G.R. No. 48768. December 04, 1947
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. CIRILO CORICOR, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.
PERFECTO, J.:
heirs of the deceased Pedro Lego in the sum of P2,000, and to pay the costs,
having been found by the lower court guilty of murder committed on September 15,
1941.
The evidence for the prosecution was presented on October 20 and 21, 1941,
and the evidence for the defense on October 21 and 22, 1941. Six witnesses
testified for the prosecution and their testimonies are in substance as
follows:
- Dr. Gregorio Peñalosa, 30, identified Exhibit A as written and signed by him
which is a certification of the post-mortem examination he made on the
body of Pedro Lego on September 12, 1941, 3 p. m. He presented Exhibit B, a
diagram of a human body, where the wounds mentioned in Exhibit A are indicated
by circles in red pencil. Wound No. 6 was fatal, while Nos. 10, 11 and 12 were
serious. The wounds were caused by a sharp cutting instrument, such as a pointed
cutting bolo. Wounds Nos. 5, 6, and 9 could have been inflicted while
the victim had his back turned towards the aggressor. Death certificate Exhibit
C was issued by the witness. He performed the autopsy about 15 to 20 hours after
the death of Pedro Lego, which took place at 3 p. m. on September 16, 1941.
Exhibit D is a certificate of the wounds of Catalina Regis who suffered
superficial wounds, none of which being serious. - Catalina Regis, 38 widow of Pedro Lego.—On the morning of September 15,
1941, she was with her husband in the house of Severino Regis in barrio Lukay,
municipality of Alangalang, to attend a novena for the souls in purgatory. Pedro
Lego “came later at 11 a. m. of the same day, which was the last day of the
novena. On Monday morning, September 15, Cirilo Coricor went to the place.” The
witness and her husband had been in the house of Severino “since Friday yet, at
4 p. m.” The accused is “a nephew of my husband. The mother of the accused is
the aunt of my husband Pedro Lego.” Cirilo arrived at 7 a. m. “to invite us to
his house to give advice to his wife Isabel Regis.” Cirilo said: “Tatay Pedro,
before you return to Jaro, please pass by our house to give advice to my wife,
because she does not mind me, does not obey me.” At 11 o’clock of the same
morning, Cirilo returned saying: “I return to invite you again, because I feel
impatient waiting for you at home.” After lunch, in which Cirilo partook, he
said: “Tatay Pedro, I am going ahead because you are to take rest for a while,
as I am afraid that Isabel might go away and you may not reach her at home.”
Cirilo went away with the corn which witness and Pedro Lego were to take with
them, to compel them to go to his house. “At 3 in the afternoon we went away in
the direction of Jaro and we passed by the house of Cirilo.” Question as to
their arrival at the house of Cirilo, the witness answered: “About half past
two, I believe, no, I believe after three. Esperanza Coricor came along with us
to the house. When we arrived he offered us places to sit and I sat on a bench
near the door. Cirilo was sitting on the floor and my husband Pedro Lego sat on
a bench near the window, at the side of a post.” Cirilo “was cutting roast pig
and placing the pieces in a plate. There was a glass and one liter of
tuba in a container of bamboo. At that moment he offered me
tuba and gave me part of the roast pig. I drunk and Cirilo faced Pedro
Lego, squatting, put the tuba in a glass which he placed on a bench,
and faced me and took the bolo which was before me and then placed it
in front of himself and then said: ‘Tatay Pedro, take tuba,’ and Cirilo took the
bolo and with it he cut a piece of roast pig. While Pedro Lego was
drinking the tuba from the glass which he lifted to his mouth, Cirilo
gave him a thrust with the bolo.” He took the bolo from the
floor. The bolo was big and it had a horn handle. Pedro Lego was hit in
the abdomen. “My husband covered the wound with his hand and jumped from the
house, and Cirilo pursued him to the other side of the road, which was an abaca
plantation. I went down immediately after them, going to the road to have a
sight of them. They reached the abaca plantation. I could not see them, because
they were screened by shrubbery. I heard a noise of blows. My children were
shouting and crying. I was intending to go to the side of my husband, or else
flee, but I could not because of my children. When Cirilo Coricor came out from
the abaca plantation, after killing Pedro Lego, I heard him saying: ‘Where is
Catalina I am going to kill her too.’ I felt I was held. When I moved my face I
saw her sister holding him by the hand which was carrying the bolo.
When I disengaged myself from him, I took my son and went running at full speed,
but he reached me and stabbed me in the head. I felt dizzy. I believe he did not
stab me with the sharp edge because I was not wounded. I fell down on my back.
