THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. FELIPE LASTIMOSA, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

The defendant was sentenced by a judgment of the Court of First Instance of
Leyte, dated June 11, 1913, as guilty of the crime of murder, to the penalty of
twenty years of cadena temporal, to indemnify the family of the
deceased Lucas Prieto in the sum of P500, and to pay the costs. Appealing from
said judgment, he alleges in his defense in this instance that the trial court
erred in weighing the evidence submitted by the prosecution, as well as in not
finding as a result of such evidence a very grave and reasonable doubt in his
favor and in not declaring him to be entitled to the benefits of the amnesty
proclaimed by the President of the United States on July 4, 1902.

The deed with which Felipe Lastimosa. was charged in the complaint, is that
he did willfully, unlawfully and and criminally, with deliberate premeditation
and assisted by a certain Pedro and one Isco, treacherously inflict death upon
Lucas Prieto one day in the month of February, 1901, in the municipality of
Baybay, Province of Leyte, in these Islands, by slashing said Prieto in the
abdomen with a bolo and cutting his throat, while he was bound and held by the
said Pedro and Isco.

According to the testimony of Demetria Prieto, daughter of the deceased, her
father was inside their house in the mountains of Baybay when the men named
Pedro and Isco bound him up by order of Iping Lastimosa, that is, the defendant
Felipe Lastimosa. Upon seeing this she fled in fear and did not afterwards see
her father. She added that her mother at that time also ordered her to run away,
because her father had been caught by Iping, who falsely attributed to him the
theft of a carabao of his. Finally, since that date, she had not again seen
Pedro, or Isco, or the defendant, nor had she returned to her home; and her
mother, now deceased, had told her in her aunt’s house the morning after the
crime that Felipe was the one who had killed her father.

Hilario Laguna, a neighbor of Lucas Prieto’s, whose house was about 10 brazas
from his, testified that on that occasion he saw Prieto and Felipe engaged in a
dispute, and when he casually left his house he saw four persons, the deceased,
the defendant Iping, Pedro, and Isco, also leaving Prieto’s house; the latter’s
two hands were tied with a rope which was held by Pedro, who was behind him, the
other two being on each side, that is, Isco on his left and the defendant Felipe
on his right. The latter struck Prieto a blow with his bolo on the right side of
the neck, so that only a very small portion of his head was left attached to his
body and he died immediately after the blow. The witness then took to flight and
did not again see Felipe Lastimosa and his companions, because they fled from
the place. This witness added that the occurrence took place at 7 o’clock in the
evening; that there was a light in the deceased’s house which illuminated that
spot; that he was at a distance of 7 brazas from them; and finally, that he had
previously known the accused and his two companions. He had been informed by the
wife of the deceased that the cause of the occurrence was that her husband was
charged with the theft of a carabao.

According to another neighbor of the deceased, one Mateo Montajes, whose
house was opposite at a distance of 10 brazas, the wife of the deceased had run
to it about 7 o’clock in the evening of the day in question begging him to help
her husband because he was being killed. He went toward the place of the
occurrence, concealing himself about 3 brazas from the place where the defendant
Felipe Lastimosa and his companions Pedro and Isco, whom he had known
previously, were; he saw them going away and Lucas Prieto dead, with his neck
almost completely cut through and a very small portion of his head attached to
his body. The corpse was picked up by the deceased’s own brothers about 10
o’clock the next morning. When asked if he had testified before the justice of
the peace that Lucas’ corpse bore two wounds, one in the abdomen and the other
in the neck, this same witness replied that blood showed on the body but that he
had not ascertained whether there was a wound or not.

Finally, the defendant himself, in testifying as a witness in his own behalf,
stated that Lucas Prieto had stolen a carabao from him; that he went to his
house to ask him if he had stolen it, and Prieto had replied in the affirmative,
adding: “You and all the strangers here and your master are marked to be
killed.” He decided to go to the town hall of Baybay to report the theft to the
revolutionary leader called Capili, because the revolution was then in full
swing, and having done so, Capili gave him an order, saying: “All right, you go
back to the place, accompanied by these two whom I send with you, to get the
carabao and if he does not deliver it to you, kill him.” He then went back to
Lucas Prieto’s house, accompanied by two insurgents who belonged to Capili’s
band, one of them called Isco, all three being armed with bolos.

When they reached the house and called up a greeting from below, Lucas came
down carrying a reaping hook and immediately asked them: “Who are you?” When his
two companions replied, “We’ve come to get the carabao,” Lucas said, “Yes, you
can get the carabao, but choose between your lives and the carabao.” His
companions then retreated, because it appeared that Lucas’ intention was to kill
them, and as he observed that a quarrel was arising between the two who had
accompanied him and Lucas, who was the one that began the attack, he retreated a
distance of about 3 brazas; he did not know which of his two companions it was
that slashed Lucas, who was not then bound. He added that there was a light in
the house but that it did not illuminate the place where they were, and finally
that he saw there the corpse of Lucas, which had only a single wound in the
neck.

