G.R. No. L-8699. December 26, 1956

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court  of First Instance of Quezon, finding  Lorenzo.Ruzol guilty  of murder, with the aggravating circumstances of dwelling, nighttime and abuse of  superior  strength,  and sentencing him to death, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased Juan Andal in the sum of P6,000, and to pay one-half of the costs. The judgment also finds Manuel Torres guilty as accomplice of the same crime, but the latter has not appealed from the judgment.

In the middle  of the  year 1954, Juan Andal, married, lived in Sitio  Calisetan, Barrio of San Luis, Municipality of  Baler,  Subprovince  of Aurora,  Province  of  Quezon. Just before midnight in the evening of August  5, 1954, while he and  his family, consisting of Silvino, Leonida, Lilia and Eladio, the latter 11 years old, and the children’s grandmother  Feliciana  Gico, were asleep  in their small house in the said sitio, his son Eladio was suddenly awakened by a sound similar to that produced by the cutting of a coconut into halves  He saw a man, whom he recognized to be accused-appellant Lorenzo Ruzol, beside  his father. As Eladio began to move, Ruzol turned away and walked to the kitchen.  Eladio stood up and saw that his father was wounded on the head.  He went to  the window nearby, opened  it,  and  saw and  recognized  Manuel  Torres in front of the window.  As he recognized Torres, the latter went  away and after joining Ruzol, both ran away. Eladio went down, passing through the kitchen, then followed the two, Ruzol and Torres.  He noticed that they directed their  steps towards the house of  Torres.  As he began to follow them, he shouted three times for help,  saying that  his father had been killed.  He continued following the two until they reached the house of Torres and went up the house.   So he turned back.

By that time his brother had called one of the neighbors, a boy by the name of Aniceto  Gamatan.  Eladio and Aniceto  rode on a carabao to the house of an uncle, Ruperto Andal, in order to secure his  help.  With  him they went to the barracks of a detachment of the  Philippine Constabulary then stationed in, Barrio San Luis.  There Eladio reported the killing of his father to the lieutenant in command of the detachment.  Eladio told  the  lieutenant that  Lorenzo Ruzol and Manuel Torres had killed  his father,  so the lieutenant ordered a corporal to proceed with Eladio to the house  of Torres and Ruzol.  Torres was found in his house and was brought along by the corporal to  the house of Ruzol.  Here the corporal remained  downstairs and called for Ruzol to come down.  Ruzol began to dress up and was to wear the clothes hanging on a post of  the  house, but  later changed his mind, requesting his wife to give him another pair.   After dressing up he went down.

Torres, and Ruzol were brought to the house of the deceased and there they  were  told to  see the dead body.  As the accused  witnessed the victim  with his wounds Eladio and the corporal noted that they  shuddered.  After that they were brought by the Constabulary to the municipal building and delivered to  the  municipal authorities.

The autopsy performed on  the body of the deceased by the president of the sanitary division shows the following:

“B. Wound incised 5 inches long and 1 1.2 inches wide running obliquely  from the center of the left zygomatic bone upwards and posteriorly to end  at  a  point  2  inches superior  and 1% inches posterior  to the left external  auditory meatus.

“C.  Fracture skull, temporal  left complete compound with loss of bone substance and scalp causing an irregular hole whose center is situated at a point 2  inches superior and % inch posterior  to the  left external audity  meatus with escape of brain substances. This hole is 1  inch in diameter in its largest measurement.

“D. Fracture complete  depressed with separation of  the  whole left frontal ^bone from the calvarium.

“B. Further opening the hole revealed that there, is damaged  to brain  substance  to as deep at 5’inches and has taken a direction going inferiorly and medial ward.”   (Exhibit B.)

The report also contained  the  following opinion  of the physician:

“3. From the nature of the wound it can be deduced that( fatal instrument used was sharp edge and  it must have been the square end of the instrument that hit first the  subject.  The depressed fracture of the left half  of the frontal region must have been due to a blow over the left temporo-frontal region  with such  strength as to depressed the bone  and was  inflicted after the first.

