People vs.

Genosa, 419 SCRA 537

FACTS: Marivic and Ben Genosa, who knew each other since elementary and were 3rd cousins,
were married in November 19, 1983 in Ormoc City. Their marriage, save for the first year
where, according to Marivic, she lived happily with Ben, had been tumultuous and unhappy
because of the many and frequent quarrels of the couple which usually resulted in the cruel
treatment of Marivic by Ben. This went on for about 10 or 11 years, occurring around thrice a
week when everytime the latter got drunk. On the evening of November 15, 1995, Ben and
Arturo Basobas, his co-worker, after having collected their salary, went to the cock-fighting
place of ISCO where they stayed for 3 hours and drank 2 bottles of beer, each. They then went
to the Genosa residence but Marivic was not there because, as she explained, she was out with
her cousin
looking for Ben, knowing that it was a payday and that he was probably out to gamble again.
Upon arriving later at the Genosa residence and finding Ben drunk ―because of his staggering
walking,‖ Marivic asked Ecel to sleep in the house because she was scared that Ben might again
beat her, but Ecel declined for fear of a repetition of an incident a year ago.
Ben was in his usual unruly behavior, nagging and yelling at Marivic, even cutting the antenna
wire with a bolo to keep her from watching TV. There were basically 2 incidents of ―attack‖
made by Ben: 1) he whirled Marivic, causing her to fall on the bedside, and two hours later
when 2) he dragged her out of the room towards the drawer, holding her neck. He tried
opening the drawer, failed, so reached for a blade instead in his wallet. At this point, she was
aware that he was going to kill her so she smashed his arm, causing the wallet and blade to fall.
She also subsequently smashed him with a metal pipe before running to the children‘s room,
where she felt overwhelming self- pity and felt nauseous. Marivic admitted killing her husband,
however, by shooting him later on. She had ―distorted‖ the drawer where the
gun was and shot him. The RTC charged Genosa with parricide, giving her the death penalty.

ISSUES: 1) WON Marivic acted in self-defense and in defense of her fetus (invoking
BWS)
2) WON there was treachery in the killing of Ben Genosa

HELD: 1) No, but with 2 mitigating circumstances

2) None

RATIO: 1) Crucial to the BWS defense is the state of mind of the battered woman at the
time of the offense—
she must have actually feared imminent harm from her batterer and honestly believed that
killing him would save her
life. Here, there was a sufficient time interval between the unlawful aggression of Ben and her
fatal attack upon him.
The reality or even imminent danger he posed ended altogether the moment he apparently
ceased his attack and
went to bed, notwithstanding the Court‘s recognition of this special case that requiring the
battered person to await an
obvious, deadly attack before she can defend her life ―would amount to sentencing her to
‗murder by installment‘‖ and
that threatening behavior or communication can satisfy the required imminence of danger.
Aggression, if not
continuous, does not warrant self-defense. In the absence of such aggression, there can be no
self-defense—
complete or incomplete—on the part of the victim.
 Mitigating circumstance 1: Par. 9 and 10 of Art. 13 of the RPC