut in his ear (44 tsn
Jan. 14, 1966).
Antonio's daughter, Leonora, was working in Manila as a laundrywoman since
September, 1964. Jose's three children one girl and two boys, had stayed in
Manila also since 1964.
Antonio decided to go to Manila after receiving a letter from Leonora telling him
that she would give him money. To have money for his expenses, Antonio killed
a pig and sold the meat to Jose's wife for sixty pesos. Jose decided to go with
Antonio in order to see his children. He was able to raise eighty-five pesos for
his expenses.
On January 6, 1965, with a bayong containing their pants and shirts, the twins
left Barrio Nenita and took a bus to Allen. From there, they took a launch to
Matnog, Sorsogon. From Matnog, they went to Daraga, Albay on board an
Alatco bus, and from Daraga, they rode on the train, arriving at the Paco railroad
station in Manila at about seven o'clock in the morning of January 8th. It was
their first trip to the big city.
At the Paco station, the twins took a jeepney which brought them to Tondo. By
means of a letter which Aniano Espenola a labor-recruiter, had given them, they
were able to locate an employment agency where they learned the address of the
Eng Heng Glassware. Antonio's daughter was working in that store.
Accompanied by Juan, an employee of the agency, they proceeded to her
employer's establishment. Leonora gave her father fifty pesos. Sencio Rubis
Antonio's grandson, gave him thirty pesos. Antonio placed the eighty pesos in
the right pocket of his pants. It was then noontime.
Jose was not able to find any of his children in the city. The twins returned to the
agency where they ate their lunch at Juan's expense. From the agency, Juan took
the twins to the Tutuban railroad station that same day, January 8th, for their
homeward trip.
After buying their tickets, they boarded the night Bicol express train at about five
o'clock in the afternoon. The train left at six o'clock that evening.
The twins were in coach No. 9 which was the third from the rear of the dining
car. The coach had one row of two-passenger seats and another row of three-
passenger seats. Each seat faced an opposite seat. An aisle separated the two
rows. The brothers were seated side by side on the fourth three-passenger seat
from the rear, facing the back door. Jose was seated between Antonio, who was
near the window, and a three-year old boy. Beside the boy was a woman breast-
feeding her baby who was near the aisle. That woman was Corazon Bernal.
There were more than one hundred twenty passengers in the coach. Some
passengers were standing on the aisle.
Sitting on the third seat and facing the brothers were two men and an old woman
who was sleeping with her head resting on the back of the seat (Exh. 2). on the
two-passenger seat across the aisle in line with the seat where the brothers were
sitting, there were seated a fat woman, who was near the window, and one
Cipriano Reganet who was on her left. On the opposite seat were seated a
woman, her daughter and Amanda Mapa with an eight-month old baby. They
were in front of Reganet.
Two chico vendors entered the coach when the train stopped at Cabuyao,
Laguna. The brothers bought some chicos which they put aside. The vendors
alighted when the train started moving. It was around eight o'clock in the
evening.
Not long after the train had resumed its regular speed, Antonio stood up and with
a pair of scissors (Exh. B) stabbed the man sitting directly in front of him. The
victim stood up but soon collapsed on his seat.
For his part, Jose stabbed with a knife (Exh. A) the sleeping old woman who was
seated opposite him. She was not able to get up anymore. 1
Upon seeing what was happening, Amanda Mapa, with her baby, attempted to
leave her seat, but before she could escape Jose stabbed her, hitting her on her
right hand with which she was supporting her child (Exh. D-2). The blade
entered the dorsal side and passed through the palm. Fortunately, the child was
not injured. Most of the passengers scurried away for safety but the twins, who
had run amuck, stabbed everyone whom they encountered inside the coach. 2
Among the passengers in the third coach was Constabulary Sergeant Vicente Z.
Rayel, a train escort who, on that occasion, was not on duty. He was taking his
wife and children to Calauag, Quezon. He was going to the dining car to drink
coffee when someone informed him that there was a stabbing inside the coach
where he had come from. He immediately proceeded to return to coach No. 9.
Upon reaching coach 8, he saw a dead man sprawled on the floor near the toilet.
At a distance of around nine meters, he saw a man on the platform separating
coaches Nos. 8 and 9, holding a knife between the thumb and index finger of his
right hand, with its blade pointed outward. He shouted to the man that he (Rayel)
was a Constabularyman and a person in authority and Rayel ordered him to lay
down his knife (Exh. A) upon the count of three, or he would be shot.
Instead of obeying, the man changed his hold on the knife by clutching it
between his palm and little finger (with the blade pointed inward) and, in a
suicidal impulse, stabbed himself on his left breast. He slowly sank to the floor
and was prostrate thereon. Near the platform where he had fallen, Rayel saw
another man holding a pair of scissors (Exh. B). He retreated to the steps near the
platform when he saw Rayel armed with a pistol.
Rayel learned from his wife that the man sitting opposite her was stabbed to
death.
Constabulary Sergeant Vicente Aldea was also in the train. He was in the dining
car when he received the information that there were killings in the third coach.
He immediately went there and, while at the rear of the coach, he met Mrs. Mapa
who was wounded. He saw Antonio stabbing with his scissors two women and a
small girl and a woman who was later identified as Teresita B. Escanan (Exh. I to
I-3). Antonio was not wounded. Those victims were prostrate on the seats of the
coach and on the aisle.
Aldea shouted at Antonio to surrender but the latter made a thrust at him with the
scissors. When Antonio was about to stab another person, Aldea stood on a seat
and repeatedly struck Antonio on the head with the butt of his pistol, knocking
him down. Aldea then jumped and stepped on Antonio's buttocks and wrested the
scissors away from him. Antonio offered resistance despite the blows
administered to him.
When the train arrived at the Calamba station, four Constabulary soldiers
escorted the twins from the train and turned them over to the custody of the
Calamba police. Sergeant Rayel took down their names. The bloodstained
scissors and knife were turned over to the Constabulary Criminal Investigation
Service (CIS).