“4. Cause of death—SHOCK AND  HEMORRHAGE SECONDARY TO FRACTURE OP  SKULL LEFT SIDE.”

Eladio Andal  testified that he was able to identify the appellant Ruzol as the one standing beside his father when he  woke up.   He said that the  light of  a lamp that  was beside the wall of  the room of the house  illumined the room.  According to him the appellant was then wearing a checkered  shirt and denim pants;  and  that  he  also recognized the  accused Manuel  Torres  because  he  saw Torres’ face as he opened the window, Torres being: only one meter away.

Dominga Eugenio corroborated the testimony of Eladio Andal as to the identity of the accused-appellant.  She testified that on the night in question, she was  asked to go and sleep with her children in the house of Manuel Torres, because the latter’s father was suffering from “punsada”; that after  supper  that night Manuel Torres  left  with Lorenzo Ruzol and that they  returned after three  hours; that when they returned they told her not to tell anybody that they have killed Juan Andal; and that for fear that the authorities  may come to the house of Manuel Torres, she went away with  her children that same night, after Torres and Ruzol had come back.

Testifying as to the motives for’the commission of the crime,, Eladio declared that  his mother was the paramour of Lorenzo Ruzol; that in the afternoon  of August  5, there was art altercation between his deceased father and Manuel Torres; that the cause for this altercation was the fact that the grass removed by harrowing from Torres land was being carried to the land  of the deceased, who objected to it; that in the course of the altercation Manuel Torres challenged  the deceased to a duel, but the  latter refused to fight because he did not have his bolo with him. It is important to note that Manuel Torres admitted the existence of the incident, but  explained that he made the challenge only as a joke, not seriously.  Eladio also declared that because his father had sent his mother away to San Pablo, from where  she hails, Ruzol had  become angry with his father.

The  accused denied having committed the crime imputed to  him or their alleged motives in doing  so.  Both accused declared that they did not leave their respective houses on the night in question.   As to the claim of the witnesses of  the prosecution, that  they were  trembling when the body of the deceased was seen by them,  they explained that they did so because of the horrible scene that was shown them.  Ruzol denied that the wife of the deceased was his paramour saying that he could not have had any interest in her because if his wife was ugly the wife of the deceased  was more so.

The trial court found that the testimony of the eyewitness to the crime, Eladio Andal, was  logical, straight forward and probable, and that his credibility was not in any manner shaken by the cross-examination to which he had been exposed.  We have carefully examined the evidence and we agree with  the court a .quo that the  story told by this witness  bears all earmarks of truth.   That the witness should be awakened by the sound is  quite natural; so is the fact that he saw the assailant beside, the body of his deceased  father.  The defense introduced evidence that the place where Eladio said the kerosene lamp was, could not have been  true because there was no soot in that place.  It may be remarked that the absence of soot does  not necessarily  mean  that the lamp was not, during the night  in  question,  in that  particular  place indicated  by the witness.   That may not have been the ordinary place of the lamp, but it might have happened that on the night in  question it was put  there.  Probability certainly can not overcome actual fact.

The circumstance that as soon as Eladio  and his, uncle reached the Philippine Constabulary barracks, he promptly told the authorities,  without doubt or hesitation,  that  it was Manuel Torres  and  Lorenzo Ruzol  that  killed his father, is convincing  proof that he recognized the accused when he  saw them.   The discovery  of the crime  by the witness, his pursuit of the accused, and the fact that immediately thereafter,  as soon as he arrived at the barracks, he  positively pointed  to the accused as the perpetrators of the crime, without any sufficient intervening time for him to fabricate his account, is convincing proof of the correctness of his identification.   All the events occurred in rapid succession, and the pointing out of the accused as the perpetrators may be said to be parts of the res gestae.

