Mitigating: people vs rabao (lack of intent-par 3)

Exempting people vs renegado; people vs bascos (insanity)

NOLI ESLABON (petitioner) VS INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT (respondent)
GR. No. L-66202 | Februrary 24, 1984
Topic: Justifying Circumstance

Facts:
Petitioner was first cousin of Brgy. Captain Gabutin .On evening of August 28, 1976, public
dance was held and fronting the dance hall was a rolling store run by the deceased, Elias Harder.
When the dance ended, barangay captain’s wife told deceased to go home. Deceased complained
that the others should also be told to go home, but he grudgingly followed. On his way home, he
discovered that a box of his wares for sale was missing so he and his companions returned to the
place where his store was and inquired the barangay captain about the missing box. An argument
ensued, and angered by the loss of his box, Harder thrusted his scythe with a blunt end at
Francisco and it stuck below Francisco’s right armpit. While Harder and Francisco were
grappling, petitioner approached them and stabbed Harder twice and he dropped to the ground,
unconscious. Thereafter, Mucho raised him and loaded him into a car. Harder and Francisco
were taken to the hospital, where the latter was treated for stab wounds that would heal in about
15-21 days, if without complications. Harder died from wounds he sustained.

Petitioner-accused was charged with murder for having stabbed to death the deceased Elias
Harder. On appeal, IAC found no error and affirmed judgment. He was sentenced to suffer
imprisonment of not less than 2 years and 1 month of prision correccional and not more than 6
years and 6 months of prision mayor, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the sum of
P12,000.00, to pay the costs and to suffer all the accessory penalties provided for by law.

The trial court and respondent appellate court found present the elements for the petitioner's
actions in defense of his first cousin Francisco in that there was unlawful aggression on the part
of the deceased nor was there sufficient provocation on the part of Francisco who was the subject
of the aggression and much less was there any provocation on the part of petitioner, but ruled
against the reasonable necessity of the means employed by petitioner to repel the unlawful
aggression on the part of the deceased. Hence, petition for review on certiorari of respondent
court’s decision.

Issues: Whether or not means employed by the petitioner do not have reasonable necessity, and
thus, is not an act of self-defense

Ruling:
The Court is not convinced and grants the petitioner the benefit of the doubt on the ground of
that the gauge of rational necessity of the means employed to repel the aggression as against
one's self or in defense of a relative is to be found in the situation as it appears to the person
repelling the aggression. It has been held time and again that the reasonableness of the means
adopted cannot be calculated accurately between the means of attack and defense' but the
imminent danger perceived and the instinct more than reason that moves the defender to repel
the attack.
Petitioner's acts justified the knife thrust(s) that he delivered at the deceased in order to stop the
latter's attack against Francisco who had already suffered a substantially serious wound with the
scythe imbedded in his right armpit which the deceased did not let go. Since there is evidence
that the deceased aggressor was bigger than Francisco, he could have inflicted with a little more
effort a much more serious or fatal, wound on Francisco. The stab wounds inflicted by petitioner
on the deceased were all directed at the left forearm of the deceased, sustaining petitioner's
statement that he did not intend to seriously injure. Under the emergency situation confronting
the petitioner, who feared for the life of Francisco, it would have been rash and unnatural on his
part, as rationalized by respondent court, if he were yet to look for a police officer instead of
rushing to the defense of Francisco who was under serious attack and in grave danger.

Court rendered judgment acquitting the petitioner-accused.

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES (petitioner) VS LORETO RENEGADO (respondent)

GR. No. L-27031 | May 31, 1974
Topic: Exempting Circumstance

Facts:
The deceased Mamerto de Lira was a classroom teacher in Tiburcio Tancinco Memorial
Vocational School run by national government in Calbayog. Accused was a clerk in the same
institution. At about 4 PM on August 26, 1966, appellant Renegado was in the school canteen
and deceased, upon entering the canteen, requested the former to type the stencil of his test
questions for the exam on September 2. Appellant answered that he had much work and that this
was not among his duties. Lira reminded Renegado of the instructions of the principal, and
finished his remark stating: “you can finish your work if you only will sit down and work”. At
this remark, Renegado became angry and stepped out of the canteen as he boxed his fist at a
cabinet. Seeing the attitude, Lira followed him and asked if the appellant was challenging him.
The latter did not answer and left the place. Renegado later voiced out his intent to kill Lira to his
friend security guard and employee, to which the latter pacified him and reminded him to think
of his family, because killing a person is not good. In the evening, there was a dance at the
school premises and asked another security guard if Lira was at the dance, to which he was
informed that Lira was not. The guard reminded him to not to attend to small trouble because
they both have families. Another teacher also approached him and tried to pacify his behaviour.

Monday morning came, and at 9 AM, a bookkeeper met accused in the office of the principal. He
inquired from the former about his salary loan and then, the school janitor called their attention
to some boys quarrelling, to which the accused remarked: “Stab him”. That same morning, Lira
went to the school canteen and while he was drinking, accused entered the canteen and seeing
Lira with his back towards him, he immediately and without warning stabbed Lira with a knife,
hitting the right lumbar region. The wounded Lira turned around and holding his abdomen,
raised a chair toward off his assailant who poised to stab him for the second time, except he was
blocked by Mrs. Tan. He was brought to the hospital and was attended and operated on by Dr.
Ortiz. The weapon penetrated the right lower lobe of the liver. Lira died from hepatic
insufficiency caused by the stab wound.