Some of the victims were found dead in the coach while others were picked up
along the railroad tracks between Cabuyao and Calamba. Those who were still
alive were brought to different hospitals for first-aid treatment. The dead
numbering twelve in all were brought to Funeraria Quiogue, the official morgue
of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Manila, where their cadavers
were autopsied (Exh. C to C-11). A Constabulary photographer took some
pictures of the victims (Exh. G to I-2, J-1 and J-2).
Of the twelve persons who perished, eight, whose bodies were found in the train,
died from stab wounds, namely:
(1) Isabel Felices, 60, housewife, Ginlajon, Sorsogon.
(2) Antonio B. Mabisa, 28, married, laborer, Guinayangan, Quezon.
(3) Isabelo S. Dando, 45, married, Paracale, Camarines Norte.
(4) Susana C. Hernandez, 46, married, housekeeper, Jose Panganiban, Camarines
Norte.
(5) Teodoro F. Bautista, 72, married, Nawasa employee, San Juan, Rizal.
(6) Modesta R. Brondial 58, married, housekeeper, Legaspi City.
(7) Elena B. Erminio 10, student, 12 Liberty Avenue, Cubao, Quezon City and
(8) Teresita B. Escanan, 25, housemaid, 66 Menlo Street, Pasay City (Exh. C to
C-3, C-7, C-8, C-9, C-11, L to L-2, N to N-2, 0 to 0-2, P to P-2, Q to Q-2, R to
R-2 and T to T-2)
Four dead persons were found near the railroad tracks. Apparently, they jumped
from the moving train to avoid being killed. They were:
(1) Timoteo U. Dimaano, 53 married, carpenter, Miguelin, Sampaloc, Manila. .
(2) Miguel C. Oriarte, 45, married, Dalagan, Lopez, Quezon.
(3) Salvador A. Maqueda 52, married, farmer, Lopez, Quezon and
(4) Shirley A. Valenciano, 27, married, housekeeper, 657-D Jorge Street, Pasay
City (Exh. C-4. C-5, C-6, C-10, J, J-1, J-2, K to K-2, M to M-3 and S to S-2).
Among the injured were Lucila Pantoja, Baby X, Mrs. X, Mrs. Armanda Mapa-
Dizon, Brigida Sarmiento-Palma, Cipriano Reganet and Corazon Bernal-
Astrolavio (Exh. D to D-5). Mrs. Astrolavio supposedly died later (43 tsn
January 14, 1966).
Mrs. Mapa declared that because of the stab wound inflicted upon her right hand
by Jose Toling, she was first brought to the Calamba Emergency Hospital. Later,
she was transferred to the hospital of the Philippine National Railways at
Caloocan City where she was confined for thirteen days free of charge. As a
result of her injury, she was not able to engage in her occupation of selling fish
for one month, thereby losing an expected earning of one hundred fifty pesos.
When she ran for safety with her child, she lost clothing materials valued at three
hundred pesos aside from two hundred pesos cash in a paper bag which was lost.
The case was investigated by the Criminal Investigation Service of the Second
Constabulary Zone headquarters at Camp Vicente Lim, Canlubang, Laguna. On
January 9, 1965 Constabulary investigators took down the statements of Mrs.
Mapa-Dizon, Cipriano Reganet, Corazon Bernal, Brigida de Sarmiento and
Sergeant Aldea. On that date, the statements of the Toling brothers were taken at
the North General Hospital. Sergeant Rayel also gave a statement.
Antonio Toling told the investigators that while in the train he was stabbed by a
person "from the station" who wanted to get his money. He retaliated by stabbing
his assailant. He said that he stabbed somebody "who might have died and others
that might not". He clarified that in the train four persons were asking money
from him. He stabbed one of them. "It was a hold-up".
He revealed that after stabbing the person who wanted to rob him, he stabbed
other persons because, inasmuch as he "was already bound to die", he wanted
"to kill everybody" (Exh. X or 8, 49 tsn Sept. 3, 1965).
Jose Toling, in his statement, said that he was wounded because he was stabbed
by a person "from Camarines" who was taking his money. He retaliated by
stabbing his assailant with the scissors. He said that he stabbed two persons who
were demanding money from him and who were armed with knives and iron
bars.
When Jose Toling was informed that several persons died due to the stabbing, he
commented that everybody was trying "to kill each other" (Exh. I-A).
According to Jose Toling, two persons grabbed the scissors in his pocket and
stabbed him in the back with the scissors and then escaped. Antonio allegedly
pulled out the scissors from his back, gave them to him and told him to avenge
himself with the scissors.
On January 20, 1965 a Constabulary sergeant filed against the Toling brothers in
the municipal court of Cabuyao, Laguna a criminal complaint for multiple
murder and multiple frustrated murder. Through counsel, the accused waived the
second stage of the preliminary investigation. The case was elevated to the Court
of First Instance of Laguna where the Provincial Fiscal on March 10, 1965 filed
against the Toling brothers an information for multiple murder (nine victims),
multiple frustrated murder (six victims) and triple homicide (as to three persons
who died after jumping from the running train to avoid being stabbed).
At the arraignment, the accused, assisted by their counsel de oficio pleaded not
guilty. After trial, Judge Arsenio Naawa rendered the judgment of conviction
already mentioned. The Toling brothers appealed.
In this appeal, appellants' counsel de oficio assails the credibility of the
prosecution witnesses, argues that the appellants acted in self-defense and
contends, in the alternative, that their criminal liability was only for two
homicides and for physical injuries.
According to the evidence for the defense (as distinguished from appellants'
statements, Exhibits 1 and 8), when the Toling twins were at the Tutuban
Railroad Station in the afternoon of January 8, 1965, Antonio went to the ticket
counter to buy tickets for himself and Jose. To pay for the tickets, he took out his
money from the right pocket of his pants and later put back the remainder in the The brothers presented Doctor Leonardo del Rosario, a physician of the North
same pocket. The two brothers noticed that four men at some distance from them General Hospital who treated them during the early hours of January 9, 1965 and
were allegedly observing them, whispering among themselves and making signs. who testified that he found the following injuries on Antonio Toling:
The twins suspected that the four men harbored evil intentions towards them.