In all its details, the testimony of Eladio is corroborated. The altercation between Manuel Torres and his father was admitted by the former himself to have occurred.  The clothes  that Ruzol  was supposed to have  worn on the night of the incident were found in Ruzol’s house.   And Dominga Eugenio declared that Ruzol and Torres came up the latter’s house at night, just as Eladia had declared. That Dominga should have been asked to go to the house of Torres to sleep that evening must have been due  to a plan of Torres to be away from his house that night, so that there may be some one to help his father in case he should be attacked by his recurring sickness.  Perhaps it may not have been his (Torres’) original intention to come back to his house after the commission of the crime, arid that when pursued after the crime he may have forgotten that a stranger had been called inside the house  to sleep there.   Criminals are known  to commit mistakes which lead to their own undoing.

Another circumstance corroborates Eladio’s testimony. The wounds must have been produced by a hatchet, the incised  wound caused by its sharp edge and the fracture by its back ^part.  There  was testimony also  that among the instruments found inside the house  of  Torres was a hatchet.

We are, therefore, satisfied from a consideration of the facts  and circumstances satisfactorily proved  at the trial, that the person who inflicted the wound on the  body of the deceased Juan Andal is the accused-appellant  Lorenzo Ruzol.  That no  bloodstains were found on the clothes worn by  him on the night in  question is not sufficient reason or ground, in our opinion, for believing that he was not the person who delivered the blows that produced his victim’s death.  In order  that we may believe  that the assailant’s clothes should have been besmirched with blood if he were really the culprit, it should have been necessary to show that the arteries from  which blood oozed out pointed to the direction of the place where the assailant stood as he delivered the fatal blows.  Judging by the position of the wounds the deceased must have been lying on his right side, while assailant was beside the head of, and in front or behind, the deceased.  These relative positions of the deceased and  the assailant are inferred from the fact that the wounds  extend  from the cheek bone to the upper part of the ear.  This position of the assailant was also confirmed  by Eladio Andal, who  declared that when he  woke up  Ruzol was at the side of his  father.   The arteries  which  were  cut must have  oozed  blood  in  a direction across the wounds,  not in the direction  of the assailant and could not have besmirched the assailant’s clothes.  Hence the absence of blood stain on appellant’s clothes.

The conclusion of  the medico-legal expert that the instrument which produced the short  incise  wound is  a sharp one indicates that the weapon used was not a bolo, but a hatchet.   This also articulates with the testimony of Eladio that the appellant was hiding something with his hands in front of his  body (See Affidavit of Eladio Andal, p. 6 of Record).   A bolo could not have been hidden from sight so easily,  long as it is.  Not so with a hatchet which sometimes has  a short handle.

We are fully satisfied, therefore, that the appellant was the one who delivered the blows with a  hatchet on1 the head of the deceased Juan Andal.   The trial  court found that three  aggravating circumstances  attended the  commission of the crime, namely,  dwelling,  nighttime  and abuse  of  superior strength.   The  Solicitor General believes, however,  that  the aggravating  circumstances  of nocturnity, dwelling and abuse of superior strength are always included in the qualifying circumstance of treachery. We agree with his opinion with respect to the aggravating circumstances of nocturnity and abuse of superior strength, but we hold that the aggravating circumstance of dwelling cannot be included therein.  The crime committed, therefore, is murder attended by the aggravating circumstance of  dwelling.  The penalty that  should be imposed upon the  appellant should  be the maximum for  the crime of murder, which is death.  But for lack of sufficient number  of votes  the Court has decided to impose reclusion perpetua,  which  is that recommended by  the  Solicitor General.

The  judgment  appealed from is hereby modified, and the  appellant sentenced to reclusion perpetua,  instead of death.  In all other respects, the judgment appealed from is affirmed,  with costs against appellant

Paras,  C.  J,, Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor,  Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J. B. L.t Endencia,  and Felix, JJ., concur.