As appears from the evidence taken at the trial, the defendant has
corroborated the story of the prosecution’s witnesses with reference to the fact
that Lucas Prieto was violently killed on the occasion they speak of, and for
the motive assigned by some of them, although by hearsay from the wife of the
deceased. The defendant himself has also explicitly acknowledged that he was the
person directly interested in the matter that furnished the motive for the
crime, which was the recovery of the carabao that, according to him, Lucas
Prieto had stolen from him; and that it was he to whom Capili gave the order to
go to the place, accompanied by the two insurgents or revolutionists, in order
to recover the carabao or kill Prieto if he did not deliver the animal to them.
On the other hand, it is unlikely that Prieto would have dared to threaten and
attack the defendant and his two companions, the three of them being armed as
they were with bolos, when they appeared at his house to demand of him the
return of the carabao. If to all this be added the consideration that there is
no proof nor a single circumstance in the case which would indicate that either
the daughter of the deceased or the other two witnesses took any special
interest in incriminating the defendant, for the former confined herself to
telling solely what she had seen, when she might also have said, without fear
that any one would contradict her, that she saw the defendant himself wound her
father with the bolo; and the other two witnesses told what, under the
circumstances, each one of them could have seen, the conclusion is reached that
it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that it was the defendant who killed
Lucas Prieto with the bolo he carried, while the victim had his hands tied with
a cord held by one of defendant’s companions and he was watched by the other,
the three having bound the deceased inside his own house before taking him
downstairs under the same house, where they accomplished his death.

The accused, then, is criminally responsible therefor as a principal, and
would be responsible as such although he had not materially committed the crime
himself. For it was proven that he took a direct part in its execution and
cooperated therein by acts without which it could not have been accomplished. In
the first place he went to lay his complaint against Lucas Prieto before the
revolutionary leader Capili; from him he secured the order to go with his
companions to either recover the carabao or kill Prieto; with his comrades he
repaired to Lucas Prieto’s house to carry out the order and lastly, he witnessed
the execution of that part of the order that related to the killing of Prieto,
always supposing that it was not he himself who carried it out but one of his
said two companions. He did not prevent it, as he might well have done, seeing
that the order was issued by Capili for defendant’s benefit. On the contrary, he
required compliance with the order, for no other meaning could be attached to
his presence in the act, interested as he was in securing the recovery of the
carabao from decedent whom he accused of stealing the beast.

“Persons who are present during the commission of a crime and lend their
moral support thereto without actively participating therein are nevertheless
guilty as principals.” (U. S. vs. Ancheta, 1 Phil. Rep., 165.)

“One who shares the guilty purpose and encourages and abets the crime by his
presence at the time of its perpetration is guilty as principal even though he
may have taken no part in its material execution.” (U. S. vs. Santos, 2
Phil. Rep., 453.)

“In order to warrant a conviction as principal in the crime of murder, it is
not necessary that the defendants should have taken an active and material part
in its commission, but such conviction will also be sustained if it appears that
the defendant did willingly stay with those who took a material part and was
voluntarily present from the time the crime was commenced until it wag
consummated.” (U. S. vs. Balisacan, 4 Phil. Rep., 545.)

It having been conclusively proven that the deceased had his hands tied when
he was mortally wounded in the neck, by which means the perpetrators of the
crime especially and directly assured the consummation of their purpose with out
any risk to their own persons that could proceed from any defense he might put
up, the crime committed by the defendant must be classified as murder, under
article 403 of the Penal Code, by reason of the concurrence of the qualifying
circumstance of treachery, and there must be imposed upon him the penalty set
forth in said article for that crime.

He cannot be considered as entitled to the benefits of the amnesty granted on
July 4, 1902, because the crime in question was not perpetrated for political
reasons or as a consequence of hatreds, feuds, or dissensions of a political
character between the deceased and the defendant or between the former and the
revolutionary leader Capili, it having been merely a means of personal revenge
put into execution by the defendant against the deceased on the supposition that
the latter had stolen an animal belonging to him.

The trial court has not, therefore, in the judgment appealed from, incurred
any of the errors assigned by the defense in its brief. In the commission of
said crime there Has concurred the generic aggravating circumstance that the
deed was executed in the dwelling of the offended party without provocation on
the part of the victim, for the defendant and his companions bound him inside
his own house and later took him in that manner to a place near by, where the
crime was consummated, a fact which cannot hinder the holding of said
circumstance, because, as the supreme court of Spain has declared in a decision
of October 9, 1875, the act performed cannot, for the purposes of such holding,
be divided or its unity be broken up, when the offender began the aggression in
the dwelling of the offended party and ended it in the street or outside of said
dwelling. Nevertheless, the defendant must be given the benefit of the
provisions of article 11 of the Penal Code, as amended by Act No. 2142. This
extenuating circumstance will offset the generic aggravating one set forth
above, wherefore the penalty fixed for the crime ought to be imposed in its
medium degree.

Therefore, we sentence the defendant to the penalty of life imprisonment
(cadena perpetua), with the accessories of article 54 of the said Code,
to such extent modifying the judgment appealed from with reference to the
personal penalty imposed therein upon him, and affirming it in other respects
with the addition that he shall not suffer subsidiary imprisonment for
insolvency of the indemnity, in view of the nature of the principal penalty;
with the costs of both instances against the appellant.

Arellano, C. J., Carson, Moreland, and Trent, JJ.,
concur.