Wound, incised, 1-1/4 inches (sutured), frontal, right; 3-1/2
When the twins boarded the train, the four men followed them. They were facing inches each, mid-frontal (wound on the forehead) and
the twins. They were talking in a low voice. The twins sat on a two passenger
seat facing the front door of the coach, the window being on the right of Antonio Wound, stabbed, 3/4 inch, 1 inch medial to anterior axillary line
and Jose being to his left. Two of the four men, whom they were suspecting of level of 3rd ICS right, penetrating thoracic cavity (chest wound
having evil intentions towards them, sat on the seat facing them, while the other (Exh. 11).
two seated themselves behind them. Some old women were near them. When the
train was already running, the man sitting near the aisle allegedly stood up, and on Jose Toling a stab wound, one inch long on the paravertebral level of the
approached Antonio and pointed a balisong knife at his throat while the other fifth rib on the left, penetrating the thoracic cavity (Exh. 10). The wound was on
man who was sitting near the window and who was holding also a balisong knife the spinal column in line with the armpit or "about one inch from the midline to
attempted to pick Antonio's right pocket, threatening him with death if he would the left" (113 tsn). The twins were discharged from the hospital on January 17th.
not hand over the money. Antonio answered that he would give only one-half of
his money provided the man would not hurt him, adding that his (Antonio's)
The trial court, in its endeavor to ascertain the motive for the twins' rampageous
place was still very far.
behavior, which resulted in the macabre deaths of several innocent persons,
made the following observations:
When Antonio felt some pain in his throat, he suddenly drew out his hunting
knife or small bolo (eight inches long including the handle) from the back pocket
What could be the reason or motive that actuated the accused to
of his pants and stabbed the man with it, causing him to fall to the floor with
run amuck? It appears that the accused travelled long over land
his balisong. He also stabbed the man who was picking his pocket. Antonio
and sea spending their hard earned money and suffering
identified the two men whom he had stabbed as those shown in the photographs
privations, even to the extent of foregoing their breakfast, only
of Antonio B. Mabisa (Exh. L-1 and L-2 or 5-A and
to receive as recompense with respect to Antonio the meager
5-B) and Isabelo S. Dando (Exh. N-1 and N-2 or 7-A and 7-B). While Antonio
sum of P50 from his daughter and P30 from his grandson and
was stabbing the second man, another person from behind allegedly stabbed him
with respect to Jose to receive nothing at all from any of his
on the forehead, causing him to lose consciousness and to fall on the floor
three children whom he could not locate in Manila.
(Antonio has two scars on his forehead and a scar on his chest and left forearm,
85, 87 tsn). He regained consciousness when two Constabulary soldiers raised
him. His money was gone. It also appears that the accused, who are twins, are queerly
alike, a fact which could easily invite some people to stare or
gaze at them and wonder at their very close resemblance. Like
Seeing his brother in a serious condition, Jose stabbed with the scissors the man
some persons who easily get angry when stared at, however, the
who had wounded his brother. Jose hit the man in the abdomen. Jose was stabbed
accused, when stared at by the persons in front of them,
in the back by somebody. Jose stabbed also that assailant in the middle part of
immediately suspected them as having evil intention towards
the abdomen, inflicting a deep wound.
them (accused).
However, Jose did not see what happened to the two men whom he had stabbed
To the mind of the Court, therefore, it is despondency on the
because he was already weak. He fell down and became unconscious. He
part of the accused coupled with their unfounded suspicion of
identified Exhibit A as the knife used by Antonio and Exhibit B as the scissors
evil intention on the part of those who happened to stare at them
which he himself had used. He recovered consciousness when a Constabulary
that broke the limit of their self-control and actuated them to
soldier brought him out of the train.
run amuck.
We surmise that to the captive spectators in coach No. 9 the spectacle of middle-
aged rustic twins, whom, in the limited space of the coach, their co-passengers
had no choice but to notice and gaze at, was a novelty. Through some telepathic
or extra-sensory perception the twins must have sensed that their co-passengers
were talking about them in whispers and making depreciatory remarks or jokes
about their humble persons. In their parochial minds, they might have entertained
the notion or suspicion that their male companions, taking advantage of their
ignorance and naivete, might victimize them by stealing their little money.
Hence, they became hostile to their co-passengers. Their pent-up hostility
erupted into violence and murderous fury.
A painstaking examination of the evidence leads to the conclusion that the trial
court and the prosecution witnesses confounded one twin for the other. Such a
confusion was unavoidable because the twins, according to a Constabulary
investigator, are "very identical". Thus, on the witness stand CIS Sergeants
Alfredo C. Orbase and Liberato Tamundong after pointing to the twins, refused
to take the risk of identifying who was Antonio and who was Jose. They
confessed that they might be mistaken in making such a specific identification
(28 tsn September 3, 1965; 32 tsn November 5, 1965).
In our opinion, to ascertain who is Antonio and who is Jose, the reliable guides
would be their sworn statements (Exh. 1 and 8), executed one day after the
killing, their own testimonies and the medical certificates (Exh. 10 and 11).
Those parts of the evidence reveal that the one who was armed with the knife
was Antonio and the one who was armed with the scissors was Jose. The
prosecution witnesses and the trial court assumed that Antonio was armed with
the scissors (Exh. B) and Jose was armed with the knife (Exh. A). That
assumption is erroneous.
In his statement and testimony, Antonio declared that he was armed with a knife,
while Jose declared that he was armed with the scissors which Antonio had
purchased at the Tutuban station, before he boarded the train and which he gave
to Jose because the latter is a barber whose old pair of scissors was already rusty.
As thus clarified, the person whom Sergeant Rayel espied as having attempted to
commit suicide on the platform of the train by stabbing himself on the chest
would be Antonio (not Jose). That conclusion is confirmed by the medical
certificate, Exhibit 11, wherein it is attested that Antonio had a wound in the
chest. And the person whom Sergeant Aldea subdued after the former had
stabbed several persons with a pair of scissors (not with a knife) was Jose and
not Antonio. That fact is contained in his statement of January 9, 1965 (p. 9,
Record).
The mistake of the prosecution witnesses in taking Antonio for Jose and vice-
versa does not detract from their credibility. The controlling fact is that those
witnesses confirmed the admission of the twins that they stabbed several
passengers.