He mounted me and attempted to give me a thrust in the abdomen, but I was able
to take hold of the bolo and pushed it up while he was trying to push it down,
and then my hands were wounded, the same as my face. I felt bad due to my wounds
and I swooned and said to Cirilo: ‘Ay, I am going to die.’ He left me
unconscious. When I opened my eyes I tried to stand up. I felt very weak and I
went to the house of Severino Regis, almost crawling. As soon as I laid down in
the room of Severino Regis I heard Cirilo shouting: ‘Where is that Catalina. So
she is still alive. I will kill her.’ Cirilo was then in the road. The witness
saw him through a cranny. When Cirilo arrived at the house, he asked whether
Catalina Regis went there. Severino and Esperanza told him that Catalina was not
there, and Cirilo went away. The witness was treated by Dr. Peñalosa. Her wounds
took thirty-three days to heal. The bolo Exhibit E was the one used by
Cirilo.At the time of the incident there were in the house of Cirilo, his wife
Isabel, Esperanza, and a son and a daughter of the witness. Esperanza sat down
in the same bench with Pedro. Esperanza did not see when Pedro was attacked by
Cirilo because at that moment Esperanza had already gone down the stairs of the
house of Cirilo to return home. The floor of the house was less than one meter
high from the ground. The stairs had only two steps. There was a sleeping room.
When Cirilo requested Pedro Lego and his wife to come to his house, he wanted
his uncle to give advice to his wife Isabel, because he was noticing that she
had a paramour, which was Saturnino Caaya. The witness suspected that Cirilo had
a grudge against Pedro Lego, because the latter “sent him away from our land and
he had to transfer to the land of Victorio Alcober ” which happened two years
before the incident. Cirilo then said that “we had preferences.” At first “he
did not talk with us, but later after our frequent visits to the place we
resumed our old friendly relations.” The witness saw the cadaver of her husband
“at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.” After a few more questions, the witness said
that she saw the corpse of her husband in the municipal building at seven.On August 14, “Isabel Regis arrived at our house in Jaro because she had a
quarrel with her husband.” Isabel said that Cirilo was jealous of Saturnino
Caaya. Isabel remained in the house of the witness for four days. Cirilo came to
take her, but before going out they quarrelled, Cirilo saying: “You are
courageous because these people are siding with you.” - Dominga Lego, 7.—Pedro Lego, her father, was interred in the cemetery. He
was killed by Cirilo. When requested to narrate the incident of the killing the
witness answered: “I cannot.”“Q. But what did you see, did you not see how the accused killed your
father?—A. I did not see.“Q. What did you see?—A. Nothing.
“Q. What did your father try to do in return?—A. He sat down.
“Q. After?—A. They gave him some drink.
“Q. Who gave him some drink?—A. Cirilo.
“Q. What did he give to drink?—A. Tuba.
“Q. After?—A. He gave him a thrust.
“Q. What was your father doing when he was given a thrust?—A. Drinking.
“Q. Who gave him the thrust?—A. Cirilo.
“Q. Afterwards, what did your father do upon receiving the thrust?—A. He
ran.“Q. Where to?—A. To the abaca plantation.
“Q. And Cirilo, what did he do?—A. He pursued my father.
“Q. And you, where did you remain?—A. I remained with my mother.
“Q. Where was your mother when Cirilo pursued your father?—A. On the road, in
the middle of the way.“Q. Afterwards, where did you and your mother go?—A. We went to the house of
uncle Severino.“Q. How did you and your mother go to the house of Severino Regis?—A. I and
my younger brother ran there.“Q. And your mother?—A. She was wounded.
“Q. When you ran, what did your mother do?—A. She was lying on her back; she
was being attacked.“Q. Who was attacking her?—A. Cirilo.”
- Zacarias Ladera, 35.—As Chief of Police of Alangalang, he learned that Pedro
Lego was killed about half past four on September 15, 1941. He was notified by a
chauffeur of a truck. He went to the house of the accused. Nobody was there. I
saw tuba in a container. On the floor there was tuba and meat.
The house was open. On the floor there were stains of blood. There was a
bayong of corn at the door of the house. On the way from the house to
the road there were also stains of blood. The cadaver was found in an abaca
plantation at the other side of the road. It was about twenty meters from the
road. The body was seen with face down. The witness was acquainted with the
accused and his wife and they came to see him on September 10, when they asked
for help in preparing an affidavit to be signed by Isabel Regis. The spouses
came accompanied by Victorio Alcober. The day before, Alcober came to the house
of the witness with a pencil draft of an affidavit, requesting that the
affidavit be prepared to be signed by Isabel Regis, because the spouses were
quarrelling and without said affidavit, Isabel Regis would be killed by her
husband. The affidavit stated that Isabel Regis had sexual intercourse with
Pedro Lego. A copy of said affidavit is marked as Exhibit “F.” The accused told
the witness that he wanted an affidavit to be sure and to have an evidence that
his wife had been the paramour of Pedro Lego. At the time the affidavit of
Isabel Regis was made, the justice of the peace was absent, for which reason it
was not sworn to before him. The witness told Cirilo: “I am afraid you may
punish or kill your wife for this affidavit”, and Cirilo answered: “I love my
wife much; I only wanted to be sure that my uncle Pedro had sexual intercourse
with her and that is all.” - Ruperto Aguirre, 37.—On October 14, 1941, he saw the accused and his wife in
the house of Cirilo’s mother in Granja, municipality of Jaro. The witness was
invited by a younger sister of the accused to apply a domestic medicine to cure
the stomachache of a son. Cirilo arrived after 2 o’clock, alone. Isabel, his
wife, was already there. At 3 o’clock, when the witness and his wife left,
Cirilo said to the witness: “Mano Perto, this is the last time that we shall see
each other.” The witness asked him: “Why, are you going to Manila ?” The accused
answered: “I am going to Manila .” “What for?” “I am going to kill a man.”