Defense counsel pleads for acquittal with the argument that he should be exempt from criminal
liability because at the precise time that the prosecution claims Lira was stabbed, accused lost his
senses and simply did not know what he was doing. He presented evidence that sometime around
June 1950, accused was clubbed on the forehead and that the head injury produced ill-effects that
he would have fits of violent temper such as maltreating his wife and children and then he would
ask for forgiveness.

Issues:
1. Whether or not the accused should be acquitted on the grounds that at the time the crime
was committed, he was insane
2. Whether he is guilty of murder with assault upon a person in authority

Ruling:
1. No, the court ruled that the defense of the accused must fail. It is incredible for the court
that for one brief moment he was unaware or unconscious of what he was doing, that he
"regained his senses" when he heard the voice of Mrs. Tan telling him: "Loreto, don't do
that," and only then did he realize that he had wounded Lira. It is most unusual for
appellant's mind which was in a perfect normal state on Monday morning, August 29, to
suddenly turn blank at that particular moment when he stabbed Lira. If appellant was able
to recall all those incidents, We cannot understand why his memory stood still at that
very crucial moment when he stabbed Lira to return at the snap of a finger as it were,
after he accomplished the act of stabbing his victim. His is not a diseased mind, for there
is no evidence whatsoever, to show that he is suffering from insanity or from any other
mental sickness which impaired his memory or his will. The evidence shows and the trial
court did find that appellant is a perfectly normal being, and that being the case, the
presumption is that his normal state of mind on that Monday morning continued and
remained throughout the entire incident. The testimony of the wife of the accused
(unusual behaviour lashing out on them) is not the evidence to prove a state of insanity.
This just shows how he is a man of violent temper who can be easily provoked.
2. Yes. There is evident premeditation because since Friday, he has already planned to kill
Lira and even voiced out his intentions to several people. The act of bringing with him
his knife to the canteen was the culmination of his plan to avenge himself on Lira. He had
more or less 64 hours to ponder over his plan and listen to the advice of employees and
own conscience. Treachery was also present, as accused stabbed deceased from the back
and he was also unarmed. It was also complexed with assault upon a person in authority.
The impelling motive for the attack on Mamerto de Lira was the performance by the
latter of his duties as a teacher.
Court convicted appellant Loreto Renagado for murder with assault on a person in authority, and
he was sentenced to suffer reclusion perpetua and to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the
sum of 12 000.00 pesos.

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES (plaintiff and appellee) VS CATALINO RABAO

(defendant and appellee)
GR. No. 46530 | April 10, 1939
Topic: Mitigating Circumstance (Lack of intent to commit so grave a wrong committed)

Facts:

The defendant and deceased were married before the justice of peace and had a child together.
On the morning of December 15, 1937, when the defendant was hardly awake after staying up
late the previous night on account of the elections held in the municipality of Naga, he noticed
that his wife was preparing water with which to give the child a bath. He told his wife not to
bathe the child because it had a cold, but the wife insisted and a quarrel arose in the heat of
which the accused punched his wife on the abdomen. She fell seated on a sack of rice nearby and
immediately suffered an attack of which she died in spite of the aid rendered her by the accused
himself and other persons who had arrived. The following morning Dr. Vicente Roxas performed
an autopsy and found that the spleen of the deceased had been hypertrophied due to an acute and
chronic malaria from which she had been suffering, and that death was caused by the
hemorrhage of the spleen when it was ruptured as a consequence of an external blow on the
abdomen which might have been that delivered by the accused.

Fiscal of said province charged defendant with parricide for having killed his wife Salvacion
Agawa, which crime was committed with evident premeditation and abuse of superior strength.
Lower court convicted accused with parricide, sentenced him to an indeterminate penalty of from
eight years and one day of prision mayor to twenty years of reclusion temporal, to indemnify the
heirs of the deceased in the sum of P1,000 and to pay the costs. The defense alleged that the
lower court erred in declaring that the accused hit the deceased on the abdomen, which caused
her death. Thus an appeal was filed by defense from the judgment by the lower court.

Issues:
Whether or not the lower court erred in their verdict against the accused.

Ruling:
The court ruled that the lower court did not err in finding that the accused hit the deceased on the
abdomen which directly caused the rupture of her spleen producing thereby an internal
hemorrhage that caused her almost instant death.
The facts proven constitute the crime of parricide defined by article 246 of the Revised Penal
Code, and in its commission there were present the following mitigating circumstances
considered by the lower court in favor of the defendant: lack of intention to commit so grave a
crime (article 13 [3], Revised Penal Code); having acted upon an impulse so powerful as
naturally to have produced passion or obfuscation (article 13 [6]); having surrendered himself to
the authorities immediately after the commission of the crime (article 13 [7]); with no
aggravating circumstance. After reviewing the facts, we are convinced that the defendant did not
really have the intention of committing so grave a crime as parricide. The quarrel that led to the
aggression had its origin from the natural and justifiable desire of the defendant, as a father, to
prevent his child, which was then ill, from being given a bath.
As to the penalty imposed, we find that it is not in accordance with that prescribed by the law.
Under article 246 of the Revised Penal Code the crime of parricide is punished with reclusion
perpetua to death. These penalties are indivisible and the Revised Penal Code provides, in article
63, rule 3, that whenever there is present some mitigating circumstance with no aggravating one,
the lesser penalty shall be applied. In conformity with this legal provision, the penalty that
should be imposed on the accused is that of reclusion perpetua.

The Court modified the decision of lower court and declared the defendant guilty of the crime of
parricide and hereby sentenced him to reclusion perpetua.