Appellants' counsel based his arguments on the summaries of the evidence found
in the trial court's decision. He argues that the testimonies of Sergeants Rayel
and Aldea are contradictory but he does not particularize on the supposed
contradictions.
The testimonies of the two witnesses do not cancel each other. The main point of
Rayel's testimony is that he saw one of the twins stabbing himself in the chest
and apparently trying to commit suicide. Aldea's testimony is that he knocked
down the other twin, disabled him and prevented him from committing other
killings.
It may be admitted that Rayel's testimony that Aldea took the knife of Jose
Toling was not corroborated by Aldea. Neither did Aldea testify that Antonio was
near Jose on the platform of the train. Those discrepancies do not render Rayel
and Aldea unworthy of belief. They signify that Aldea and Rayel did not give
rehearsed testimonies or did not compare notes.
Where, as in this case, the events transpired in rapid succession in the coach of
the train and it was nighttime, it is not surprising that Rayel and Aldea would not
give identical testimonies (See 6 Moran's Comments on the Rules of Court, 1970
Ed. 139-140; People vs. Resayaga, L-23234, December 26, 1963, 54 SCRA
350). There is no doubt that Aldea and Rayel witnessed some of the acts of the
twins but they did not observe the same events and their powers of perception
and recollection are not the same.
Appellants' counsel assails the testimony of Mrs. Mapa. He contends that no one
corroborated her testimony that one of the twins stabbed a man and a sleeping
woman sitting on the seat opposite the seat occupied by the twins. The truth is
that Mrs. Mapa's testimony was confirmed by the necropsy reports and by the
twins themselves who admitted that they stabbed some persons.
On the other hand, the defense failed to prove that persons, other than the twins,
could have inflicted the stab wounds. There is no doubt as to the corpus
delicti. And there can be no doubt that the twins, from their own admissions
(Exh. 1 and 8) and their testimonies, not to mention the testimonies of Rayel,
Aldea, Mrs. Mapa and the CIS investigators, were the authors of the killings.
Apparently, because there was no doubt on the twins' culpability, since they were
caught in flagrante delicto the CIS investigators did not bother to get the
statements of the other passengers in Coach No. 9. It is probable that no one
actually saw the acts of the twins from beginning to end because everyone in
Coach No. 9 was trying to leave it in order to save his life. The ensuing
commotion and confusion prevented the passengers from having a full personal
knowledge of how the twins consummated all the killings.
On the other hand, the twins' theory of self-defense is highly incredible. In that
crowded coach No. 9, which was lighted, it was improbable that two or more
persons could have held up the twins without being readily perceived by the
other passengers. The twins would have made an outcry had there really been an
attempt to rob them. The injuries, which they sustained, could be attributed to the
blows which the other passengers inflicted on them to stop their murderous
rampage.
Appellants' view is that they should be held liable only for two homicides,
because they admittedly killed Antonio B. Mabisa and Isabelo S. Dando, and for
physical injuries because they did not deny that Jose Toling stabbed Mrs. Mapa.
We have to reject that view. Confronted as we are with the grave task of passing
judgment on the aberrant behavior of two yokels from the Samar hinterland who
reached manhood without coming into contact with the mainstream of
civilization in urban areas, we exercised utmost care and solicitude in reviewing
the evidence. We are convinced that the record conclusively establishes
appellants' responsibility for the eight killings.
To the seven dead persons whose heirs should be indemnified, according to the
trial court, because they died due to stab wounds, should be added the name of
Susana C. Hernandez (Exh. P, P-1 and P-2). The omission of her name in
judgment was probably due to inadvertence. According to the necropsy reports,
four persons, namely, Shirley A. Valenciano, Salvador A. Maqueda, Miguel C.
Oriarte and Timoteo U. Dimaano, died due to multiple traumatic injuries
consisting of abrasions, contusions, lacerations and fractures on the head, body
and extremities (Exh. J to J-2, K to K-2, M to M-2 and S to S-2).
The conjecture is that they jumped from the moving tracing to avoid being killed
but in so doing they met their untimely and horrible deaths. The trial court did
not adjudge them as victims whose heirs should be indemnified. As to three of
them, the information charges that the accused committed homicide. The trial
court dismissed that charge for lack of evidence.
No one testified that those four victims jumped from the train. Had the necropsy
reports been reinforced by testimony showing that the proximate cause of their
deaths was the violent and murderous conduct of the twins, then the latter would
be criminally responsible for their deaths.
Article 4 of the Revised Penal Code provides that "criminal liability shall be
incurred by any person committing a felony (delito) although the wrongful act
done be different from that which he intended". The presumption is that "a
person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary act" (Sec. 5[c], Rule
131, Rules of Court).
The rule is that "if a man creates in another man's mind an immediate sense of
danger which causes such person to try to escape, and in so doing he injures
himself, the person who creates such a state of mind is responsible for the
injuries which result" (Reg. vs. Halliday 61 L. T. Rep. [N.S.] 701, cited in U.S.
vs. Valdez, 41 Phil. 4911, 500).
Following that rule, is was held that "if a person against whom a criminal assault
is directed reasonably believes himself to be in danger of death or great bodily
harm and in order to escape jumps into the water, impelled by the instinct of self-
preservation, the assailant is responsible for homicide in case death results by
drowning" (Syllabus, U.S. vs. Valdez, supra, See People vs. Buhay, 79 Phil.
371).
The absence of eyewitness-testimony as to the jumping from the train of the four
victims already named precludes the imputation of criminal responsibility to the
appellants for the ghastly deaths of the said victims.
The same observation applies to the injuries suffered by the other victims. The
charge of multiple frustrated murder based on the injuries suffered by Cipriano
Pantoja, Dinna Nosal, Corazon Bernal and Brigida Sarmiento (Exh. D, D-3 to D-
5) was dismissed by the trial court for lack of evidence. Unlike Mrs. Mapa, the
offended parties involved did not testify on the injuries inflicted on them.
The eight killings and the attempted killing should be treated as separate crimes
of murder and attempted murder qualified be treachery (alevosia) (Art. 14[16],
Revised Penal Code). The unexpected, surprise assaults perpetrated by the twins
upon their co-passengers, who did not anticipate that the twins would act
likejuramentados and who were unable to defend themselves (even if some of
them might have had weapons on their persons) was a mode of execution that
insured the consummation of the twins' diabolical objective to butcher their co-
passengers. The conduct of the twins evinced conspiracy and community of
design.