“Who?” “I will not tell the name; you will know it because he will be from here
if he is here or he will be from there if he is there.” (On pp. 66 and 67, on
cross-examination by the court, the contradictions of the witnesses were put in
evidence.) - Severino Regis, 30.—Pedro Lego and Catalina Regis left the house at 2
o’clock. They were accompanied by Esperanza Coricor, wife of the witness.
Esperanza wanted to ask money from Cirilo Coricor. That same afternoon he saw
again Catalina who was wounded. Cirilo arrived at his house asking for Catalina,
saying that he was going to kill her. The witness told him to go away because
Catalina was not there. The accused, who was holding a bolo, left at once.Catalina Regis and Pedro Lego remained in the house of the witness “for just
one night.”Ignacio Buñales, 50, first witness for the defense testified that on
September 15, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, Isabel Regis came running to his
house. She said: “Cirilo wounded somebody.” The witness saw the accused in front
of the house of Victorio Alcober. The witness asked him. “Why are you covered
with blood?” The accused answered: “I killed Pedro Lego” “Why?” “Because I
caught him and my wife flagrantly.” The witness said: “Then you should not
remain here. Where is your bolo?” “It is with Victorio.” The
bolo was delivered by Sebastian Alcober to the witness who then invited
the accused to present himself to the chief of police. The witness delivered the
accused and the bolo to the chief of police.Cirilo Coricor, 28, the accused, testified: “On September 15 at about 2
o’clock in the afternoon I went to distil tuba. After distilling in a
distant place I came to distil tuba from coconut trees near my house.
While I was near a coconut tree, before climbing it, I looked at my house and I
saw that the window of my room was being closed, and I felt apprehensive and
then I went there to see what was happening, and when I was approaching the room
I heard low voices of persons. I looked through a hole into the room and at that
moment I saw Pedro Lego raising his body which was over that of my wife and I
saw his penis in erection. I saw my wife naked from the chest down. Upon seeing
this I felt bad, as if my chest would explode and I thought that the peace of my
home had been violated. Then I unsheated my bolo. Slowly I went up
passing through the kitchen door. My intention was to kill the two of them
inside the room. As I was approaching the door of my room, Pedro Lego came out
and I gave him a thrust, and my wife was able to escape passing through the door
of the kitchen. Upon being wounded, Pedro Lego jumped out of the window, and I
pursued him. After passing the threshold of my house, he faced me and made an
attack. He was able to take hold of the blunt edge of the bolo while I
was strongly holding it by the handle. After a while Catalina Regis, Pedro
Lego’s wife, arrived there and tried to help her husband, taking hold of the
bolo in order to wrest it from me. Then we were three struggling for the
possession of the bolo, and while they were exerting force to take it, by
pulling it towards them, I was in turn pulling it towards me, and at that time
the point of the bolo touched the end of Catalina’s nose. Sometimes we
stumble down. After stumbling for the fourth time, Catalina was placed beneath
us and the bolo touched her face. After a while, as Catalina was hurt,
she lost hold of the bolo and ran away and the two of us, Pedro Lego
and myself, remained, and we continued struggling for the possession of the
bolo. And he lost hold of it and I began stabbing him. From that place he was
able to run to the other side of the road and I followed him and at that place I
finished him, because I could not endure any longer the outrage he did to my
home. I love my wife whom I brought to the altar.”At 2 o’clock in the afternoon when the accused left his house, the window of
the room was open. He was the one who opened it in the morning. He rememberd
seeing it open because he went inside the room. The accused had been a distiller
of tuba for more than two years. He used to make his distillation at
about half past two in the afternoon, the time when he saw the window of the
room being closed. Of the twenty coconut trees from which he used to distil,
there still remained eight to be distilled. It was about four when he approached
the house to find out what was happening inside the room. Two years before, the
witness was residing in his land in Jaro. He transferred to Lukay because of the
wrong that Pedro Lego was doing to his wife. One week after his marriage, Pedro
Lego started going to their house while the accused was away in his work. The
accused saw Pedro Lego once sitting on a bench beside his wife. On another
occasion he saw him near the door of the room. The accused heard from neighbors
that there was something bad going on between Pedro Lego and his wife and that
Pedro Lego would go to their house when the accused was out. Once, at about half
past eleven, Pedro Lego arrived asking if they had any viand. The accused
answered that they had none, Lego said that he brought viand but left it in the
house of an uncle, surnamed Coricor, and ordered Cirilo to fetch the viand
because Pedro wanted to eat with the spouses. The accused obeyed. When he
returned, he saw Pedro Lego and his wife coming out of the room. The wife went
to the kitchen, pretending to do something with the rice she was cooking. Pedro
Lego pretended to be occupied cleaning the altar, and then said that he was
looking for a chisel he placed in the ceiling. The accused then sensed that
there was something wrong, as Pedro Lego had no business to be in the room. As
the accused lacked the courage to talk to them, he went to Pedro Lego’s wife and
told her: “Inay Taling, please tell Tatay Pindoy that he is doing wrong to my
wife and that in case I should catch them in flagrant copulation I would kill
them and I would not recognize him as my uncle.” Catalina answered: “Leave it to
me. I will tell him.” One week later, Pedro Lego returned. The accused thought
that Lego would not stop making love to his wife. So he again went to Lego’s
wife and said: “Inay Taling, we are going away from Jaro to avoid trouble. If I
remain here and uncle Pedro continues his acts and I catch him in the act I
would not consider him as my uncle. I will kill him.” That is the reason why the
accused and his wife transferred to Alangalang to the land of Victorio
Alcober.The accused denies having gone to the house of Severino Regis, as testified
by Catalina Regis, to invite Pedro Lego and his wife to come to his house to
give advice to his wife in view of the latter’s relations with Saturnino Caaya.
