THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. MARCELO AMIT, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Marcelo Amit was charged in the court
below with the complex crime of rape with homicide described and penalized in
Article 335 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended.  Arraigned, with the assistance of a counsel
de oficio, he pleaded guilty.

Due to the gravity of the offense charged, however, the Court
required additional evidence from the prosecution, which the latter presented
in the form of (1) the extrajudicial confession of appellant in Ilocano (Exhibit A) and its translation into English
(Exhibit A-1) wherein he narrated in detail how the crime was committed; (2) the
autopsy report (Exhibit B) describing the injuries suffered by the victim as
she resisted appellant’s criminal advances against her honor; and (3) the
medical certificate (Exhibit C) describing the personal injuries suffered by
appellant himself during the struggle put up against him by the victim.

On the basis of appellant’s plea of guilty and the abovementioned
evidence, the trial court rendered judgment sentencing him “to suffer the
supreme penalty of death, with the accessories prescribed by law; to indemnify
the heirs of the deceased Rufina Arellano in the
amount of P6,000.00, without subsidiary imprisonment
in case of insolvency, and to pay the costs”.  Pursuant to the provisions of Section 9, Rule
122 of the Revised Rules of Court, said judgment was elevated to Us for review.

While appellant does not question the correctness of the decision
under review in so far as it finds him guilty of the crime charged, he claims,
through his counsel de oficio, that the penalty of
death imposed upon him should be reduced to reclusion perpetua
in view of the presence of three mitigating circumstances which the trial court
should have considered in his favor, namely: 
(1) plea of guilty; (2) voluntary surrender, and (3) lack of intention
to commit so grave a wrong as the one actually committed.

The Solicitor General admits that the mitigating circumstances of
plea of guilty and voluntary surrender have been proven, but denies that the
mitigating cir­cumstance of lack of intention to commit so grave a wrong as the
one actually committed was similarly established.  We agree with this latter contention.

Appellant’s contention – because of its nature, must necessarily
be judged in the light of the acts com­mitted by him and the circumstances
under which they were committed.  Should
they show a great disproportion between the means employed to accomplish the
criminal act – on the one hand – and its consequences – on the other – the miti­gating
circumstance under consideration must be considered in favor of the accused (U.S.
vs. Reyes, 36 Phil. p. 904, 906-907).  Otherwise, it should not.

In the case at bar,
the following excerpts taken from appellant’s extrajudicial confession (Exhibit
A-1, translation) give Us an idea of the acts
committed by him in executing the crime:

“Q:  And
what did Rufina Arellano do to you when you made her
lay down and you immediately placed yourself on top of her?

 A:   She
resisted a little, nevertheless I was able to do sexual intercourse with her,
sir.

 Q:  In
her act of resisting you, what did Rufina Arellano do
to you?

 A:   She
bit me and scratched me, sir.

 Q:  What
part of your body did Rufina Arellano bit and
scratched?

 A:   She
bit me on a place a little below my shoulder and scratched me on my breast,
sir.

 Q:  When Rufina Arellano put up a little resistance when you placed
yourself on top of her, what did you do also?

 A:   I
held her on the neck and pressed it downward, sir.”

x x x                      x x
x                 x
x x                 x x x

“Q:  The left cheek of Rufina
Arellano even swelled, do you know how she sustained
it that caused it to swell?

 A:   I
boxed her when she resisted, sir.

 Q:  What
hand of yours boxed the left cheek of Rufina
Arellano?

 A:   My
left hand, sir, for my right hand was holding her neck.

 Q:  So
what was the position of Rufina Arellano when your
right hand was holding her neck as you boxed her on the cheek with your left
hand?

 A:   Rufina Arellano was lying down on her back and I was on top
of her, sir.” (pp. 23-24, rec.)

At the time of the
commission of the crime, appellant was 32 years of age, while his victim was 25
years his senior; his victim resisted his attempt to rape her by biting
and scratching him; to subdue her, appellant boxed her and then “held her
on the neck and pressed it down” while she was lying on her back and he
was on top of her.  These acts, We
believe, were reasonably sufficient to produce the result that they actually
produced – the death of appellant’s victim. 
Consequently, what we said in People vs. Yu, G.R. L-13780, promulgated on January 28, 1961, would seem to apply:

“The lack of intention to commit so grave a wrong as that committed can not be
appreciated in favor of an accused who employed brute force – choking a 6-year
old girl to death, who tried to shout while he was raping her – intention being
gathered from and determined only by the conduct
and external acts of the offender, and the results of the acts
themselves.”

The penalty of Death prescribed in the last paragraph of Article
335 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended by Republic Acts Nos. 2632 and 4111 being
an indivisible penalty, it has to be imposed regardless of the presence of
mitigating circumstances, especially in a case like the present where,
according to the evidence of record, the crime was committed with the
aggravating circumstances of nighttime and abuse of superior strength (first
paragraph, Article 63, Revised Penal Code).

Moreover, the civil indemnity awarded by the trial court must be
increased to P12,000.00.

MODIFIED AS ABOVE INDICATED, the judgment appealed from is
affirmed in all other respects.  With costs.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro, Fernando, Teehankee,
Barredo, and Villamor, JJ., concur.