The eight killings and the attempted murder were perpetrated by means of
different acts. Hence, they cannot be regarded as constituting a complex crime
under article 48 of the Revised Penal Code which refers to cases where "a single
act constitutes two or more grave felonies, or when an offense is a necessary
means for committing the other".
As noted by Cuello Calon, the so-called "concurso formal o ideal de delitos
reviste dos formas: (a) cuando un solo hecho constituye dos o mas delitos (el
llamado delito compuesto); (b) cuando uno de ellos sea medio necesario para
cometer otro (el llamado delito complejo)." (1 Derecho Penal, 12th Ed. 650).
On the other hand, "en al concurso real de delitos", the rule, when there is
"acumulacion material de las penas", is that "si son varios los resultados, si son
varias las acciones, esta conforme con la logica y con la justicia que el agente
soporte la carga de cada uno de los delitos" (Ibid, p. 652, People vs. Mori, L-
23511, January 31, 1974, 55 SCRA 382, 403).
and to an indeterminate penalty of one (1) year of prision correccional as
minimum to six (6) years and one (1) day ofprision mayor as maximum for the
attempted murder and to pay solidarily an indemnity of P12,000 to each set of
heirs of the seven victims named in the dispositive part of the trial court's
decision and of the eight victim, Susana C. Hernandez, or a total indemnity of
P96,000, and an indemnity of P500 to Amanda Mapa. In the service of the
penalties, the forty-year limit fixed in the penultimate paragraph of article 70 of
the Revised Penal Code should be observed. Costs against the appellants.
SO ORDERED.
Makalintal, C.J., Castro, Fernando, Teehankee, Barredo, Antonio, Esguerra,
Fernandez and Muoz Palma, JJ., concur.

The twins are liable for eight (8) murders and one attempted murder. (See People
vs. Salazar, 105 Phil. 1058 where the accused Moro, who ran amuck, killed
sixteen persons and wounded others, was convicted of sixteen separate murders,
one frustrated murder and two attempted murders; People vs. Mortero, 108 Phil.
31, the Panampunan massacre case, where six defendants were convicted of
fourteen separate murders; People vs. Remollino, 109 Phil. 607, where a person
who fired successively at six victims was convicted of six separate homicides; U.
S. Beecham, 15 Phil. 272, involving four murders; People vs. Macaso, 85 Phil.
819, 828, involving eleven murders; U.S. vs. Jamad, 37 Phil. 305; U.S. vs.
Balaba, 37 Phil. 260, 271. Contra: People vs. Cabrera, 43 Phil. 82, 102-103;
People vs. Floresca, 99 Phil. 1044; People vs. Sakam, 61 Phil. 27; People vs.
Lawas, 97 Phil. 975; People vs. Manantan, 94 Phil. 831; People vs. Umali, 96
Phil. 185; People vs. Cu Unjiengi, 61 Phil. 236; People vs. Penas, 66 Phil. 682;
People vs. De Leon, 49 Phil. 437, where the crimes committed by means of
separate acts were held to be complex on the theory that they were the product of
a single criminal impulse or intent).

As no generic mitigating and aggravating circumstances were proven in this

case, the penalty for murder should be imposed in its medium period
or reclusion perpetua (Arts. 64[l] and 248, Revised Penal Code. The death
penalty imposed by the trial court was not warranted.

A separate penalty for attempted murder should be imposed on the appellants.

No modifying circumstances can be appreciated in the attempted murder case. Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
WHEREFORE, the trial court's judgment is modified by setting aside the death Manila
sentence. Defendants-appellants Antonio Toling and Jose Toling are found guilty,
as co-principals, of eight (8) separate murders and one attempted murder. Each EN BANC
one of them is sentenced to eight (8) reclusion perpetuas for the eight murders
 G.R. No. 42607 September 28, 1935
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
JUAN QUIANZON, defendant-appellant.
Pedro B. Pobre for appellant.
Office of the Solicitor-General Hilado for appellee.
RECTO, J.:
Charged with and convicted of the crime of homicide in the Court of First
Instance of Ilocos Norte, and sentenced to an indeterminate penalty of from six
years and one day of prision mayor, as minimum to fourteen years, seven
months and one day of reclusion temporal, as maximum, Juan Quianzon appeal
to this court for the review of the case.
On February 1, 1934, a novena for the suffrage of the soul of the deceased
person was being held in the house of Victoria Cacpal in a barrio, near
the poblacion, of the municipality of Paoay, Ilocos Norte, with the usual
attendance of the relatives and friends. The incident that led to the filling of these
charges took place between 3 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Andres Aribuabo, one
of the persons present, went to ask for food of Juan Quianzon, then in the
kitchen, who, to all appearances, had the victuals in his care. It was the second or
third time that Aribuabo approached Quianzon with the same purpose whereupon
the latter, greatly peeved, took hold of a firebrand and applied ran to the place
where the people were gathered exclaiming that he is wounded and was dying.
Raising his shirt, he showed to those present a wound in his abdomen below the
navel. Aribuabo died as a result of this wound on the tenth day after the incident.
There is no conflict between the prosecution and the defense as regards the
foregoing facts. The question to be determined is who wounded Aribuabo. The
prosecution claims that it was Juan Quianzon and, to prove it, called Simeon
Cacpal, Roman Bagabay, Gregorio Dumlao and Julian Llaguno to the witness
stand.