The accused remained in his house waiting for the time to proceed with the
distillation. Regarding his relations with Pedro Lego and his wife the accused
said: “Since I learned that they were doing something wrong to my wife I ceased
my friendly relations with them.” The accused does not even know Saturnino
Caaya, and he never suspected any man having love relations with his wife except
Pedro Lego. The accused learned that Pedro Lego and Catalina Regis were in the
house of Severnino, because his sister Esperanza told him so, and was the one
who invited him to attend the novena. The accused and his wife refused to attend
the celebration, “because I knew that Catalina Regis was the one leading the
prayers and her husband Pedro Lego was there,” The accused avoided meeting Pedro
Lego, “because I knew what he was doing to my wife.” It is not true that the
accused offered roast pig in his house to Pedro Lego and his wife. “We did not
even roast any pig that day.” The accused denies having gone to Severino Regis’
home to look for Catalina with the intention of killing her. The fact that
Catalina Regis was wounded only accidentally when she intervened to help her
husband by trying to wrest the bolo from the accused can be shown by the fact
that “if the wounds had been inflicted intentionally the wounds would have been
big.” Regarding the written admission of his wife, the accused had it prepared
“in order that my wife would not repeat what she did.” On September 3, the
accused consented to let his wife go to her mother’s house to have a massage,
promising to return the next day. Several days passed but she did not return.
The accused went to find out the reason for her failure to return. On September
8, the accused went to her mother’s house. He did not find her there and the
mother said that Isabel did not come to her house but to the house of Pedro
Lego. The accused requested his mother-in-law to be the one to take his wife,
“because if I would be the one to do it, it is possible that Pedro Lego would be
mad at me.” After taking Isabel, her mother told the accused that it took some
time before Pedro Lego consented to her leaving his house on the pretext that
the child became sick and should be cured. The accused brought his wife to
Lukay, where he reprimanded her for going to Pedro Lego’s house. The wife
answered that she was brought to the house of Pedro Lego in Jaro by her aunt
Catalina. Then the accused said: “I believe you have copulated with your uncle
Pedro. Why should you be there with him?” At first she refused to tell the
truth, but upon the insistence of the accused she could not conceal what
happened. Then on September 10, the accused brought his wife to the chief of
police of Alangalang “to be reprimanded and be advised not to do again what she
did.” Since the accused and his wife transferred to Lukay, the accused has not
been on speaking terms with Pedro Lego and his wife. The accused and his wife
never visited Pedro Lego’s house again nor has the latter visited the former at
Lukay. After he killed Pedro Lego he went to the town to present himself to the
authorities. On the way he met Ignacio Buñales who asked him why he was covered
with blood and the accused said: “I killed somebody. I had a certainty that
Pedro Lego and my wife were doing something wrong.” Since the accused
transferred to Lukay, he heard that once, in his absence, Pedro Lego came to his
house. Pedro Lego has a piece of land in Lukay and the accused heard that Pedro
Lego used to go to said place, but the accused never saw him. At the time the
accused peeped into the room of his house he was already carrying the bolo
Exhibit E which he was using for his work. He was also carrying a sickle which
had fallen from his waist when he was pursuing Pedro Lego. The accused did not
pay attention as to whether Pedro Lego had his pants on. He saw his sexual
organ, the same as that of his wife, who had the skirts raised. When the accused
went to distil tuba, his wife knew that he had to distil from coconut
trees which were located far from their house. Ever since the accused was
detained, he has not talked with his wife, who failed to visit him even once.
The reason was because “she knows that I was also about to kill her. In fact I
gave her a stab but she was not hit.” Neither Pedro Lego nor Catalina Regis knew
of Isabel’s declaration Exhibit F. When Isabel left the house on September 3,
she brought with her her eight-months-old daughter and left her two-year-old son
in the house of her compadre Francisco Serrano.