The first witness, Simeon Cacpal, claims to have witnessed the wounding of
Andres Aribuabo in the abdomen by Juan Quianzon. However, we find the
testimony of this witness so improbable, incongruent and contradictory that we
consider meritorious the claim of the defense that it was an error of the lower
court to have taken it into consideration in formulating the findings of its
judgment. Not so with respect to the testimony of the other witnesses. Roman
Bagabay, one of the persons present at said gathering, testified that he saw Juan
Quianzon apply a firebrand to the neck of Andres Aribuabo who shortly
afterwards went toward the place where the witness and the other guests were
gathered, telling that he was wounded and was going to die and naming Juan
Quianzon as the person who wounded him. He also testified that Juan Quianzon,
upon being asked immediately by him about the incident, admitted to him
attacked Aribuabo with a bamboo spit. Gregorio Dumalao, a barrio lieutenant,
who, upon being informed of the incident, forthwith conducted an investigation,
questioned Aribuabo and the latter told him that it was the accused who had
wounded him. He likewise questioned the accused and the latter, in turn, stated
that he had wounded the deceased with a bamboo spit. Upon being brought
before Juan Llaguno, chief of police of Paoay, for questioning, Quianzon
confessed to Llaguno that he had applied a firebrand to Aribuabo's neck and had
later wounded him with a bamboo spit. Before the chief of police could put this
confession of Quianzon in writing, the later retracted, denying that he had
wounded Aribuabo, for which reason in the affidavit Exhibit B the fact of having
applied a firebrand to Aribuabo's neck appears admitted by Quianzon but not of
having wounded the deceased with a bamboo spit.
The disinterestedness of these three witnesses for the prosecution, Bagabay,
Dumalo and Llaguno, is not questioned by the defense. Neither the accused, in
his testimony, nor his counsel, in the brief filed by him in this court, was able to
assign any unlawful, corrupt or wicked motive that might have actuated them to
testify falsely in this case and knowingly bring about the imprisonment of an
innocent person. Bagabay is not even a relative of the deceased. Dumlao, the
barrio lieutenant, is a nephew of the accused. Llaguno, chief of police of Paoay,
is an officer of the law whose intervention of this case was purely in compliance
with his official duties. All the appellant has been able to state in his brief to
question the credibility of these witnesses is that they were contradicted by
Simeon Cacpal, the other witness for the prosecution, who testified that he had
not seen them speak neither to Aribuabo nor to Quianzon in the afternoon of the
crime. But the position of the defense in invoking Simeon Cacpal's testimony for
the purpose of discrediting the other witnesses for the prosecution is untenable,
after having vigorously impeached said testimony, branding it as improbable,
incongruent and contradictory. If Cacpal is a false witness and the court
believes this claim of the defense as true , none of his statements may be
taken into account or should exert any influence in the consideration of the other
evidence in the case.
After discharging testimony of Simeon Cacpal, the evidence presented by the
prosecution relative to the appellant's criminal liability for the death of Andres
Aribuabo, briefly consists, first, in the victim's statement immediately after
receiving the wound, naming the accused as the author of the aggression, and the
admission forthwith made by the accused that he had applied a firebrand to
Aribuabo's neck and had wounded him, besides, with a bamboo spit. Both
statements are competent evidence in the law, admissible as a part of theres
gestae (section 279 and 298, No. 7, of the Code of Civil Procedure;
U.S. vs. Macuti, 26 Phil., 170; Peoplevs. Portento and Portento, 48 Phil., 971).
Second, in the extrajudicial confession of the accused to the barrio lieutenant,
Dumlao, and later to the chief of police Llaguno, in the same afternoon of the
crime, that he was the author of Aribuabo's wound and that he had inflicted it by
means of a bamboo spit. Inasmuch as this confession, although extrajudicial, is
strongly corroborated and appears to have been made by the accused freely and
voluntarily, it constitutes evidence against him relative to his liability as author
of the crime charged (U.S. vs. so Fo, 23 Phil., 379; People vs. Cabrera, 43 Phil.,
64, 82; U.S. vs. Jamino, 3 P.R.A., 52; Francisco's Quizzer on Evidence).
The defense of the accused consisted simply in denying that he had wounded the
deceased and that he had confessed his guilt to the witnesses Bagabay, Dumlao
and Llaguno. But such denial cannot prevail against the adverse testimony of
these three veracious and disinterested witnesses, all the more because neither
the accused nor any other witness for the defense has stated or insinuated that
another person, not the accused, might be the author of the wound which resulted
in Aribuabo's death, and because it is admitted by the defense that it was the
accused, whom Aribuabo had been pestering with request for food, who attacked
the latter, burning his neck with a firebrand, afetr which Aribuaboappeared
wounded in the abdomen, without the accused and the witnesses for the defense
explaining how and by whom the aggression had been made.
It is contended by the defense that even granting that it was the accused who
inflicted the wound which resulted in Aribuabo's death, he should not be
convicted of homicide but only of serious physical injuries because said wound
was not necessarily fatal and the deceased would have survived it had he not
twice removed the drainage which Dr. Mendoza had placed to control or isolate
the infection. This contention is without merit. According to the physician who
examined whether he could survive or not." It was a wound in the abdomen
which occasionally results in traumatic peritonitis. The infection was cause by
the fecal matter from the large intestine which has been perforated. The
possibility, admitted by said physician that the patient might have survived said
wound had he not removed the drainage, does not mean that the act of the patient
was the real cause of his death. Even without said act the fatal consequence
could have followed, and the fact that the patient had so acted in a paroxysm of
pain does not alter the juridical consequences of the punishable act of the
accused.
One who inflicts an injury on another is deemed by the law to be guilty
of homicide if the injury contributes mediately or immediately to the
death of such other. The fact that the other causes contribute to the death
does not relieve the actor of responsibility. . . . (13 R. C.L., 748.)
Furthermore, it does not appear that the patient, in removing the drainage, had
acted voluntarily and with the knowledge that he was performing an act
prejudicial to his health, inasmuch as self-preservation is the strongest instinct in
living beings. It much be assumed, therefore, that he unconsciously did so due to
his pathological condition and to his state of nervousness and restlessness on
account of the horrible physical pain caused by the wound, aggravated by the
contract of the drainage tube with the inflammed peritoneum. "When the
peritonitis is due to traumatism, or to a perforation of the stomach, intestine or
gall-bladder, etc., it is indicated by violent shivering and pain first localized at a
point in the abdomen, extending later to the entire abdominal wall; acute
intolerable pain, which is aggravated by the slightest movement, becoming
unbearable upon contact with the hand, a rag, or the bedclothes. The pain is
continuous but it gives frequent paroxysms. The abdomen is swollen, tense.