A careful weighing of the evidence both of the prosecution and the defense
leads us to the conclusion that appellant’s version as to the circumstance under
which Pedro Lego was killed is the more credible. That appellant should have
gone to the house of Severino Regis to invite Pedro Lego and his wife to come to
appellant’s house so as to advise Isabel, because she had a paramour, one
Saturnino Caaya, as testified to by Catalina Regis, appears not to tally with
the fact that, according to the testimony of the accused, not contradicted by
the same Catalina Regis, he went twice to her to complain about the illicit
relations between Pedro Lego and Isabel, to the extent that appellant manifested
to Catalina that if he should surprise Lego in flagrant copulation with Isabel,
he will kill them and would forget that Lego is his uncle. If appellant was
jealous of nobody else but Pedro Lego, of whose illicit relations with his wife
he had ample evidence, including the written confession of Isabel, there is no
reason for him to recur precisely to Lego to give advice to Isabel. The
suggestion is too illogical to be entertained by a person in his senses, and
there is no evidence that appellant had lost his. It is unbelievable that he
should seek advice for his wife to desist from continuing with an alleged
paramour, Saturnino Caaya, who is not even known to him. After appellant had
twice complained to her of the illicit relations between Lego and Isabel, it is
hard to believe that Catalina could have seriously entertained the alleged
invitation by appellant to his house to give advice to Isabel.
Catalina’s story to the effect that her husband and herself were regaled by
the accused in his house with roast pig and tuba does not seem natural.
It is a well-known custom among our people in the barrios to prepare roast pig
only on important celebrations or gatherings. Roast pig is considered a delicacy
only proper when there are joyous motives. If Lego and his wife were invited
just to give advice to Isabel, on an unhappy domestic matter, it is incredible
that appellant should offer roast pig, which is only prepared for merry
occasions. The fact that Lego and his wife were coming from the house of
Severino Regis, where the novena which took place must have been an occasion for
preparaing special dishes, only serves to make more incredible Catalina’s
story.
We are of opinion that the circumstances under which Pedro Lego was killed by
appellant were as narrated in the latter’s testimony and, accordingly, the
appealed decision must be modified, so as to reduce the penalty to that provided
in the following article of the Revised Penal Code:
“ART. 247. Death or physical injuries inflicted under exceptional
circumstances.—Any legally married person who, having surprised his spouse
in the act of committing sexual intercourse with another person, shall kill any
of them or both of them in the act or immediately thereafter, or shall inflict
upon them any serious physical injury, shall suffer the penalty of
destierro.“If he shall inflict upon them physical injuries of any other kind, he shall
be exempt from punishment.“These rules shall be applicable, under the same circumstances, to parents
with respect to their daughters under eighteen years of age, and their seducers,
while the daughters are living with their parents.“Any person who shall promote or facilitate the prostitution of his wife or
daughter, or shall otherwise have consented to the infidelity of the other
spouse shall not be entitled to the benefits of this article.”
In applying the above article we feel that we are performing a duty extremely
distasteful, because, with all due respect to a contrary opinion of the
majority, the writer can not conscientiously agree with the philosophy
underlying said part of the Revised Penal Code. That philosophy, acceptable
during the immature stages of human evolution, when blind and unreasonable
impulses were the law, when reason was swayed by obscurantism and absurd
prejudices, when the Christian and other humanitarian religions had not yet set
the tenets upon which modern civilization and culture have developed, has
absolutely no place in the present stage of human society.
Under that un-Christian, barbarous, inhuman philosophy, the offended spouse
is given the tremendous power to summarily execute two human beings, without the
benefit of any hearing, trial, or court proceeding. Under our laws, under the
democratic system of government established by our Constitution, the authors of
the most heinous and abhorrent offenses, such as treason, piracy, parricide,
murder, genocide, mass massacre, the criminals whose misdeeds place them in the
category of moral monsters, are protected by a bill of rights, by an elaborate
system of administration of justice, by a number of fundamental guarantees
intended to insure that no one shall be deprived of the due process of law and
that the equal protection of the laws shall be effective to everybody. Under the
savage philosophy in question, those who should happen to be surprised violating
the conjugal fidelity can be killed like vexatious insects or wild animals.
Conjugal infidelity committed by a married woman and her paramour is
punished, as adultery, by article 333 of the Revised Penal Code with from 4
months to 6 years of imprisonment, and the one committed by a husband and his
mistress, as concubinage, by article 334, with imprisonment from 6 months to 4
years and 2 months for the erring husband and banishment for the mistress. Under
article 334, not all cases of conjugal infidelity committed by a husband is
punishable. The great majority of them are left unpunishable. No fiscal will
think of prosecuting the husband who should indulge in sexual intercourse with
discreet mistresses or with prostitutes. For such acts of conjugal infidelity,
some punishable with short terms of imprisonment, others with simple banishment,
and still others not punishable at all, article 247, in effect, confers to the
offended spouse the power to inflict the supreme penalty of death. The
banishment provided for the killer is intended more for his protection than as a
penalty. Such a twisted logic seems possible only in a paranoiac mind. It is
high time to relegate article 247 to where it properly belongs, to the memory of
the sins that humanity promised to herself never to commit again. The majority
of the Court, however, opines otherwise.
For all the foregoing, setting aside the appealed decision, appellant is
found guilty of the offense of having killed Pedro Lego as punished by article
247 of the Revised Penal Code and, accordingly, is sentenced to 2 years, 4
months and 1 day of banishment, and to indemnify the heirs of Pedro Lego in the
sum of P2,000.
Paras, and Pablo, JJ., concur.
[1] This decision is rendered in lieu of
the one promulgated on September 29, 1944, which cannot be reconstituted.