Vomittings of the greenish matter, which are very annoying and terribly painful,
take from the beginning and continue while the disease lasts." (XVI Spanish-
America Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 176; see also XXI Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 1911 ed., 171.) If to this is added the fact that the victim in this case
was mentally deranged, according to the defense itself, it becomes more evident
that the accused is wrong in imputing the natural consequences of his criminal
act to an act of his victim.
The question herein raised by the appellant has already been finally settled by
jurisprudence. The Supreme Court of Spain, in a decision of April 3, 1879, said
in the case similar to the present, the following: "Inasmuch as a man is
responsible for the consequences of his act and in this case the physical
condition and temperament of the offended party nowise lessen the evil, the
seriousness whereof is to be judged, not by the violence of the means employed,
but by the result actually produced; and as the wound which the appellant
inflicted upon the deceased was the cause which determined his death, without
his being able to counteract its effects, it is evident that the act in question should
be qualified as homicide, etc."
In the case of People vs. Almonte (56 Phil., 54), the abdominal wound was less
serious than that received by Aribuabo in this case, as it was not penetrating,
merely involving the muscular tissue. In said case the death of the victim was
due to a secondary hemorrhage produced twenty-four hours after the wound had
been inflicted, because of the "bodily movements of the patient, who was in a
state of nervousness, sitting up in bed, getting up and pacing about the room, as
as a consequence of which he internal vessels, already congested because of the
wound, bled, and the hemorrhage thus produced caused his death." The court in
deciding the question stated that "when a person dies in consequence of an
internal hemorrhage brought on by moving about against the doctor's orders, not
because of carelessness or a desire to increase the criminal liability of his
assailant, but because of his nervous condition due to the wound inflicted by said
assailant, the crime is homicide and not merely slight physical injuries, simply Inasmuch as the mitigating circumstances of lack of instruction and of intention
because the doctor was of the opinion that the wound might have healed in seven to commit so grave a wrong as the committed should be taken into consideration
days." in favor of the appellant, without any aggravating circumstances adverse to him,
we modify the appealed judgment by sentencing him to an indeterminate penalty
The grounds for this rule of jurisprudence are correctly set forth in 13 R.C.L., with a minimum of four years of prision correccional and a maximum of a eight
751, as follows: years of prision mayor, affirming it in all other respect, with cost to said
appellant.
While the courts may have vacilated from time to time it may be taken
to be settled rule of the common law that on who inflicts an injury on Avancea, C.J., Abad Santos, Hull, and Vickers, JJ., concur.
another will be held responsible for his death, although it may appear
that the deceased might have recovered if he had taken proper care of
himself, or submitted to a surgical operation, or that unskilled or
improper treatment aggravated the wound and contributed to the death,
or that death was immediately caused by a surgical operation rendered
necessary by the condition of the wound. The principle on which this
rule is founded is one of universal application, and lies at the foundation
of the criminal jurisprudence. It is, that every person is to be held to
contemplate and to be responsible for the natural consequences of his
own acts. If a person inflicts a wound with a deadly weapon in such a
manner as to put life in jeopardy, and death follows as a consequence of
this felonious and wicked act, it does not alter its nature or diminish its
criminality to prove that other causes co-operated in producing the fatal
result. Indeed, it may be said that neglect of the wound or its unskillful
and improper treatment, which are of themselves consequences of the
criminal act, which might naturally follow in any case, must in law be
deemed to have been among those which were in contemplation of the
guilty party, and for which he is to be held responsible. But, however,
this may be, the rule surely seems to have its foundation in a wise and
practical policy. A different doctrine would tend to give immunity to
crime and to take away from human life a salutary and essential
safeguard. Amid the conflicting theories of the medical men, and the
uncertainties attendant upon the treatment of bodily ailments and
injuries, it would be easy in many cases of homicide to raise a doubt as
to the immediate cause of death, and thereby to open a wide door by
which persons guilty of the highest crime might escape conviction and
punishment.
Republic of the Philippines
Assuming that we should disregard Simeon Cacpal's testimony, there is no SUPREME COURT
evidence of record that the crime charged was committed by means of the knife, Manila
Exhibit A, and we only have the extrajudicial admission of the accused that he
had committed it by means of a bamboo spit with which the wound of the EN BANC
deceased might have been caused because, according to the physician who
testified in this case, it was produced by a "sharp and penetrating" instrument. G.R. No. L-28593 March 13, 1928
 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
FERMIN MARASIGAN, defendant-appellant.
Claro M. Recto for appellant.
Attorney-General Jaranilla for appellee.
VILLAMOR, J.:
The appellant was arraigned before the Court of First Instance of Tayabas on a
charge of homicide, by virtue of the following information:
That on or about March 24, 1927, in the barrio of Managalang,
municipality of Sariaya, Province of Tayabas, Philippine Islands, and
within the jurisdiction of this court, Fermin Marasigan, the above-named
accused, armed with an edged and pointed weapon, and a piece of wood,
did willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously assault and attack Pedro
Chavez, inflicting upon him the following wounds:
(1) A piercing wound in the right side of the chest, between the third and
fourth ribs, about 2 centimeters long and deep enough to take in the
right lung;
(2) Another wound in the abdomen, towards the left hypochondrium of
the epigastric region, with some abdominal viscera protruding front it,
about 8 centimeters long and deep enough to take in the stomach and
part of the transverse portion of the large intestine;
(3) Another wound about 18 centimeters long in the left lateral portion
of the neck;
(4) A surface wound about 18 centimeters long in the left foreman on the
inferior third anterior portion; and
(5) A bruise in the left cheek bone which wounds were necessarily fatal
and caused the instantaneous death of the said Pedro de Chavez.
Contrary to law.
The trial court found the accused Fermin Marasigan guilty of the crime of
homicide alleged in the information, and sentenced him to fourteen years, eight
months and one day reclusion temporal, with the accessories of the law, to
indemnify the deceased's widow in the sum of P1,000, and to pay the costs of the
action.