MORAN, C. J.:
I certify that Mr. Justice Briones and Mr.
Justice Padilla joined in this decision.
CONCURRING
BENGZON, J.:
I agree to the application of article 247 of the Revised Penal Code. But I
can not assent to the commentary that it is old-fashioned and unjust. Though it
is not this Court’s mission to vindicate legislative measures, it should be
observed that similar provisions are found in the codes of France, Italy,
Belgium, Mexico, Peru, Chile and other South American countries.[1] In some of these the offended husband is even
exempted from all criminal responsibility.
Article 247 was taken from the Spanish Penal Code; it does not fully excuse
the husband’s misdeed, but it greatly reduces the penalty, considering the
enormous provocation and his righteous indignation. As Groizard explains,
“El marido que sorprende a su mujer en adulterio y la mata, o mata a
su complice, o mata a los dos, debe ser siempre justiciable. Todos los elementos
constitutivos del delito, en este hecho concurren. Hay derecho herido: el
derecho a la vida; hay ley violada; hay voluntad en la accion; hay daño
inmediato; hay daño mediato, y no concurre ninguna de las circunstancias que
hacen, con arreglo a los principios, de todo punto excusable el homicidio. Pero,
a su vez, hay que convenir en que la voluntad criminal no se determina en tales
casos con aquella ausencia de exitaciones que constituye el tipo ordinario del
dolo, ni mucho menos con aquella otra calma y fria reflexion que constituye el
dolo perfecto; a su vez, hay que confesar que la causa de la accion surge
espontanea y con violento impetu en el animo del marido en presencia de la
enorme ofensa que se le infiere, y por tanto, que la inmoralidad y la
repugnancia del delito decrece y disminuye cuanto crece y aumenta el acicate
natural del decoro que a la accion criminal le induce; a su vez, hay que
proclamar que la opinion publica, cuando llega a su noticia la catastrofe, se
indigna mas contra los culpables del adulterio que contra el culpable del
homicidio; * * *.”
DISSENTING
TUASON, J., with whom concur MORAN, C. J.,
FERIA, and HILADO, JJ.:
The decision of this Court not only disregards the sensible, realistic rule
which gives weight to the trial judge’s findings on matters of veracity; it
gives credence to the highly improbable story of the accused in preference to
the prosecution witnesses’ version of the killing which is not only convincing
in its natural details, independently of the trial court’s well-considered
decision, but is supported by indisputable facts.
Two accounts of the killing are pittied against each other, one given by two
eye-witnesses for the prosecution, the other by the accused himself. They are
condensed in the decision. A reading of the unabridged statements, in the form
of questions and answers will convey a more vivid idea of, and, in their
simplicity, inspire an abiding confidence in, the witnesses’ truthfulness.
According to the prosecution’s evidence the deceased had been invited by the
defendant to his house and there was suddenly attacked while taking
tuba offered by the defendant himself. Contrasting this testimony, the
accused said he caught the now deceased having carnal knowledge of his
(defendant’s) wife.
The defendant’s testimony is absolutely incredible. It is a fact which no
amount of argument can destroy, that the decedent’s wife and children were
inside the house at the commencement of the assault. This is undeniable from the
other fact that the wife was seriously wounded, sustaining five wounds, although
there is variance in the proofs as to the defendant’s intention to inflict her
injuries (which have deformed her face). It is also a fact that the time of the
attack was from 3 to 4 o’clock in the afternoon. In the face of these facts, the
most beastly and daring of swains would not put in his head the notion of
committing the act attributed to the deceased. And it is even more inconceivable
that the defendant’s wife had the temerity to yield to Pedro Lego’s lust with
her husband just around, likely to show up at any moment, and only five days
after she had been made to sign an affidavit in order, according to the accused,
that she should not renew her illicit relations with Lego, or that he might have
proof of her infidelity. When I say that the defendant was just around I am
referring to his own testimony, that before the deceased came to his house he
went out to gather coconut saps, testimony which is beyond doubt a perjury but
is granted for the sake of argument.
The lower court’s finding that the deceased, his wife and his children were
together in the house of the accused is established by the testimony of the
widow, of her seven-year old daughter, Dominga Lego, and that of Severino Regis.
The first of these three witnesses declared that the accused twice came to the
house of Severino Regis and implored Pedro Lego to drop in at his (defendant’s)
house and give counsel to his (defendant’s) wife, who, the defendant told Lego,
paid no attention to and would not obey him. The first time the accused came was
in the morning and the second time was shortly after meal. Catalina Regis stated
that in the afternoon the accused reminded the deceased of the necessity that he
come right over lest Isabel Regis would go away. To make sure that the deceased
did not fail to come, Catalina Regis further testified, the accused took upon
himself the trouble of carrying some corn which Pedro Lego had put in a sack to
take home to Jaro. This corn with its container was found by the chief of
police, after the killing, on the ground near the steps of the defendant’s
house. On her part, Dominga Lego testified that from the house of Severino
Regis, her parents, her younger brother, Severino Regis’s wife, and she came to
the house of the accused, and that in that house her father was stabbed by the
defendant while she, the witness, was seated on a bench. A complaint does not
build up a fabricated story by the testimonty of a timid and untutored young
tot. Lastly, Severino Regis stated that Pedro Lego, Catalina Regis, their
children and the witness’s wife, Esperanza Coricor, at about 2 o’clock in the
afternoon went from his house to the house of the defendant. He added that his
wife went along because she wanted to get money from the defendant who is her
brother.
Neither at the time of nor after his arrest did the defendant say to the
chief of police that he had surprised his wife and Pedro Lego. What he told the
officer, according to the latter, was “su corazon estaba muy apenado, resentido
por este affidavit (Exhibit F) y que desde algunos dias antes, estando todavia
en Jaro ya estaba el muy resentido.”
Ignacio Bañales, barrio lieutenant, was notified by the defendant’s wife of
the tragedy and soon saw the accused in the street. Bañales tried to make the
court believe that he asked Coricor why he was splashed with blood and that the
accused answered he had killed Pedro Lego “because I caught him and my wife
in flagrante.” But Banales said later that the defendant’s statement
that he had surprised his wife with Lego was made to him only in the courthouse
on the day of the trial. On cross-examination the barrio lieutenant said that
Coricor’s only expression was “nakafijo.” The defendant stated that when Bañales
asked him why his clothes were spattered with blood he answered, “I had the
certainty that Pedro Lego and my wife were executing illicit acts.”
It is apparent that the statement which the accused is said to have uttered
when he and Bañales met was the result of an effort to put up something after
the barrio lieutenant had stated unwittingly or in unguarded moment that it was
in the courtroom he heard from the defendant’s lips of his wife’s
unfaithfulness. It looks as if the defense had intended to have this statement
taken as having been made by the accused when he was questioned by the barrio
lieutenant shortly or immediately after the commission of the crime. In any
event the statement stopped short of conveying the idea that the accused had, as
he expressly said at the trial, seen Lego on top of Isabel with Lego’s trousers
down and Isabel’s skirt up to the waist or chest. The accused went so far as to
say, on the witness stand, that he had seen Pedro Lego’s sexual organ and to
describe it. The point is that the defendant is not a man whom we could expect
to relate Lego’s and Isabel’s conduct with subtlety and refinement of words if
he had found them in sexual intercourse. Blunt and crude in his speech to the
point of vulgarity, the defendant would have said in unrestrained language what
he had seen instead of indulging in innuendos or expressing what would sound to
be a belief or conviction. In truth it is to be gathered from the tenor of the
provincial fiscal’s questions to Bañales that the latter had not said to the
prosecuting officer “nakafijo” or anything suggesting coitus between Lego and
Isabel.
The chief of police testified that in the defendant’s house he found, at
about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, tuba in a bamboo container, traces of
spilled tuba and blood stains on the floor, and small remnants of meat.
This testimony, the veracity of which can not be successfully questioned,
corroborates the testimony of the witnesses for the prosecution—that the
deceased and his family had been invited by the defendant and entertained with
tuba and pork meat. The decision refuses to give credence to the
presence of meat saying that the day was not an occasion for roasting a pig. But
the witnesses did not say that the accused killed a pig. What Catalina Regis did
say was that the accused had a piece of roast pork in a plate—which he could
have gotten from his sister or bought elsewhere. It must be recalled that at
Severino’s house there had been a feast on the occasion of a prayer said for the
soul of a departed relative and that at the luncheon the accused, according to
the evidence, had taken part.
The fact that the chief of police found blood stains only at the entrance of
the house is a clear refutation of the defendant’s testimony that he caught the
deceased and his wife in the room (which was on the opposite side of the sala
from the entrance of the house) and that there was a struggle for the possession
of his bolo inside the house between him and the deceased. At the same time,
this fact confirms the testimony of the witnesses for the prosecution that upon
receiving the first stab in the abdomen the now deceased fled from the house and
was pursued by the accused.
It is significant that the defendant’s wife and Severino Regis’s wife,
Esperanza Coricor, who is the defendant’s own sister, were not presented as
witnesses by the defense. These women made sworn statements before the justice
of the peace on the same day of the crime corroborating Catalina Regis. Their
affidavits were excluded from the record on the objection of defense counsel
based on technical grounds. The exclusion was proper and the statements may not
be used as basis of defendant’s conviction, but they should not keep us from
pausing before we take the defendant’s grotesque tale without question.