The appellant alleges that the trial court erred: (1) In making its findings without
taking into account the fact that to prove the allegations in the information, the
prosecution presented the testimony of two relatives of the deceased, and did not
summon the following disinterested persons, who, according to the prosecution
itself, were eyewitnesses of the incident, to wit, Francisco Vergara, Mariano
Vergara, Moises Hernandez and Alipio Albiondo; (2) in holding that the
aggression came from the deceased, and not considering that it was impossible,
in view of (a) the utter lack of motive on the defendant's part to kill, wound, or
otherwise attack the deceased; (b) the state of aggressive drunkenness in which
the deceased was a few moments before his encounter with the accused; (c) the
deceased's put in that barrio as a bully and a quarrelsome person, and his
criminal antecedents; (d) the evidently greater strength of the deceased than that
of the accused; (e) the good name of the defendant and the fact that he has no
criminal antecedents; (f) that fact that the very self-styled eyewitnesses, who
were summoned by the prosecution, did not, by their own confession, see the
beginning of the aggression; (g) the serious mutual contradictions of the several
witnesses for the prosecution; and (3) in not finding that the accused, in killing
Pedro de Chavez, acted in self-defense. The appellant's contention, that the
suppression by the fiscal of the testimony of some witnesses to the crime in
question raises the presumption that their testimony would be unfavorable to the
prosecution, is untenable. The incident was witnessed by several persons. The
prosecution presented the testimony of three of them: Agapito de Silva, Casimiro
de Chavez and Juan Resurrection. The testimony of the other persons who
witnessed the act would have been cumulative evidence, and as such, its
suppression or ommission cannot give rise to the presumption that it would have
been unfavorable to the prosecution. It was so decided in the case of United
States vs. Gonzales (22 Phil., 325), where it was held:
When an act has been witnessed by several persons, the prosecution is
not obliged to present all such witnesses, but only a sufficient to prove
the occurrence of the alleged act. The presumption prescribed by
paragraph 5 of section 334 of the Code of Civil Procedure, to the effect
that when proof is suppressed it shall be deemed to be unfavorable to the
party suppressing it, does not arise from the mere fact that the
prosecution fails to present all the eyewitnesses to an act.
The defense contends that the accused was justified in inflicting upon the
deceased the wounds that caused his death, alleging that the aggression came
from the deceased and that the defendant acted in self-defense.
Considering the facts found by the trial court, the appellant's contention in his
two last assignments of error is untenable.
On March 24, 1927, there was a feast at Agapito de Silva's house in the barrio of
Mangalang, municipality of Sariaya, Province of Tayabas, upon the occasion of
the baptism of one of his children. Among those present, were the accused
Fermin Marasigan and the deceased Pedro de Chaves. The latter offered Fermin
Marasigan a cup of wine, which he declined saying that he was not in the habit
of drinking much, and besides he had already taken wine during the meal, and he
asked to be excused for not being able to drink any more. The deceased then
replied: "Well, I did not think you would slight me in that way." To which the
accused answered: "What was I to do since I could take no more, having drunk
during the meal?" What followed does not clearly appear in the record; the
accused says that Pedro de Chavez himself drained that cup of wine, and after
having done so, became flushed. The accused, noticing it, sought to slip away
he went into the house, took his hat and left. The defendant's testimony on this
point reveals to us that his refusal to take the wine offered by the deceased was
to the latter a slight that must have provoked a discussion between them before
the accused left the house. And that incident must have produced some
commotion among those present at the house, who soon descend also, after the
example of the deceased and the accused. The first one who descended was the
defendant Fermin Marasigan, who while yet on the staircase, opened his
penknife and held it in his hand while leaving the house, and in the street picked
up a club from the ground. A few moments later the deceased followed and as
these was only a distance of about 5 brazas between them he overtook the
accused on the street. As soon as the deceased reached the accused they prepared
for combat and immediately Fermin Marasigan beat the deceased's face with the
club he carried. Whereupon the accused and the deceased grappled and engaged
in a fist fight. During the struggle, the accused Fermin Marasigan stabbed the
deceased several times with his penknife (Exhibit C) and they both fell to the
ground. A few moments later, they got up and separated, the accused going
towards the right, taking the direction of the street, and the deceased towards the
left. The deceased had scarcely taken a few steps, when he fell to the ground
dead.
The deceased's body was examined by the head of the Health Service Division of
Sariaya and Candelaria, Tayabas, and said official found thereon the wounds
described in the information.
The court below admitted the facts as related by the witnesses for the prosecution
and not as stated by the witnesses for the defense. Accepting, as we do, the trial
court's findings as being more in conformity with the facts, we are of opinion
that the accused cannot set up the plea of self-defense. In the case of United
States vs.Navarro (7 Phil., 713), this Supreme Court said:
Notwithstanding that the fact be taken as proven and as alleged by the
defense in this instance, that the accused repeatedly expressed his desire
and wish to the deceased not to fight and that he, the accused, begged
the deceased that there be no fight between them, and that the deceased
paid no heed or attention to such request and attacked and assaulted the
accused, this aggression or attack could not be considered as one of the
elements or requisites of self-defense, because "in fight arranged under
agreement, like the one that has taken place, the result of the
provocation and an accepted challenge, the aggression is reciprocal and
legitimate as between two contending parties, although the same cannot
be qualified as a duel for the reason that the conditions and elements
necessary to constitute this crime are not present." (Judgment of the
Supreme Court of Spain, July 11, 1871.) "The acceptance of a personal
encounter or fight excludes the application of paragraph 4 of article 8 of
the Penal code, for the reason that the fight, once accepted, the first
aggression or attack is an accident or incident of the fight and without
judicial effects modifying the imputability resulting from the accepted
act." (Judgment of the Supreme Court of Spain, May 30, 1892.)
And in the case of United States vs. Cortes (36 Phil., 837), this court confirmed
that ruling, saying:
The right of lawful self-defense cannot validity be set up in behalf of a
person who voluntarily exposes his person to the consequences of a
hand struggle with his adversary in which, for the reason that each of the
combatants has no other intention than to injure the other, the first act of
force, came from whichever of the two it may, cannot be held but to be
an incident of the fight itself and in nowise whatever as an unwarranted
and unexpected aggression which alone can legalize self-defense.
The judgment appealed from, being in accordance with the law and the evidence,
must be, as it thereby is, confirmed, with costs against appellant. So ordered.