There are other things that point to the killing as a premeditated,
cold-blooded affair. Isabel Regis stated in her affidavit that her husband told
her to leave the house as soon as she should see Pedro Lego and Catalina Regis
come. The circumstances under which the affidavit, Exhibit F, was made, lead one
to believe that the accused, in contemplation of his ghastly plan, used pressure
on his wife to confess an alleged adultery. Isabel in another affidavit declared
that she was forced by her husband to admit she had been abused by the deceased
and that she consented to sign Exhibit F to stop him from scolding her. The
chief of police thus narrated how the affidavit happened to be executed:
On September 10, the accused and his wife appeared in his office accompanied
by Victor Alcober, the defendant’s landlord. The day before that, Alcober had
come with a draft, saying: “Do the favor of preparing an affidavit for Isabel
Regis, one of my tenants, otherwise she will be killed by Cirilo Coricor, her
husband, as they have been quarrelling (peleando).” It was then that he told
Alcober to fetch Coricor and Isabel Regis. The next day Alcober came back with
Isabel and Coricor. The latter asked him to draw an affidavit. He asked the
accused the reason why he wanted an affidavit and Coricor answered that it was
to find out the truth and to have on hand proof that his wife had been Pedro
Lego’s mistress. He expressed concern lest the accused would make use of the
affidavit to harm his wife, but the accused assured him: “I love my wife and I
am not going to punish her.” Upon this assurance he consented to write down the
affidavit on a typewriter. As soon as the affidavit was written Coricor wanted
to take it but he refused to hand it to him. Then he went out to answer the call
of nature and left the paper on his table. When he returned, Coricor, Coricor’s
wife and Alcober were gone with the paper.
That the accused conceived the idea of arming himself with this affidavit
only five days before he killed Lego and months after the alleged adultery
mentioned therein took place, in Jaro, gives added reason for the belief that
the defendant had long nurtured the idea of doing away with his wife’s
uncle.
Even the charge that Lego disrupted the defendant’s marriage in Jaro, before
the defendant and his wife moved to Lucay, is not by any means clearly
convincing. The dead man’s widow branded this imputation on her husband as a
falsehood. She said she had not heard any rumor or gossips to that effect, and
she ought to have known or heard of it if anything like that had happened. The
fact is, it can be seen between the lines that the defendant is a man of nervous
and violent temperament. Conceivably he may have been a victim of an obssession
or hallucination about his wife’s faithfulness. No small amount of tragedy has
been the result of unfounded jealousy. Not infrequently is jealousy a disease of
the soul haunting the imagination. Pedro Lego was not the only object of
defendant’s jealousy. He also accused one Calaya of breaking his home though he
denied this at the trial and said he did not know any one by that name.
Whether the defendant’s jealousy was founded or imaginary and whether or not
jealousy had anything to do with the murder in question, it can be affirmed with
absolute certainty that the deceased was not guilty of any improper conduct
towards the defendant’s wife on the day he was murdered. Indeed, jealousy may
just have been a pretext. Note the frenzy with which the affidavit was made, its
proximity to the date of the crime, and the remoteness from that date of the
supposed amorous episode that was the subject of the sworn statement. Did the
defendant know that Lego and his family were coming to attend the prayer five
days hence in Severino’s house? And was that the reason why he wanted to have
“on hand proof of his wife’s infidelity?” That is not implausible.
The defendant’s real motive has to be looked for somewhere else. Catalina
Regis stated what I believe was the dominating cause of the defendant’s ire.
Substantially, she testified that Pedro Lego had bought a piece of land in
Lucay, the scene of the present crime. She said that the accused and his wife
moved from Jaro to Lucay to work on that land. Later the property was given to
Severino Regis, Isabel’s brother, and the defendant was dismissed from it by
Lego. It was then that Coricor and his wife moved to Victor Alocober’s farm.
This incident, according to Catalina Regis, was resented by the accused and his
wife, both of whom charged that Pedro Lego and his wife “had preferences.” For
sometime thereafter Coricor and his wife refused to talk with the deceased and
the witness, although in the course of their visits to Lucay the former good
relations were restored, at least on the surface.
The following circumstances bear out the theory that the killing was
motivated not by jealousy, much less defendant’s having surprised the accused
and Isabel Regis, but by something else. Isabel came out unscathed. It does not
appear, aside from the defendant’s gratuitous testimony given in court, that he
went after his wife after he killed Lego to chastise her as he looked for
Catalina Regis. On the other hand, he slashed Catalina Regis several times with
his bolo until Catalina was knocked down and was believed dead. After Catalina,
upon regaining consciousness, crawled away to hide, the accused, still carrying
his bolo, upon finding her gone, looked for her apparently intent on finishing
the woman. The defendant’s determination to kill not only Lego but also Lego’s
wife could not have been due to jealousy or to Lego’s having been caught by the
accused with the latter’s wife. The charge that Catalina Regis was a party to
her niece’s fall for Catalina’s husband sounds too ridiculous to deserve
attention.
The attitude of the accused in connection with his appeal is also
significant as indication of consciousness of guilt. He was prosecuted for two
crimes, that of murder in connection with the death of Pedro Lego and frustrated
murder in relation with his attack against Catalina Regis. He was convicted of
both accusations although the court qualified the latter offense as serious
physical injuries. The accused appealed only from the sentence convicting him of
murder and abided by the decision as to the other crime. This belies defendant’s
statement that Catalina Regis was wounded unintentionally on his part when she
allegedly intervened to wrest his bolo while he and Pedro Lego were grappling
with each other. Again, the accused filed a formal motion to withdraw his appeal
from the sentence for murder, although that motion to withdraw the appeal was
allowed to be withdrawn upon insistence of the appellant who got an inkling from
a dissenting opinion that his case might have been decided with modification of
the sentence by this court in his favor.
[1] See Groizard, El Codigo
Penal, 2d Ed., Vol. 4, pp. 657-661.